Sampling is completely valid and is part of dance music culture. From house to hip hop to rave, jungle and beyond , Sampling is at the heart of these genres. The younger generations that don’t agree just don’t understand or see the art in it. Most music made is inspired from something. Sampling and creating something new is awesome and will never die

Im 50 years old and still to this day, there's nothing like an LTJ Bukem Live Show!!!!!!!!!

Honestly I don't give a shit where any of the samples came from. Atlantis was and always will be one of the greatest tracks of all time

Holy moly just discovered your channel : all of the most iconic tracks I’ve listened to again and again for 25+ years and now you drop an LTJ Bukem track ! Mind blown !

Seems a bit snide using that thumbnail. While it may get clicks you're basically calling him a thief (especially to those who don't watch), the question mark doesn't erode that feeling.

Artwork by me at 6:58 ;-)

DJ Shadow's Endtroducing LP wouldn't exist without sampling, and that thing is a masterpiece. You tempted to do a video on that one, Guy? Re: The Surkit sample, WhoSampled does list Surkit as the sample source for the *original* Apollo Two "Return To Atlantis" , so perhaps the iconic sample you tease at 0:16 and reveal at 6:57 isn't *quite* the BIG news you suggest. Good video nonetheless, thanks Guy.

Another awesome video! I totally agree that sampling is an art form, as evidenced by LTJ Bukem's entire catalogue.

That main part is actually a K4r rack module synth owned by Juan Atkins at metroplex studio Detroit and programmed by Martin Bonds himself 👍🎹💣💥🎶🎶

I’m 99% sure the amen is from the Coldcut Kleptomania sample cd too (Track 3- Heavy loops), which was release in 1992, so the date ties in. The processing and tone is identical.

Love these videos, glad you’re back!

Totally agree about sampling, its always been my take on it in any art form, be it music or film or fine art or anything. Changing context re-invents imo

Top quality as always, thanks Guy. Just a quick fact-check: this tune is called "Atlantis (I Need You) (LTJ Bukem Remix)" and is Side AA, but on Side A is "Return To Atlantis" by Apollo II (Tario 2 + Witty Jnr. who apparently were school mates of Bukem's).... and yes, they use the Real by Real sample on the second breakdown. I think it's likely that Apollo II had a hand in the "discovery" of the sample. Not saying Bukem wasn't there / didn't have a say, because I'd be surprised if they didn't make it in his studio with him.

Great video and great to see you back breaking down these tracks. Always look forward to them.

thank you for putting so much time and effort into your videos. it really shows and i find them to be really interesting!

Love this! What a classic and such a great breakdown. Still have an original pressing of the vinyl release sitting on the shelf.

Keep up the good work . Inspirational video ❤

brilliant content, the best vid I've seen in a long time - I could watch these kinds of analyses all day...

Legendary... this is creative genius from Bukem to not just gather these samples together, but to find their sacred musical cohesion and infuse them with his own flava. Little tings like the bongo sequence, the Abyss sample, the silence in the breakdown etc etc are delicate icings on the cake. Still astounding - something special was at work heya ❤

So cool going on a deep dive of one of my favourite tunes!!! 👌

Thanks.. really enjoyed seeing this classic get deconstructed!

Love your videos man. So spot on. You're super talented.

Great video mate! Super in-depth & you got bang on with your examples. I also love sampling but agree that artists do need to be compensated for their work. It's tricky like you said but it certainly takes skill and creative vision to put a legendary track like this together samples or not! ✌

I am so glad I found this channel I thoroughly enjoyed this guy's videos, good job 👍

Most Jungle baselines of the era came from the sine wave test tone of the Akai S950/1000.

Another classic that is very personal to me. I think we all knew that it was all samples and all pretty much stolen, but we were rebels and didn't care! There is something to be said for the arrangement and sample editing though. Plus this was a very early track, he was still figuring out things. I think later tracks were still grounded in sampling (as all D&B was) but the sound matured, the equipment improved and there was some actual synth playing. Nice work reverse engineering this one!

This boils down to how music was in that hip hop jungle era, create digging through records for samples, mostly pitched up or down, giving it a different sound to the original.

I know im only a teenager and haven't been in the music scene for 20 years HOWEVER I have heard Atlantis at least 100 times and its flawless everytime. Sampling is sampling man, its been around as long as dance, hiphop, jungle, etc has been around. Some just don't see the art in it, man.

Really enjoyed this!

The original is one of my favorite tracks to come out from Detroit techno scene, and it's really too bad Marty didn't make more music as the ones he did are all amazing.

