I started making beat-based music with software, simple drag and drop, it's that easy. Push play and it'll sound the same every single time, no flaws at all. It might've come up with some more or less good tracks but for me as the
artist behind it that doesn't fill me in. If I wanted to play that shit live I couldn't even think of how to do that, I feel that's kinda weak.
I optimize and arrange sounds/drums on my PC and then take em to my SP. From then I play all my stuff into my sampler preferably via instruments cuz I like to create and play as much samples as I can by my own cuz as a musician I'd feel a bit odd if I didn't.
When it comes to sampling from other sources I had to cut it from mp3s until some months ago cuz I simply didn't have the equipment to do it any other way. When I once visited a friend with my SP he let me use his turntable and some of his soundtrack vinyls I immediately felt much more caught up in the process than sitting in front of my screen and clicking through my mp3 collection. It's a whole lot more rewarding and fun (!) to me. There's no urgent need to buy vinyls these days but I guess you actually feel what you're doing and someone who hasn't done so doesn't know what he's missing.
I try not to sample from anything that is based on samples itself and I prefer sources that aren't directly connected to the style of music I'm doing. For example I try to fuse electronic sounds in my beats with sounds I got from my environment or tunes from back in the days when they didn't even have electronic music. If I just sampled a synth melody that was nothing inventive or creative.
I hope you got my point of view *g*
sound of nature > instruments > analogue recordings > digital recordings > techno
