Feature

Breakdown J Dilla samples with SampleStitch

Do you remember that graph that showed the relative verbosity and linguistic skill of various HipHop MCs and rappers? We wrote about it here, and in doing so wondered out loud about the motivations of the author, Matt Daniels;

“Sometimes the people who do this are creative geniuses, others are just obsessed by knowledge and datasets, while a few are calculating their imminent internet fame. We’re not sure how many of these Matt Daniels falls under, but as a self-claimed ‘data scientist’ we know the middle description is probably accurate.”
Turns out we may have been under estimating the guy, as he has recently played a trump card that suggests he’s also falling under the first category too. That trump card is Samplestitch.com, a website that allows you to play your keyboard like a MPC using samples of HipHop greats. In layman’s terms that means you can build up tracks by J Dilla, Kanye, and 9th Wonder from the original samples simply by mashing buttons on your keyboard (it also works on touch screens).

What’s most impressive is that Daniels has got this down to the milliseconds of each sample, indeed that’s the whole point of the exercise. Reading his ‘About’ section is as fascinating as screwing with the samples yourself – do not miss it! There’s not much else to say other than we’re really impressed with this, and had some fun and learned a thing or two along the way. Make sure to check it out…

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