Samples, Sampling, Music Samples. Since licensing fees can be so expensive, it is usually unwise to sample audio from commercial songs. Unless you want to pay lots of money to a record company, you should avoid sampling other people’s songs. If you sell or perform your song, then you might end up in an expensive lawsuit.

However, there is a method that you will allow you to enjoy many of the benefits of commercial sampling. Best of all, this method doesn’t require you to pay the expensive licensing fees. At the end of the process, you produce an entirely original work.

The idea is to use sampling from commercial music as a framework for your own original song. You start your song by arranging samples that you found in commercial recordings. Then, you write a new song around your sampled material. As your song matures, you phase out the commercial material until you are left with an original production.

The benefits to this approach are numerous:

• You get an excellent song created in a much shorter amount of time.
• You get inspiration and creative ideas from the samples that you might not find on your own.
• You get chord progressions and rhythmic structure used by professional musicians.
• You get a better understanding of where to place instruments using EQ.

Even if you find that you can’t remove all of your copyrighted material, you still end up dramatically reducing your licensing fees. So, next time you are sampling audio for your next album, don’t neglect commercial recordings. If you only use them for inspiration, you will have a musical advantage without emptying your wallet.