Common samples you hear in multiple songs (AKA the 'Loon' sample)

[Captain Z]

At the risk of this becoming a 'buzby - where is this sample from' thread, over the years I've become more aware of certain samples being used regularly in electronic and pop music. I was reminded of this last night when instead of going to bed I ended up down a two-hour rabbit hole after listening to Sueno Latino - Sueno Latino and Googling 'what is that bird sample in 80s 90s electronica'.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/474-anaconda-pacific-state-sueno-latino-and-the-story-of-a-sample-that-keeps-coming-back/

Long story short: It's a sample of a Loon bird call, originating in sample library for the E-MU Emulator II and also used in the following tracks, amongst many others:
808 State - Pacific State
LTJ Bukem - Demon's Theme
Nicki Minaj - Anaconda


There's another sample I hear all the time, but never been able to track it down as I have no idea how to describe it. It's the very first thing that plays in this track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu33yD3U6IQ

I've noticed it in several trance/house records from the early 2000s, and recently heard it pop up during a rewatch of Johnny Vegas' 'Ideal' sitcom. It's popularity among both pro and bedroom producers might suggest one of the Vengeance sample packs, but I have a few of those and never encountered it. Does anybody know where it comes from?

What other repeated samples have you spotted?

[the]

The loon call sample has been discussed on here previously.

There's another sample I hear all the time, but never been able to track it down as I have no idea how to describe it. It's the very first thing that plays in this track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu33yD3U6IQ

I've noticed it in several trance/house records from the early 2000s, and recently heard it pop up during a rewatch of Johnny Vegas' 'Ideal' sitcom. It's popularity among both pro and bedroom producers might suggest one of the Vengeance sample packs, but I have a few of those and never encountered it. Does anybody know where it comes from?

I don't know the source of that specific instance of the sound, but the sound effect itself is some approximation of radio/TV dial being tuned in. Probably a synthesised recreation of the sweeping frequency noise.

Little blips and sound effects are often quite difficult to trace the source of, but if they noticeably crop up in many tunes, then yeah, it's likely it came from a freely available sample pack (this particular sound sounds quite crisp and modern), or possibly a 90s sample CD. If more 'archive' in flavour, quite often common sound effects are themselves stock effects from a production music publisher, but the path of distribution to being a commonly-owned sample in the pre-download days was usually sample CDs, or a sample that cropped up cleanly and prominently on a DJ record.

It's quite fun going through popular old sample CDs and building a list of which artists owned it by their use of multiple samples from the same library. The Zero-G Datafiles by Man Machine are good for that, you sit there going "ah FSOL had this, and the guys who did the music for Sonic CD..." etc.

Do people still use that godawful airhorn noise that became de rigeur about 12 years ago? Proper nob-end sample.

[Mr Banlon]

The second one is just a dub siren isn't it ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXmHiGr-7bs

[Better Midlands]

Do people still use that godawful airhorn noise that became de rigeur about 12 years ago? Proper nob-end sample.

You've got to mean this one, used by shitty hip hop and trap DJs between tunes when they can't cut or mix.

[Better Midlands]

I like this bouncy Jah Shaka sound that was used a lot in jungle tunes, think Renegade - Terrorist etc.

[Natnar]

Alison Moyet's laugh https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/08/alison-moyet-laugh

[Neomod]

I used that second sample on a dub reggae version of Kraftwerk's The Model and it was just called 'ping'. Can't remember if that was it's proper name or I just renamed it.

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

The noise right at the beginning of this turns up in quite a lot of other songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE8S2uV4_-k

For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOWemHsmlfM

https://youtu.be/x4maoo4A3x4?t=91

https://youtu.be/vs0o1veaxsw?t=120

[Better Midlands]

It's quite fun going through popular old sample CDs and building a list of which artists owned it by their use of multiple samples from the same library.

There's a series of videos interviewing Hyper-On Experience and he says they rinsed Norman Cook's - Skip To My Loops, when you listen to it you can hear it all over early Moving Shadow.

[Better Midlands]

The noise right at the beginning of this turns up in quite a lot of other songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE8S2uV4_-k

For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOWemHsmlfM

https://youtu.be/4F9DxYhqmKw?t=82

https://youtu.be/vs0o1veaxsw?t=120

It's the shakuhachi flute which was a sound that came with the Fairlight and then also the Emulator II (the same disks as the loon sample above, that's why they're often heard together)

https://youtu.be/tPuNbhJrpsk?t=110

[JesusAndYourBush]

The two I've wondered where they're from is the sample of a woman going something like "wee... woo... wee... woo...(etc... repeat ad nauseam)", kindof a high-pitched scream, it's usually heard constantly for most of a song, and could be heard in almost every song on the tv show "The Hitman & Her".  The other one is "ah yeah", used in that Timmy Mallett song and so many others, which wasn't hard tp find just now: Run DMC - Here We Go (Live at the Funhouse), but I can't find the first one as I don't know how to describe it so a search picks it up.

