Editing Electronic music (section)

===Samplers===
{{See also|Sampling (music)|Fairlight CMI|Synclavier}}
A [[sampler (musical instrument)|sampler]] is an electronic or digital [[musical instrument]] which uses [[sound recording]]s (or "[[Sampling (music)|samples]]") of real instrument sounds (e.g., a piano, violin or trumpet), excerpts from recorded songs (e.g., a five-second bass guitar [[riff]] from a [[funk]] song) or [[found sound]]s (e.g., sirens and ocean waves). The samples are loaded or recorded by the user or by a manufacturer. These sounds are then played back using the sampler program itself, a [[MIDI keyboard]], [[Music sequencer|sequencer]] or another triggering device (e.g., [[electronic drums]]) to perform or compose music. Because these samples are usually stored in digital memory, the information can be quickly accessed. A single sample may often be [[pitch shift|pitch-shifted]] to different pitches to produce musical [[scale (music)|scale]]s and [[chord (music)|chord]]s.

[[Image:Fairlight green screen.jpg|thumb|152px|Fairlight CMI (1979–)]]
Before computer memory-based samplers, musicians used tape replay keyboards, which store recordings on analog tape. When a key is pressed the tape head contacts the moving tape and plays a sound. The [[Mellotron]] was the most notable model, used by many groups in the late 1960s and the 1970s, but such systems were expensive and heavy due to the multiple tape mechanisms involved, and the range of the instrument was limited to three octaves at the most. To change sounds a new set of tapes had to be installed in the instrument. The emergence of the [[digital signal processing|digital]] sampler made sampling far more practical.

The earliest digital sampling was done on the [[Electronic Music Studios|EMS]] Musys system, developed by Peter Grogono (software), David Cockerell (hardware and interfacing), and [[Peter Zinovieff]] (system design and operation) at their London (Putney) Studio c. 1969.

The first commercially available sampling synthesizer was the [[Sampler (musical instrument)#Computer Music Melodian|Computer Music Melodian]] by [[Harry Mendell]] (1976).

First released in 1977–1978,<ref name="dartmouth">
{{cite web
 | title = History of Masters Program in Digital Musics
 | url   = http://digitalmusics.dartmouth.edu/?page_id=7
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091012182849/http://digitalmusics.dartmouth.edu/?page_id=7
 | archive-date = 12 October 2009
 | publisher = Dartmouth College
}}</ref> the [[Synclavier#Synclavier I|Synclavier I]] using [[FM synthesis]], re-licensed from [[Yamaha Corporation|Yamaha]],<ref>{{cite magazine
 |author           = Eric Grunwald
 |title            = Bell Tolls for FM Patent, but Yamaha Sees "New Beginning"
 |url              = https://otl.stanford.edu/documents/0302_su94.pdf
 |magazine         = Stanford Technology Brainstorm
 |publisher        = Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), [[Stanford University]]
 |volume           = 3
 |issue            = 2
 |date =Summer 1994
 |quote            = The technique for synthesizing electronic music, invented by Music Professor John Chowning, brought in over $20 million through an exclusive license to Yamaha Corporation of Japan, which used the technology in its DX-7 synthesizer, enormously popular in the 1980s.
 |access-date      = 6 October 2017
 |archive-url      = https://web.archive.org/web/20170505095843/http://otl.stanford.edu/documents/0302_su94.pdf
 |archive-date     = 5 May 2017
 }}</ref> and sold mostly to universities, proved to be highly influential among both electronic music composers and music producers, including [[Mike Thorne]], an early adopter from the commercial world, due to its versatility, its cutting-edge technology, and distinctive sounds.

The first polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer was the Australian-produced [[Fairlight CMI]], first available in 1979. These early sampling synthesizers used wavetable [[sample-based synthesis]].<ref name="russ">Martin Russ, [https://books.google.com/books?id=X9h5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 ''Sound Synthesis and Sampling'', page 29] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171021111921/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X9h5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 |date=21 October 2017 }}, [[CRC Press]]</ref>