so ive been making sample beats for about 6 months now and up until this point ive just been sampling 8-bit stuff and solo parts/ classical on mp3s and myself playing drums on my kit and myself playing other instruments, i recently (about two days ago) started crate digging and i have a good amount of r&b/soul type stuff, i am hearing plenty of good samples but its hard to find solo type stuff on those albums since they are constructed to be pop oriented songs so im wondering what your technique is for sampling stuff where the full band is playing (drums, bass, keys etc.) if any, im pretty sure the answer is just not to do it, but do you actually use stuff like that or do you just have to use the sparse points where the full band isnt playing? and if you do use full band samples how do you do it? i.e. do you just use the existing drums already on the track? or use the c.canceller to phase it out (which sounds pretty terrible)

That was hard for me to interpret haha, what exactly are you after?
Singular sounds and samples? Hits, kicks, snares, etc?
It depends really..

I would usually spend an hour on a song chopping it up and messing with it, some cancellation and i'll run it through some processing.. For vocal samples it's best to use acapellas, or songs with little instrumentation, slow jazz, hiphop, rap and soul are probably my favourite to fuck around with when it comes to vocals.. Artist selection is massive too, no limits

For instrument based samples (hats, snares, kicks etc) it's honestly best to look at everything and expand your taste and knowledge, figure out what you like and don't.. You'll recognize a lot of samples in the commercial music industry though are just in packs you could download from thepiratebay or on youtube or something, over-processed and cheesy as heck.. Depends how you wan't your tracks to sound.. HA!

I really recommend getting into jazz, rock and some rap/hiphop if you're looking for instrument based samples, or slow/prog rock, it's easy to grab samples outta these and usually when sampling they remain raw and still maintain character, you can obviously mess with the processing yourself too.. Most jazz though is usually layered heavily, 3/4 instruments at a single time so it's hard to grab the right sample, probably best to grab before breaks and entry of other instruments.. Cancellation will always come in handy too
Soul is always good to mess with, smooth and easy to play with.. Also Funk, try peeping some old funk type shit, some disco, some reggae, rap/hiphop, some ambient and downtempo, RnB... The list goes on
keep looking/digging, you'll settle for something you like and you'll end up going nuts with the samples. A friend of mine has been producing beats and he hasn't changed his snares for the last 2 years

But yeah, I really suggest keep digging until you find that sound you want, download or buy some vinyls/rips too and mess with the files or record, that shits always fun.. Chop it up and mangle it..

I'll drop some artists while i'm at it, some classics:
ARTISTS: Max Roach, Duke Ellington, Dave Pike, Bobby Womack, The O'Jays, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson..

Peep some of those and check if you're interested, if not work your way through genres and artists until you find what you're looking for, search some blogs/online, record stores, cd stores, thrift stores/donation stores, ask your friends! Anything man.. I found a cd on the street and I took it home and cut it up..
Record some of your own shit too, or some field recordings, they're always fun

I hope I helped and this isn't too overwhelming.. I'm so sorry if this is confusing and hard to follow

i appreciate the long winded post, thanks, you pretty much confirmed what i thought, i have a drum machine, and a drum kit cuz i play drums, so i have all the snares, hats, etc that i could ever need, i record my own drum breaks and stuff, i also have an analog and digital synth, an electric guitar, and a bass guitar and i know how to play all of them pretty well, i started playing bass guitar when i was 12 haha. but i was asking about sampling when 3 to 4 instruments are playing which is exactly what you said to avoid, i pretty much knew that but i figured id ask anyway. i am familiar with sampling and chopping, ive sampled everything from 8-bit video games, to jazz fusion to arabian to classical, i live in the bay area so there is no shortage of good dollar record bins so i have been plenty busy snatching up whatever catches my fancy, ive been a musician since i was 12 like i said and ive played in everything from death metal bands to blues/funk cover bands, theres not a single genre i dont dig, but lately since i got my 404 ive been hyped on making sample beats and im fairly new to it all so im just tryin to get ideas and learn and grow as an artist. i appreciate the feedback man

you can sample shit when the full band is playing...it aint no thing...u dont have to filter the drums out unless you really want to and you can still add your own drums on top it sounds fine....no reason to avoid sampling when an entire band is playing at all, theres a SHITTON of beats that do that....trying to avoid that sounds like a nightmare to me

No problem, for what you're after I really just suggest some compression/eq'ing/processing and a tonne of cancellation and noise reduction and you'll get it right, take it slow and work around the sample until you've perfected the sound, or the way you wan't it sound haha

Try to work with the sample, you still wan't the sound so cancellation can be hard to work with, you'll work it out eventually..

How are you doing it? Hardware or software? It's probably best to use some software/vsts

im not too keen on software, i basically use hardware exclusively, i recnetly started using audacity to record. i also use it to clean up patterns i sequence with the 404 cuz sometimes i have a choppy sounding pattern if my samples arent perfect, i pretty much got the info i need, i just need to find time to actually start doing it haha,unfortunately i rarely have time to make beats cuz i work full time and got to school 18+ hours a week

I'm actually near finishing an album that does what you're wanting to do. You REALLY have to search high and low for good candidates. One thing is EQ'ing. Now, it's never going to be perfectly clean. Here's some general 'tips' I guess you'd say for getting decent results:

1.) Don't worry about getting perfectly solo'd items. If you do, you're never going to finish your tune.

2.) As a general rule, don't sample basslines with drums playing over them. When you filter out the drums, the kick's still going to be there and it's likely to not be desirable.

3.) Intros and breakdowns are best for getting solos as they're easiest to chop up. In the end, you're going to be chopping it up so realize this. You can EQ/filter out unwanted stuff from the solo with drums playing and such, but the snare is definitely undesirable in these instances so you'd have to omit all notes where snares play over your notes. If the note is long, you can maybe chop out then re-glue the non-snare portions. It's definitely situation specific.

4.) Older records are easier to lift vocals into a new beat just due to the way they did mixing back then.

5.) Try to sample either left or right channels of the source independantly. A lot of older records did some basic panning of instruments which makes filtering easier on one channel rather than both. You can then 'stereoize' it after lifting it by way of effects like reverb, chorus or panning.

6.) Experiment. Sometimes a sample that doesn't sound like it'd be useful alone actually comes out very nice when dropped in your tune with all other instruments playing. Again, you're never going to be able to lift an individual instrument out of a recording as clean as if it was the original track recording before being mixed.

7.) There's some techniques for lifting out vocals from music that may work sometimes for solo instruments. Again, it's song specific and it's still not completely clean.

8.) Did I mention experiment?

Hopefully this helps. Sometimes just 'going with the flow' yields better results than what you were going for in the first place. Just let the music tell you what it wants in your process and you'll have less headaches and better results, IMO.

Good luck.

Perfect

^good advice, i really find that shit sounds different on my sp than on record haha, i know that sounds like bull but i swear i can sample something that doesnt seem fantastic, but after fiddling around with it in various ways, it sounds more and more like a beat, the trick is just sample it and see what happens, and if it doesnt work, try a new sample.