[buzby]

It's the shakuhachi flute which was a sound that came with the Fairlight and then also the Emulator II (the same disks as the loon sample above, that's why they're often heard together)

https://youtu.be/tPuNbhJrpsk?t=110

It originated on the Emulator II as part of the expansion of the factory library in 1982 (this was confirmed by someone with contact with the ex-Fairlight staff in Australia on the Gearslutz forum).
Both it and the Pacific Loon call were parts of  the Loon Garden patch which came on Disk 22 (Windchimes/ Birds / Stream) of the library. The 'Shakuhachi was later expanded upon in the OMI 'Universe Of Sounds Volume 1' EII library in 1986 with the 'Shakuhachi Long Tones' multisampled patch. Gabriel had an Emulator II as well as his Fairlight CMI during the making of So and it seems that he may have been the source of getting the Shakuhachi sample into the Fairlight library

It's commonly stated that Gabriel was the first to get the sound on a record with Sledgehammer, but Shriekback had used a real Shakuhachi (at the suggestion of Hans Zimmer, who had used one on the soundtrack to Nic Roeg's Insignificance and they got the same session player Zimmer had used) a year earlier on Coleocanth, the last track on their Oil & Gold album. I wonder if Gabriel had heard it used on the film or that album.

Regarding the Loon sample I recently heard the exact same Loon call used as a sound effect in a 70s TV drama, so it's most likely E-Mu's sound designers lifted the sound from an existing effects album or tape.

[buzby]

The two I've wondered where they're from is the sample of a woman going something like "wee... woo... wee... woo...(etc... repeat ad nauseam)", kindof a high-pitched scream, it's usually heard constantly for most of a song, and could be heard in almost every song on the tv show "The Hitman & Her".  The other one is "ah yeah", used in that Timmy Mallett song and so many others, which wasn't hard tp find just now: Run DMC - Here We Go (Live at the Funhouse), but I can't find the first one as I don't know how to describe it so a search picks it up.

Is it the James Brown/Bobby Byrd 'Woo...Yeah!' that's part of the break from Think by Lyn Collins? Both it and the Run DMC 'Oh Yeah' were used on the Bombalurina track you mention.

[Better Midlands]

I saw a good one I didn't know the other day, the "ahhh" sound that is part of the Tuff City Crew - Hittin' Hard Balls break (made famous by Jonny L - Hurt You So) which they took from Malcolm Mclaren - Buffalo Girls sounds like it was originally from Hugo Montenegro - Moog Power

[buzby]

I was trying to think of another song where I had heard the EII Shakuhachi sample used before Sledgehammer. Coleocanth was used in the soundtrack to Manhunter, and there was another song from the soundtrack, Strong As I Am by The Prime Movers which used the EII sample rather than the real instrument, played by the song's producer Chris Tsangarides.

It was released in 1985 in the US on their On The Trail EP. It was re-released as the B-side to the On The Trail 7" single in January 1986 in the UK to promote their support slot on Big Country's tour, and as a single itself in September to promote the film (by which time the lead vocalist and songwriter Gregory Markel had been fired, so MCA and the their manager had to ask him back for the video shoot - directed by the film's DP Dante Spinotti and financed by  by Mann). The rest of the band would eventually go on to become Dread Zeppelin.

[Better Midlands]

I was trying to think of another song where I had heard the EII Shakuhachi sample used before Sledgehammer.

Whosampled has quite an extensive list of tracks from 1985 that used it. I'd have heard it on the Tears For Fears, Echo & The Bunnyman and Dire Straits tracks for sure.

[buzby]

Whosampled has quite an extensive list of tracks from 1985 that used it. I'd have heard it on the Tears For Fears, Echo & The Bunnyman and Dire Straits tracks for sure.

Oh yeah, I would have first heard it on the Dire Straits track too. I was just trying to think of that particular track due to it's connection with Manhunter.

[Better Midlands]

Just remembered this one, another mid nineties D&B favourite @27s

The Dramatics - In The Rain

[Bently Sheds]

I was trying to think of another song where I had heard the EII Shakuhachi sample used before Sledgehammer. Coleocanth was used in the soundtrack to Manhunter, and there was another song from the soundtrack, Strong As I Am by The Prime Movers which used the EII sample rather than the real instrument, played by the song's producer Chris Tsangarides.

It was released in 1985 in the US on their On The Trail EP. It was re-released as the B-side to the On The Trail 7" single in January 1986 in the UK to promote their support slot on Big Country's tour, and as a single itself in September to promote the film (by which time the lead vocalist and songwriter Gregory Markel had been fired, so MCA and the their manager had to ask him back for the video shoot - directed by the film's DP Dante Spinotti and financed by  by Mann). The rest of the band would eventually go on to become Dread Zeppelin.

I thought the Prime Movers were great. They just fucked off due to legal wranglings or something, returning - as you pointed out - as a bit of a joke tribute band.

[buzby]

I thought the Prime Movers were great. They just fucked off due to legal wranglings or something, returning - as you pointed out - as a bit of a joke tribute band.

The management at Island US changed while they were in the UK supporting Big Country (and Gregory Markel had been forced out of the band). The people who signed them had been fired and the new head of A&R didn't like their new songs but wouldn't drop them (Rhino were apparently interested in signing them, but presumably Island wanted their advance paid back). They formed Dread Zeppelin as a means of making music under an assumed name while they were still legally contracted to Island.

[Better Midlands]

Just heard the loon sample in Pet Shop Boys - West End Dub (Shep Pettibone Mix) from 1985.

[Captain Z]

Good spot!

I still can't get over

Oh (AH YEAH)
think twice
'cause it's another day for you and me in paradise

from Jam Tronik in the TOTP thread.

I used that second sample on a dub reggae version of Kraftwerk's The Model and it was just called 'ping'. Can't remember if that was it's proper name or I just renamed it.

Any idea what sample packs you might have been using?