Amper Music: Sampling for an A.I. composer

This was my first proper sampling gig. I had already sampled some synths on my own and dabbled with ESX and Kontakt instrument creation, but had not done it professionally until now. I was under the supervision of Sam Estes, legendary samplist, and I learned a lot of the core of my workflow from him.

We had a great sounding room and a ton of microphones, and an office full of nerds who very quickly became my work-family. We sampled pianos, percussion instruments, synthesizers, guitars, vocals, strings. A little bit of everything in that room, and I learned about microphone placements, why you want to capture the instrument in a certain way, how to plan and conceptualize for a session, and all the editing and post-production workflow.

It was a great time and an fantastic start of my sampling career.