JUst heard the Original...as suprising as it was to hear the main synth bit sampled, it feels like the original tune was a rough template for a LTJ's track, which just perfectly uses the sounds and is a total masterpiece. I think it's a perfect use of sampling. Basically there should be one main rule when it comes to sampling: If you're gonna sample, make sure you do it well.

That's a good point about the lack of royalties paid by streaming services means probably fewer lawyers grubbing around for money. So yeah, why not start sampling again like the old days, if you get sued I'm sure we'd all willingly give up a percentage of our Spotify earnings; the lawyers and claimants are welcome to a share of our 17p

love your videos so much

great your back making vids

Such a great chanel. And you've even inspired me to use more classic samples 😉

Great video and sound production. My reflection is that LTJ has introduced us to new music / synths by his process. Almost like a curation process. I often steal stuff for my production. I often use the notes C and minor chords.

As always great content. As for sampling. There is such a wealth of classic tracks that were all born from samples how could you possibly deny it as an art from in it's own right.

Top tier video mate!

Martin bonds has commented on a video of surkit on here, confirming it is the Kawai K4r. Has been on my wantlist for a while because of this :)

Excellent video as usual, very informative. The original is amazing.

found this video randomly and thought the breakdown makes this classic banger even more impressive to this day. the layers and everything. so complicated yet flows so smoothly. it is like magic. evokes some different sense of time and life or aliens or sum shit. its great lol

Great video btw!

That synth patch sounds just like stuff I used to patch up on my OSCar back in the 90s... rare item and unlikely to be the original source, but that sound has always brought me back to the OSCar. (Loved this track when it was new, still do!)

Yeah I admire the skill to pick out a good sample and make it work in a different context and often enhance the original from where its taken. The amen break always gets me thinking, if they had used a different mic, room, mixing desk etc.. it may never have been plucked out and imagine that .....a world without the amen break and if sampling lawyers where a thing back then.... a complete tragedy.... keep sampling people f' it....for the art

had a loooong day at work, and that mitsubishi joke made me choke with laughter. needed that.

That Mitsubishi reference. If you know, you know.

Martin Bonds (Reel by Real) work is amazingly good. My favourite is Serene though.

Nice vid. I like this series

Hip Hop, House, Jungle, Techno and everything in between was, is and will always be built on samples.

From one producer called Guy to another, I thoroughly enjoyed this video which breaks down one of my all time favourite tracks - thank you!. In terms of the art of sampling, I would put it down to "aesthetic selection" and recontextualisation, whereby the producer chooses sounds from different tracks (perhaps from different eras) which, taken together, create new musical directions and dimensions otherwise impossible without the use of samples, which includes all the imperfections in the original recording, vinyl noise etc... In the tune Horizons, the use of a Maya Angelou sample reflects this, imo, and literally spells out Bukem;s sampling philosophy: "the horizon leans forward welcoming new steps of change" . In this case, the horizon is the cutting edge of (audio) technology making such steps possible- both at the time and at present. The debate about sampling boils down to good/intelligent sampling vs bad/lazy sampling. I think we can all agree that the clever use of a good sample makes all the difference than say the lazy use of the same sample. I love a good sample in my productions: part of the art is to hide the source and not take too many intervals, or to rely too much on a given 'vibe' ;) Keep up the great work!

I used to feel like I had to craft everything myself, now I think to me it's like there are 2 different skillsets that overlap. Either can be used for good or evil, creativity or mimicry, etc. On one extreme end you have DJs, who play whole tracks, and create experiences with nothing but playlists and transitions. On the other end, you have people who grow their own trees and hand craft their own guitars. Somewhere between the DJ side and the middle you have the loop/stem mixers, musique concrete, etc... Toward the middle I would put producers who use samples. To the other side you have everything from people who recreate sounds using synths/etc if they want to use them, to people who deny the fact that they have been influenced by things they've heard in the past, all the way to someone trying to create their own universe simulator with emergent properties such as harmony.

Sampling to me is like audio collage. Recontextualising is the key

This has been my ringtone for 15 - 20 years...... Just my opinion but in this case the sampling is ethical, he changed speed / pitch and added his own bass, drums, vocals and samples and took it into another genre. Vibe to the orginal is close but the fact that most tunes at the time were sample based and 'unetihcal' or less ethiical makes it ok for me (:

Don’t know about labelling the man a thief 😂😂 ltj is a legend. Class video mate really enjoyed watching you dissect and go through the samples. ❤

Great Video - Thanx for the Tipp to the link ; blumaten sample pack !

