VINYL+MPC=🤍

Been playing around a lot with sampling old vinyl on the mpc lately. Worked on an album for an absolutely brilliant artist named Devon Gilfillian, and most of the songs we wrote revolved around this process. Such a surprisingly refreshing way to create. Instant vibe and sooo much more fun than doom scrolling through the same old sample libraries and virtual instruments.

Writing sessions now often start with a coffee and a trip to the local vinyl store, crate-diving for random vinyl. I’ve found even the most esoteric albums can be quite usable. Japanese Koto instrumentals, Gregorian monks, DJ rap battle records, all pure gold. I’ve got a pair of Technics decks in LA, but the Pioneer decks in Nashville have far greater tempo ranges, up and down +/- 50, so you can dial in half time or double time or sloth-speed ambient wash vibes really quickly.

There’s nothing quite like the sound of old dust and a steady needle passing through the onboard mpc pre and compressor. So specific, the way it grabs and smashes. I’ve chopped up hundreds of these, and the goal has become to build a playable sample library of the growing vinyl collection. Fun, fun…