We could say that the Mellotron is the first sampler in history. Indeed, the principle of a sampler is to record on a medium the note(s) produced by a real instrument, in order to be able to replay these recordings from a keyboard. In the case of the Mellotron, these are pieces of magnetic tape run through a reading head. And then, much later, came floppy disks, CDRs, hard drives, SD cards and all the other virtual media that we know today. This principle has made many musicians dream, including Peter Gabriel in particular, who knew how to use it creatively, with the expensive but legendary Fairlight. In the 90s, the sampler became democratized, and came in multiple devices, spearheaded by EMU for the Americans, and AKAI for the Japanese.

The appeal of the sampler comes from its ability to “swallow” everything, allowing the musician to control everything he wants (instruments, sound effects, etc.) with his fingers. This explains why it quickly invaded all of music, roughly between 1985 and 1995, going so far as to make acoustic drums disappear from studios. But as is often the case, by launching into a path too quickly, we don’t realize that it can lead to a dead end. Like many, I didn’t really see the main flaw of the sampler at first: it is ultimately only a “reproducer” of a sound image. An image always remains similar to itself, whatever we do.

Even if we integrate volume, filter, etc. parameters into the device, the “sampled” wave always remains identical. This is not what happens in the sound reality of a real instrument, where extremely complex vibratory phenomena are set in motion. The same piano key, for example, struck several times in a row with the same intensity, will never reproduce exactly the same sound. Indeed, the timbral and harmonic signature of the latter constantly undergoes subtle variations due to numerous acoustic and material parameters. Even an analog synthesizer never actually produces the same sound twice, with very small variations. And it turns out that the ear is capable, even unconsciously, of perceiving these variations. This is why we end up tiring of an overly intensive use of “samples” in music.

As a precursor, a musician like Keith Emerson had already perceived this problem at the beginning of the 70s: he had decreed that he did not like the Mellotron (which he actually never used) because according to him it only reproduced the “photograph” of a sound, and did not deserve as such the name of instrument… Despite everything, here, as far as I am concerned, are the devices that I use: