Sampling Techniques in Justice's Cross: A Detailed Analysis

[00:00:01][Music] oh I guess I should start this video yeah that's just like the perfect opening to that album that I figure a video on this album let's start with that too right this is one of the many Samples used in the album Cross by Justice from 2007 this album is absolutely incredible there are three main sample techniques used some incredible synth sounds but there's one other big secret that's the real magic of this album and why it's such a classic that's gotten only better with age now officially there are three sample credits to this album only three but unofficially there are hundreds of micro samples throughout this sample that I'm playing with this is the Godzilla theme and it's been chopped up up and repitched a little bit on the actual album It's layered with timony and other effects but if that sound sounds familiar well that same song Here's the original the same song was sampled by Pharaoh MCH for the song Simon says but justice has taken this and shot oped it in the intro of Genesis the opening track from their debut album from 2007 [Applause] [Music] cross now that sample is easier to hear even if you don't know the Godzilla theme you might know Simon Says which will lead you to the same sample but other samples are hidden in there and very difficult to place samples like in the club by 50 Cent isolate just the snare pitch it up and here's Genesis you hear it layered in there but how could you possibly know that that's what that is well in this case Justice member Xavier D said so say we use the IND Club hand clap not even 50 c would notice but if you listen to Genesis the first track there are samples of slipnot Queen and 50 c but they are such short samples that no one can recognize them the ones from slipnot for example are just tiny bits of the voice now I want to be clear I'm not going to name every sample used on this album partially because there's a lot more to this album that I want to talk about but also because most of the samples still are not known the duo has said they sampled over 400 records for this album and only a handful have been found in the years since and even still I'm skeptical of some of them this album is mostly instrumental but manages to just grab your attention and never let you turn away until the album is complete part of that is the songwriting and production and part of that is the sequencing of the album like one moment you're listening to Genesis the opening track and the next you're on the next one let there be light but it's so seamless there's not a hard line and dividing these songs throughout each song still works well on its own but when it's played together it's an incredible uniform experience so I said there are three types of sampling techniques used on this album I'm pulling this idea from an interview the duo did with attack magazine where they broke this down as Don explained in terms of sampling our Inspirations are divided into three categories and I'm going to go out of order here let's see uh the third category representing about 90% of what we did on the first album is micro sampling we'll come back to the other two but let's keep talking about micro sampling specifically with the next song D NC if you only know one song by Justice this is it it was a huge hit for them with its poppy Electronic Drive and kids choir all mixed together with references to Michael Jackson like PYT ABC black or white and more there are tons of samples in this song starting with the obvious interpolation of me against the music by Britney Spears and [Music] Madonna 2 there are also samples like the song Sunny by bony M listen for the strings [Music] here just this now listen for that this right here let's take this original sample pitch it and here's Justice that's one little part of the strings that sounds like it's sampled but the rest of that sample is not the same that's where the micr chopping comes into play to keep going with the quote from earlier Don said this applies to dance which has no big sample nothing that can be easily identified from another record for example the guitar is one note sampled from a record and used so that it works with the music after we wrote the Baseline we also sampled every single note of the Bass from other records and did the same with the strings if a part needed FSH played on a violin we would find this on a record and insert it in the right place and do this for every note that we needed on a violin or other string instruments in another interview with the other member of Justice Gaspar OG explained we compose everything replace individual Parts detune them and so on the strings for example Are chords we played and then replaced the midi with individual string samples that's how the chord stabs ended up on the new single this song D nce took the duo four or five months to create that's because of this micro sampling technique they're starting by writing a song then replacing everything with samples this is an incredible way to make an album especially considering it's not just samples there are drum machines and crazy synths a ton of compression and distortion on this album all mixed with micro samples that would be impossible to spot like the three notes in a string chord could be three samples from three different records like that would be impossible to pick apart it doesn't even sound like samples it just sounds like iny yourface disco Rock Electro Opera more on that in a minute by the way cuz there's one other element that is the real reason why this album has gotten better and better but let's move on to the next song new Jack to talk about another sampling technique justce used on this album actually before we do we're talking about sampling individual string parts so if you're looking for records to sample in your own Productions you got to check out track lip they're sponsoring this video so let me show you how it works track lib is an online record store specifically for sampling they've got a huge catalog over 100,000 songs and multitracks there's a 100% guarantee of fast easy clearance and they recently announced they're officially dropping sample clearance fees so if you subscribe to track lib you can clear samples without paying anything more all right I'm going to search for disco and see what they got now what's interesting here is we got Every Little Beat of My Heart Take One Plus 21 multi tracks now I'm looking for Strings so here we go let's see violin one yep got some picado in there and what's cool is before you use credits to download this you can get sort of a preview of what you might want to do with it so check it out I'm going to Loop that picado part and then in the [Music] browser woo let's pitch it a little [Music] bit uh-oh what's the cello doing though I'm going to add this to my diging the greats playlist on track lib I'm going to download this and start messing around with it too to get started for yourself click the link in the description you'll get a free trial and credits to get you started let's pull up that quote from the beginning again in terms of sampling our Inspirations are divided into three categories the first is the one where we hear something on a record and think okay that's great let's take a big part of it and just Loop it that's what we did on Phantom stress and new Jack this song has one of the three officially cleared samples you make me want to Wiggle by the Brothers Johnson from [Music] 1980 I'm wiggling right now the original is funky and feels great but Justice is chopping it up like crazy it's still recognizable as you make me want to wiggle but the individual sample chops to get from point A to point B are crazy check this out all right so they would not have done this manually live but let's see if I can do it [Music] there's another sample that's been identified in here this one and this is the key to understanding how this album was made this sample can be heard on new Jack played with pitched around a little bit and what that sample is it's called computer data 3 and it's from the Apple iif 2006 Suite do you remember iif that was the suite of Apple applications that were a separate purchase but included apps like ioto iMovie and most relevant to our purposes here today Garage Band this is from the Apple press release for the iif 2006 announcement in addition to being the best way to make music on a computer Garage Band 3 is now also a complete solution for creating professional quality podcasts voices can be easily recorded through the built-in expertise of an audio engineer and podcast can be enhanced with radio radio style sound effects and music Jingles chapter artwork and URL links oh you can just enhance your podcast oh that's cool just drop in some little sound effects or you can take those sound effects and Sample them into your music and make unbelievable music this album was made not with insane gear in a worldclass recording studio it was made on a combination of Cubase and garage band The sampling Madness continues on the next song Phantom and ja Li recently released a video recreating this and the visual alone shows you the genius of what justice has [Music] done this sample continues on to the next song Phantom part two which is a seamless transition I want to highlight one thing on Phantom part two as well you've got this compressed slap base sound this is by the way either midi slap base that's super compressed or samples it's not the real thing but it's so compressed it's got some distortion on it there's also synth base in here layered all together this is imperfect stem isolation but I want you to notice the base part [Music] [Music] here's that same section but here's the strings that are on top of [Music] [Applause] that but you put them together and it's magic [Music] this is because they're employing an age-old technique called Counterpoint all right I don't know how old age old means but Counterpoint became a very popular thing in European classical music specifically during the Baroque Period now if you don't know what that means we're talking composers like Vivaldi handle and the big one is come on it always comes back to this guy Johan Sebastian Buck this counter Point technique all it means is that there's a Melody but instead of that being your only line you've also got a counter Melody that isn't quite the same but moves around in conjunction with the main Melody this technique is used all over this album but maybe the strongest example is on the next song Valentine [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is all very Baroque and all part of the plan from the beginning Justice conceived of this album as a quote Opera disco album and once you know that it all starts to make sense sure there's parts that sound like rock where you got thumping dance heavy drums but then funky slap Bas lines of soaring strings that are reminiscent of disco combined with some really great melodic writing and counter Melodies combined with the fact that this album is essentially all one continuous flow of music it feels very operatic at times remember that quote from the beginning about three different types of sampling we had longer samples micro samples and the final one the second one they mention in the quote is the second category contains songs we have been listening to all year and all our lives and which we don't actually sample instead we mentally sample them by adding bits that sound similar and while we are sometimes aware of doing this at other times we only realize it months or years later so that last method of sampling isn't sampling at all it's inspiration from all other kinds of music like Baroque music which plays into the larger disco theme on this album and also Beyond this album as oi explained cross was a disco record and we're still doing disco but not disco by the books we have a high view of disco because it combines electronic classical music and pop music it's very romantic Baroque and dancable we're getting closer to the real reason this album is so good but we're not quite there yet this album has many more incredible songs on it like the party dvn stress which is the most appropriately named song in the history of music that song also uses an i life sample suspense accents number six I'm not even going to play the song stress because it's going to stress you out but imagine that chopped up with more stressful layers added on top it's crazy that gives way to the song waters of Nazareth which is the song that started at all this was the first single Justice Made for This Album which was released in 2005 before the album in 2007 this is also where all the religious imagery came from there's an organ sound on this song which made them think of church so they named it Waters of Nazareth and it just so happens at the name Justice the middle letter is T so that became a cross and then the concept of the album came together well loose concept I mean sure you got Genesis let there be light and Waters of Nazareth but the band has said they didn't intend for any deeper me like classical music I have my own sort of visual interpretation of what's happening in the music I hear all kinds of themes of transitioning from analog to digital throughout the album but that's my own interpretation the album closes out with 1 minute to midnight which incorporates everything we've been through with this album we got Dancy drums killer baselines insane compression Distortion and counter Melodies throughout but here's the thing none of those things are what make this album so incredible yes the micro sampling is insane yes chops on songs like new Jack are crazy yes the sound of the bass or the strings or how insanely compressed everything thing is sure sure but take all of that away that's just a container take away the insane slap base take away the Godzilla intro from the beginning of the album yes this album sounds amazing but that's not what makes it so good not at its core it was made on garage band and cuase which is crazy but here's why the album is so incredible deep down before anything else this is just good music the chords The Melodies the counter melodies the baselines how everything plays off of everything else that's the water let's say sure let's call it the water of Nazareth you could change the instrumentation entirely the container that that water is in make Valentine a classical piano piece and it would be a great classical piano piece you could produce Waters of Nazareth differently to make it pure disco and it would be a great disco song the container of this album is fantastic the sounds on the album whether it's Distortion or compression or soaring strings or hard-hitting drums whatever it's all so good but what's inside of that container the water itself that's why this album has aged like a fine wine you see what I just did turned water into wine come on another major influence on this album is Daft Punk obviously ly did I not mention that Justice is French just like da Punk who definitely paved the way for justice in a lot of ways cross sounds like an evolution of Daft Punk but Daft Punk themselves would on their final album Go a different direction one that is unique in its own right and resulted in the album Random Access Memories but that story that's right here click here to watch it you