There really is a process of getting it cleared.'Īlthough every sampling case is different, we checked in with three experts who have extensive experience to gather some best practices and advice on how to successfully clear samples.ĭo: Keep detailed notes in the studio over what's being sampled.īefore the process of clearing a sample even begins, make sure you're clear on what you're sampling and where.

'It's something that has to be negotiated with all the parties that own the song you want to sample. 'There isn't a central database or a central way to clear these songs,' says Mara Kuge, president and founder of Superior Music Publishing, a music publishing and sync consulting company. (For the purposes of this piece, we're going to focus on the latter.) In both cases, artists have to go through the proper channels and clear any samples, which can be complicated.

There are two kinds of samples: an interpolation, where a musician re-records lyrics or music from another artist's song, and a more straightforward sample, where an artist incorporates elements of an original recording in a new song.

The Verve's situation is an extreme case, but it demonstrates the complexities of sampling-and the sometimes-expensive realities of what happens when an artist doesn't dot the i's and cross the t's from a legal perspective. It was an unexpected turn of events: After the 1997 release of the massive hit-which sampled a series of notes from The Andrew Oldham Orchestra's take on the Rolling Stones' 'The Last Time'-Ashcroft and the Verve lost both lucrative royalties and songwriting credits in a lawsuit, since the orchestral sample hadn't been fully and completely cleared. Back in May, The Verve's Richard Ashcroft made waves when he announced that Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were turning over songwriting credit for ' Bittersweet Symphony' to him.

Sampling audio from youtube