30 years and this track still gives me gooseskin

BRILLIANT! Love factual historical (dig) discoveries like this. Thanks for a superb 14 minutes of decent technical debate. Subscribed 😀👍🏼

This dude is super talented subscribed immediately

Sampling is a pure art form when done properly. If you think that there is nothing 'original' in most of The Prodigys main bangers, you have to respect that someone can create a complete original track out of samples and no one can recognize any of the components of the track...

Sampling takes time, and the latest generation are a bit less patient and want instant results. The pioneers of sampling had to trawl through vinyl and listen to them in real time to find the perfect loop. Then to record the audio and edit in a sampler with a tiny memory, must’ve painstaking. Their musical knowledge helped them, of course, but in general it must’ve been a slow process to piece together a track made from multiple samples. Respect to these pioneers of an art form.

I grew up as an impressionable teenager, lapping up this music starting in 1992. For me, most of the charm of Hardcore, Jungle and Drum n Bass is the craft of sampling. In my opinion, sampling democratized music production, enabling young enthusiasts without extensive resources to craft powerful tracks and quickly provided them with a platform to get them out onto a dance floor and enjoyed by revellers. The energy and vibe that sampling brings are unparalleled, encapsulating the essence of these genres. Detractors may dismiss it, but in reality, sampling is a nod to the original artists, reinterpreting and celebrating their work in new and dynamic ways. Great video btw! Thanks for giving the music myself and so many others a platform to new ears.

Using samples is a skill. When you did the Fat Boy Slim 'right here right now' video i told you then that I was going to use that video to explain to people that using samples is, or can be, as skilful as learning how to play a keyboard badly. and i did tell them all that and they all now only use samples!

Im with you Guy! Think it's totally valid to sample something if it goes through a creative process..... this is very useful, thank you. Love these sounds too. I remember when I was 15/16 getting a tascam 4 track cassette recorder and first ting I did was lay down 4 samples over each other , in no time structure whatsoever but from then, I was addicted! From one jungliest to another, peace and respect!

Good stuff, cheers

Fascinating post! The Surkit intro sounded to me link a Casio CZ - which I think the producer mentioned - I've just tried to recreate it but there is a 2nd sound that I think is another synth playing the more nasal-y short chords that pop in/out of the melody - my guess is they layered a CZ and possibly a DX. I've made a VERY rough sketch and posted it on your Gearspace thread...

Saw Bukem often live. Best of it´s kind.

thank you for your insight :))

Thanks for putting that together 👍 I wondered, was the prolific use of not-exactly-authorised sampling the reason why the early stuff like the Promised Lands album isn't on any streaming platforms?

Another stellar analysis, Guy! You're the YT GOAT of choon deconstruction.

Stanton Warriors track- "Who are the Warriors" took this sample, on a whole another level in their track also!

The "base sound" for that loop sounds like it started life as a clavinet patch. There's definitely some oscillator sync going on there. If I could figure out the notes, I could have a crack at recreating the sound!

I actually got VERY close to the lead sound on this track. Don't remember how but I still got the patch.

great vid

LTJ Bukem is a musical genius.

Good job! Sampling made Hip Hop and DnB/Jungle keep the art form going 👊🏻

Interesting video. I still have a copy of the release on Good Looking Records from 93. I always assumed 'Atlantis (I Need You) (L.T.J. Bukem Remix)' 'was a straight remix of the A side 'Return To Atlantis'. I knew about the samples, but never really thought about him really remixing Surkit.

The synth sound is the kawai k1..back in the day it was used on tons of rave tracks but most people never knew it was that synth. How we used to use it alot of the time was too sample the midi parts and because of the way you had limited sample time you had too record it at a higher tempo than needed. You would then have to pitch shift it too the tempo needed but this would add artifacts too the sample and you could never get it perfectly in key.. The k4 wasnt that widely used but the k1 was in many of the big studios that recorded rave tracks and it was for many reasons.. 1)it was very very cheap 2)it used up only 1u in rack space and was very light compared too many other synths of the time. 3)it had some very good presets but also it was pretty easy too program. 4)it sounded very clean so made it perfect to sample.alot of cheaper synths of that era had noisy outputs the roland mt32 was horrible,as was alot of other cheap rack synths but the k1 was very clean and quiet. Anyone looking for rave,jungle sounds should go for the k1 over the k4..the k4 was better for pad sounds so was better for ambient

Bukem did a similar thing on Horizons. The main sample is from Lemon Sol - Sunflash, which is a Detroit-y UK techno tune. I think it's fair game, but if you're going to snatch such a large chunk of another tune and not really do anything to it except speed it up, you should be paying for sample clearance. I've no idea if that happened on Atlantis (or Horizons) but Bukem has a bit of a bad reputation for ripping artists off.

