ABSTRACT
The final chapter focuses on the music and ideas of Matthew Herbert. His practices are important to the book’s argument about diverse approaches to the use of sampling technologies because he samples from everything but pre-existing sound recordings. A set of rules he produced called the Personal Contract for the Composition of Music (Incorporating the Manifesto of Mistakes) prevents him from doing so. He avoids all pre-existing sounds including those on synthesizers and drum machines. There is also a rule about using ‘real’ instruments rather than virtual instruments. Like early users of synthesizer/sampling instruments such as the Fairlight CMI, Herbert wants to use ‘real sounds’ and, for this reason, he uses sampling technologies to make field recordings. This chapter explores Herbert’s use of found sounds in dance music – food being digested, knuckles being cracked, teeth being brushed – and his use of field recordings made in sewers, war zones, and crematoriums. Using data from an interview with Herbert, he is situated in the field as a user of digital technologies who places restrictions on his sample sources to develop a more ‘authentic’ approach to sampling.
