Many massive dance records are built around samples, portions of other songs chopped up and used in a new way. Just like in the hip-hop world, using samples legally is very expensive, and often times they are replayed to allow for a commercial release. And who are these producers that do sample replays? I chatted with Scorccio, the man behind the samples replayed for club hits like Shapeshifters "Lola's Theme" and Raven Maize "Fascinated."
DJ Ron Slomowicz: What exactly do you mean by sample replay?
Scorccio: It's a recreation of an existing piece of music. A
DJ/producer samples a track for his production and instead of having
to clear the use of that sample he'll come to me and say he want this
sample totally recreated and replayed. Can you find a vocalist and
recreate the music exactly the same way? We always say sure, we've
never let anyone down yet.
RS: This is important to dance music because dance music is so
based on samples.
Scorccio: Dance music is still based on samples but it's also
veering towards various other elements as well. There's also the
electronica side of the whole dance spectrum and people that will use
live musicians in their productions. But for the most part, where DJ
producers are concerned, the easiest way they're going to get a
reaction from the dance floor is when they use something very
memorable and popular from the past. That's where my service comes in
- rather than them having to pay a huge amount of money to the
original record company and the original artist, they'll come to me to
avoid all of that.
RS: So if I come to you and say I want to use this sample. How
do you approach playing something like that?
Scorccio: Well it depends on what the sample is. If it's something
that has a lot of strings, a lot of brass instruments, then I'll have
to find a string section and a brass section accordingly. Maybe it's
an old rock track like Metallica or Whitesnake track, then we need
great guitarists and rock vocalists as opposed to, what I'd normally
do is I'd have, soul and R&B divas available. I've got studios in New
York, London, and Barcelona so, whatever the style is it can be
catered for.
RS: What kind of software and hardware do you use?
Scorccio: I use Logic Pro and occasionally Soundtrack Pro. I've
used Cubase in the past but I tend to find Logic Pro is probably the
best sequencer for me.
RS: What's been the most difficult sample to replay or reproduce?
Scorccio: It was probably "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood,
because it was the first time the record label wanted the whole song
recreated. Before, I'd done recreations of a whole song which is
vocals or a whole song with just the instrumentation, but this
particular company wanted the whole thing, vocals and instrumental
exactly as the four-minute radio version. Now this is a track
produced by Trevor Horn, so it's a top quality and very special
production. Trevor Horn took six weeks just to mix it, not even just
to record it but just to mix, and I turned the whole recording and
mixing in less than two weeks.
