I’m challenging myself to produce a song this way this year, so I thought I’d see if anyone else might want to try it too.

I was listening to the “Strong Songs” podcast episode on Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” and it turns out that she produced the song in her home studio. Someone is credited with doing the bass part, and the percussion was created using the Linn drum machine. Aside from that and vocals, every other sound you hear was created using ONE sample: a cello note from the Fairlight synthesizer, sampled and processed. Interesting episode, very cool.

So the challenge is this: Produce a song using only one sample, and tag it #onesample . Assign a sound to your sampler or sampler plugin, and go to town getting creative! (If you feel you need to do the bass and drums separately, you’ll be forgiven, but bonus points if you don’t.) Use all the effects you want, manipulate it all kinds of ways, but use just the one sound.

FAWM is such a creative community, I can’t wait to see what comes out of this! :-)

-Andrew

P.S.—Here’s a link to the episode I mentioned for reference: https://pca.st/episode/d8bccdeb-eb54-49f9-b793-d0e600933a3b

I usually do something like this with @andygetch; he sends me a cello sample and I turn it into a full tune. Great idea!

Ohhhh, this is fun! We did it back in 2021 under the #therecanbeonlyone tag, I think.

Aw yeah great idea. Will definitely give this a try.

Almost any pitched sound will do: think wine glass harmonium, or steel mixing bowl xylophone.

I've done this in the past. Might just have to try it again this year.

See You In The Shadows…

For examples of sampling pitched tones from random / found objects, see Dave Hilowitz' YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidHilowitzMusic

For instance, he decides to sample his electric toothbrush, and turns it into a synth VSTi: https://youtu.be/PkrpdWLW5KA

@aflinner Been a dedicated Kate Bush fan since I heard the Dreaming soon after it was released, it made me look at music in a whole new way and this is really fun, I had a listen and I am just dipping my toe into electronic music and sampling, fun!!

Pianobook is a community that offers sample instruments created and shared by members if you're looking to dive a little deeper into samples. You can go there for inspiration and even try some free packs. Many of the samples run on "Decent Sampler" which is a free plugin. They also offer advice on how to sample.

To continue what @boycetown has going, if wav / ogg is what is wanted then freesound has tons of odd stuff, a lot under cc-0 as well. A vst with sampled instruments is labs by spitfire, they have both some very generally usable instrument and some super odd stuff too. Definitely something worth exploring.

I think we did this from the sound of a drip and from the sound of paper being torn in the past. Am definitely up for doing it again - sounds like we'll pick our own samples this time, though? Will aim for something equally non-musical :)

@boycetown I'm very familiar with Pianobook and LABS, both of which are great, but just to be clear the idea is to try making something from a single recorded sample if possible. I'll probably be using the PreSonus SampleXT plugin which makes this fairly simple, and I'm sure there are other options out there as well (any helpful reccomendations?). I just didn't want anyone to think I meant a single instrument plugin, but rather a single sample....That would still be cool though! In fact, I just added another challenge for it under #oneinstrument (see the forums). 🙂

@wistpotion Don't think I've heard of Freesound, sounds like a good resource for this one!

@helenseviltwin Yep, any sample you like!

@aflinner The beginning of Running up That Hill was and still is one of the most magical sounds I've ever heard. Great to hear someone is telling its story. I'll go listen to it.

I did something like this a few years back and it was a lot of fun. I may have a go at it again.

Running up that Hill did have Alan Murphy on guitar, and Paddy Bush on balalaika as well as Del Palmer on bass. Stuart Elliot is credited with drums but I don't hear him; however, there may have been credits shared with multiple remixes that existed.

@reinderd I think you're right, must be credits for remixes. I really hope the day is coming soon when we can finally have proper credits on streaming platforms. Digital liner notes would be so useful for finding out not only who played on a track, but who produced, mixed, and mastered it as well. At this point, I feel like this is just something that needs to happen.

Murphy and Paddy Bush are easy to hear on the album/single version though.

