Sample Hacker_Block Rockin Beats

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Sampling is still as popular as ever and if this Sample Hacker article, we will take a gander at the sample-heavy “Block Rockin Beats” by Chemical Brothers. It’s amazing to see how this audio collage is created using a lovely range of sample sources from records to radio shows.

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Sourcing the samples

The first thing we need to do is grab the sample tracks, and this has never been easier with a site like who sampled who. This dream of a website has pretty much all your favourite tracks; if they sampled something, they would know. Now we know where we can grab our samples let’s go get them.

Searching Chemical Brothers, we can see our top hit is Block Rockin Beats ( and if you don't know the track have a listen). Clicking on the track shows a huge wealth of information, from who they sampled to who sampled them. We are interested in the former.

We will now go in and grab each track, and also grab the main track as a reference guide. Take note of the times at which the sample or hit appears.

Please note that this is technically illegal. If you love the sample, you can purchase the track or if you want to use the sample, you will need to get a licence. But for our purpose which is to learn, we will just use this “stealing” method.

There is all manner of mp3 converters out there, I'm going to use 320yt2mp3. Bare in mind, if you want good quality, I would recommend finding a wav, you will more than likely have to pay for that but it will only be a few pounds.

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Reference Set Up

Ok, now we have the tracks, let's sample them. We will start with bringing the main reference “Block Rochin’ Beats”. This will help guide us. Drag and drop the track in the arrangement view.  Start by trimming the start point, and from there move the track to the 1st beat.

Now we are ready to tap tempo. I would recommend, starting tapping with your foot, then tapping your finger, once you have the tempo, start tapping the mouse on the tap tempo.

It's close but doesn't look right, and with one check with the metronome, we can hear it a little of. Lets now use the shift key, while dragging the tempo with the mouse to get the right tempo, and what is that you may ask, well one you will see the track line up with the grid in Ableton and two if you switch the metronome on it will be in time. With this we get 109.50bpm, and that seems to have locked the track to the grid. 

You maybe be asking why don't we just warp it. Well its better to get the rough tempo, see that its roughly ly in time and then warp. This will also come in handy later on, because the chemical brothers didn't have warping, they had to use old school methods to get things in time. We will explore this later on.

With the tempo roughly set, lets warp it. Switch warping on and go to complex mode, which as we know is best for warping tracks that have multiple elements like drums, bass, and chords. Go through the track, warping as you see fit.

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Bass

Now for the bass, the bass comes from the intro of The Crusaders “The Well's Gone Dry”. Mute the reference and drag in the track, right away you hear the notes used in “Block Rockin’ Beats” but the rhythm is not right, we can fix that but first we need to grab the 3 notes used by the Chemical Brothers. Grab the first 3 notes by selecting the area and using cmd E (too split) or simply drag to a new drag. Trim, name and colour code them.

Mute these two tracks and create a new audio track. It will start with the E1, which is the main note, it then bounces to the A#1 and the C2, thou at the end there seems to be a new note, not in the original track.

Notice how the last note is just the C2 pitch up 3 semitones. This 1 bar pattern pretty much plays throughout the track so we can just duplicate it across the arrangement.

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Vocal Sample

Let's get that vocal, it's around 7 seconds on the Schoolly D Gucci Again track. Select the area and drag it to a new track or split it with cmd+e. It doesn't seem quite right, this is where we can use the old school technique to get it in time and in tune, and that is using the pitch. Pitch it up 1.14 semitones. This Is placed at the end of the four-bar phrase and the timing, leads nicely into the drum fill

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Drums

Lets get that amazing beat set up, the drums come from Bernard Purdie “Changes”. We will load the track in, the tempo is roughly 90bpm, the break we want is at around 3mins 52 seconds. Chemical brothers used a few parts of this drum break to create a new drum loop.

With the loop ready, and tempo set it would be a good idea to warp the track to make it easier. If we set the 1 to the start of the break, the first part is on the 3rd bar, and play for 3 bars and 3 sixteenth notes.

The next part at the end the 1 bar loop, is a mix of 2 parts, one is a dotted 8th (3 16ths notes) which is from bar 1.3.4. The other part is from the bar 3.2.3. Copy that loop for 3 bars and beat.  Now that is the loop set, onto the fill.

For the last 3 beats we have the fill. Which starts and 4.2.3 and plays to the end of the 4rth bar.

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Drums Part 2

What helps keep the drums interesting is the fact it has a variation, what changes every 4,8 or so bars. What we are looking for is the open hihat part that comes in at bar 5.3.2. This is place on last 16th of beat 2.

After that plays the other open hihat part. This repeats for 3 bars too, until the fill.

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Support Top Loop

The next sample we are going to work with is Mantronix, “King of the Beats”. This is used as a supporting loop. The sample can be found at around 1.47.

Rather than warping it, we will pitch it to get it working at our tempo.  At +1semi tone and -20 cents, it fits nicely

Lets use the auto filter to cut the low end. Set it to rough 500 Hz, with a highpass filter. Also drop the volume to -6.2dB. This fits it in nicely.

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Vocal Stab Hit

The vocal stab comes from DJ Grand Wizard TheodoreLive Convention '82 (Side A), this is a mix tape. The sample hit is at 10.29.  Simply slice the hit out. Pitch the hit up 1semt tone. The hit, play on the 1 for 3 bars, then rests for 1 bar.

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As we can see, this classic is made from a selection of other tracks, they have been chopped, pitched, and various other methods to flip the sample. 

What we can learn from this is one we can make great tunes from a minimal amount of gear, a sampler, tape machine and some records. Two using who sampled who we can create old classic tunes. Three, we can try and create a similar vibe, by finding samples that sound similar, Tracklib is a great place to find samples, and it takes out the issue of “stealing” samples cause you can if you want to release the track get it licensed easily. 

Lets now see if you can finish the arrangement and add in the extra parts from the other samples.