Sampling ballroom music is an interesting task to experiment with. As a challenge I pick random 10 second clips of ballroom music from the 1920s-1940s and try to make a piece out of it. The technique I most often do is sample physical vinyl records into a cassette 4 track. I would normally be running a tape loop that consist of normally 10-20 seconds and pick 4 clips of the vinyl record that fit into that time frame. Once I record them onto the tape, I try different clips together and figure out how I am going to perform the song. I run the tape machine into Ableton and through Valhalla Supermassive (reverb) and a simple eq.
With this project I had to utilise using just a daw, as I do not have that equipment on hand where I live currently. I tried to keep a similar workflow, picking a ballroom record, skipping through and finding a 10 second or so clip I can sample. Once the sample is in Ableton I can then experiment with transposition and effects.
Below I have linked 3 demo versions of ‘Stella Dancing into the Starlight’ that I experimented with before landing on the sample I would eventually use on the piece.
I really enjoyed this first demo, but it felt too like my piece ‘the dancing pig’ so I decided to scrap it.
Demo 2 ended up having the same issues as demo 1, it felt to derivative of ‘the dancing pig’. It sounds good and a bit cleaner then the first demo, but overall was left on the cutting room floor.
Demo 3 was the final and the best out of the demo pieces. It sounds much more cohesive and better put together then the other two. I do feel like it could have stood on its own as a standalone track. But just like the first 2 demos, it felt slightly too like ‘the dancing pig’. The next attempt which would become ‘Stella Dancing into the Starlight’ felt like it had enough originality to stand as a track on its own but worked well as a ‘the dancing pig’ companion piece.