Engineer Ryan West got called into Just Blaze's kitchen to help refry a hard to clear sample.

Story RYAN WEST | Photography URSULA MANAF

Eventually, everyone runs across one of those samples. One from an artist who’s either notoriously difficult, or even impossible to clear legally without going broke in the process. If you’ve got the resources, hope is not lost.

I know a few people, including myself, who have made it their business to recreate un-clearable samples by replaying and re-recording the loop to sound just like the original. By changing the notes or melodies ever so slightly, you can recreate the vibe without paying hefty clearance fees. To give you some idea of how it’s all done, I’m gonna tell you how we did it for Ghostface Killah’s “The Champ.”

recipe
Just Blaze, being Just Blaze, already had the master plan. He chose Rob Mathes for his serious abilities as a multi-instrument musician/ arranger and access to other amazing players, and asked me to helm the controls as engineer. Blaze’s New York City based Baseline Studios had everything we needed and more. Several flavors of preamps, compressor, EQs, effects and a nice big live room made it a bit easier to match the classic sound we were looking for. It helps a lot to have the use of similar tools that were used to record the original. The very first thing we needed to tackle was to listen in detail to the sample. What instruments are in there? Is that an acoustic guitar or clean electric guitar sound? How were the drums recorded and has the original samples’ pitch or speed been changed when it was sampled? After discussing what recording techniques may have been used, we sent both the sampled and original loop to Mathes so he could plan and arrange his instrument parts to closely resemble the original. Working with the original sample before it was altered makes the replay much easier than trying to replay the pitched up or sped up loop. Tuning of live instruments can be pretty tough to do if the sample has been pitched up or down. After the replay is done in the original tempo and key, we would eventually match the speed and pitch of the sampled version.

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