It's the use of samples (selecting and how to use) that makes it so good. I known this ("The TRUTH") since the release of the track. I thought every one did.

I wish i still had this on 12inch

Can you break down other Bukem tracks? I would absolutely love to see how Horizons was made.

A channel called Original jungle samples on YT featured all the samples Bukem used in his seminal tracks. Lists all the original records and film cuts used. Other artists feat this year. Nookie Goldie Intense Tango Congo natty Photek. 👍

Glad you make these videos, so cool!! Absolutely love your channel 🙂 I got a question about Ableton, I’m waiting for the M3 MacBook Air, do you recommend I get it for Ableton or stick with my early 2015 13inch Pro i7 16gb it’s on high sierra iOS? I’m new to Ableton

Martin Bonds commented on KZfaq that the synth is a 'Kawai K4R, if I remember correctly'. He's also not too happy about not being credited. The comments are on the top 'video' of Surkit.

Everything’s a remix!!

Its fine to sample IMO, 35 years on Im still shocked when I hear an original track that had been ripped and used on one of my favourite dance tunes. Rip and steal as much as you can and expect the same back in return. Great video

Everyone used to use samples back then. Specially in rave music, hardcore, drum and bass, etc.

How come you use the tal sampler rather than the ableton one? Just interested as to me they seem very similar!

he will always have those window spectacles

Bro rockin the Intalex Drip! Love it

One of my favourite songs of all time!

Bruv... Blu Mar Ten sampled straight from the LTJ Bukem record for that sample pack. They didn't find the original sample source lol

Also a sample from the film The Abyss is in this tune.i think the samples are fine, have to push the boundaries of music making.

Ok, I agree with everything you said in this video, but I'm not fooled by an exposition in Ableton live. In 2000 this song was published, but according to LTJ Bukem himself it is a song that was made from a 1998 demo, Emagic Logic Audio v4.0 platinum came out as a novelty and at that time the arrangements of previous versions were compatible with 4.0 , reconstructed this arrangement with the samplers that LTJ Buken made for the guys at Good Looking records. Yes, in that year he had access to virus B and a JP8000, accompanied by a D-50 and an Akai S1100. That was all they used for Emagic LogiC Audio v.4.0 Platinium, with the EXSP 24 sampler under Mac OS9 on a Powerpc G4 and with the emagic Midi system. In 2000 Ableton Live was written from its original idea. The warping engine for elastic audio was then an effect, although this processing, along with the layout of the main elements (the clip view, the device browser, and the lower effects strip), already dominated the panel. Ableton was not ideal to deal with the consumption of system resources, Logic 4 was with the system of freezing midi events and virtual instruments, which made many welcome it as a great solution to the problems of mechanical sircoduro and to heavy productions and ¨Atlantis¨ was more than anything the perfect example, lots of play in the arrangement, but few samples well duplicated and resampled to save tracks on ram and CPU resources. In 1994 and 1995, hardware modules such as JV 1080 and E-mu and Akai S1100 modules and also a Yamaha 02R were used to record everything on the hard drive of this digital mixer, it was all live and they recorded these things in the form of demos to take to the studio and finish the songs. Thanks for the video, I had the honor of being able to work for Mr. Danny Williamson, aka LTJ Bukem.

thanks for breaking down the sound. this song is dnb hall of fame.

I'm pretty sure the intro sample at 0:40 is from the start of Denise Williams 'Free' (with Earth Wind & Fire on backing duties)

This is a case of creative sampling to me. Another aspect to it may be if you're reusing a sample in a totally different genre. For instance i could theoretically sample some d&b atmos stuff and use it in a techno setting. Nowadays it's less of an issue imo because you can use so many greats plugins to filter and mangle so the source is mostly obscured. Then again, so many sample packs and free vst's now that there is not even a need to sample yourself much as well.

That intro harp sounds like it was taken from Atlantis, especially by the name of the file. You can hear the other sound on top of it. They have the Atlantis amen in the breaks folder too, and many other samples are clearly taken straight from hardcore/jungle tracks.

As a Detroit Techno Guy myself, (not claiming to be an old head) the DJ scene out here is truly stripped down to an art, and nobody owns the noises bouncing off the concrete walls.

I'm pretty certian there was a _no holds barred_ policy when it came to sampling back then. You can even find examples of jungle/DnB where it's cannibalising itself.