@aflinner Some further clarification - can we take a single sample, manipulate it, and have several sampler instances on different tracks that utilize those various manipulated sounds.

That's right, @elesimo ! I was curious to challenge folks to do the same and make tunes using just one sample for everything. I think I had a water droplet from a free "sample of the day" website; I am still happy with how that challenge turned out. Not sure if I'm game again, but we'll see where my creativity is going this year. It WAS fun. I don't normally attempt sound design, so it was a different thing to try.

@boycetown Absolutely! Manipulate it, manipulate the manipulated version, distort it all you want--as long as the one sample is the seed from which every branch grows. :-)

Yep, @helenseviltwin - in 2021 we had to make a track using this sample: https://freesound.org/people/deleted_user_2104797/sounds/166318

Here's what I managed - everything in this is made from that water drop, processed and mangled in different ways: https://peopleneedgoals.com/music/fawm/21/peopleneedgoals-drops.mp3

Not sure if it's the same thing, but alot of the songs I write are made with one midi block. Every midi block is the exact same, the only thing that makes it sound different, is the different effects in the synthesizer plug in

This sounds like fun! I'll give it a try, thank you for the idea.

@jackdawfactories - this was my water drop one http://www.helenseviltwin.com/helen/FAWM2021/Helen_FAWM2021_WaterDrop.mp3, but there was also a second sample of ripping paper. I'm not sure anyone but me actually did that one :P http://www.helenseviltwin.com/helen/FAWM2021/Helen_FAWM2021_FactoryTunes.mp3

@helenseviltwin Interesting! I missed that one, a shame!

I'm afraid I didn't keep the link to the sample.

Yeah, I put the second one up for the paper since a few of y'all wanted to do another; I was burned out from all the work I did on the first, but it was a lot of fun. I replaced every pad on a Logic drummer with designed samples, made a few synths, etc.
https://soundcloud.com/josh-siegel-3/drippingai-one-sample-challenge?in=josh-siegel-3/sets/fawm-2021

Maybe I will try again this year, but it sure was a lot of work (for me).

@siebass - I appreciated you posting the second sample (and the first, obvs), and it didn't really matter that the take up was lower.

I will attempt this. Make no promises, but will attempt!

I'd like to try this. Ever since I saw some version of this sort of thing on youtube by Andrew Huang I was fascinated how someone could turn one little thing into something else. It made me think of yet another idea for a song though.

I have a pan flute I've been thinking of doing this with. It has 5 notes but one sound. We'll see where it leads.
I did a similar thing from a challenge on Guy Michelmore's YouTube taking a couple of samples and manipulating them into a full song. It was loads of fun and I got to really explore the many ways you can use Audacity to morph sounds.

@aflinner I'm most interested in this challenge. My question: A sample is just a sound file. I have found samples that are milliseconds short and minutes long. One tone vs a wash or a riser etc. Should we be thinking of any criteria for length?

@jwhanberry I see what you mean…I’d say that if it’s a long sound that develops over time, try to use the whole long sound somewhere in the production? If you feel like it’s cheating, maybe it is, but as always the point is to draw out your creativity. So if you mostly adhered to the challenge, but feel that you reeeeally want this other element, but it feels like I’m fudging it, I say do what makes you most happy with the song when you find yourself walking a fine line. Just try to stick to the spirit of the challenge. 🙂

I will try this! I have some nice field recorded samples to use something like this.

@sähkösammal Excellent! 🙂

I did this before years ago with a single cowbell sample! I may have to use another and try again!

Hi there, Just finished mine.
https://write.fawm.org/songs/17095

https://soundcloud.com/midnightrabbit/cowbell-challenge

This was an enjoyable challenge (my sample was a drumstick hitting the A string of my bass): https://write.fawm.org/songs/23863

Amazing the variety of sounds you can pull out of a single sample with the right processing!

I did mine using the Wilhelm Scream from the movies:
https://write.fawm.org/songs/14617