#standout_bms Additional commentary on my entry

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Be-Music Samplerです
Really, not much effort was put into hiding my identity this time, but I thought it would be too weird to credit a work made entirely out of other people's BMS under my usual name, so here we are.
Since I used a pseudonym, I skipped including any supplementary commentary in the readme file, so I'll write about the process of making the BMS here.

This track is a bit of an oddball as far as plunderphonics are concerned because it's built around sampling keysounds rather than full tracks. (It seems there was some confusion, so I want to make it clear that this was done by putting keysounds in a DAW and manipulating them, not constructing a song from unprocessed samples in a BMS editor.) Various thoughts related to the song's concept:
- Personally, a huge draw of sampling when you're making electronic music is that you can have the human character of live instruments while also completely recontextualizing it. This is difficult when taking samples from BMS, where live instruments are rare. I knew from the start that I wanted to focus on sounds that couldn't exist if not taken from an existing BMS, such as live recordings and interesting synth patches, but when it was time to dig for samples, I had a hard time remembering which BMS have live instruments...! Arguably I ended up cheating in some cases, like when I just took a random harp sound because I wanted a harp. I do wonder if somebody who's a community veteran would have an advantage in this area if they tried making a BMS with the same concept.
- Of course, most BMS keysounds are also not full melodic passages, so the amount of what you can recontextualize is also limited unless you want to take the trouble to recreate full instrument lines (which I didn't do this time). At times it felt more like making music with ROMpler patches that were originally single notes from a BMS. I eventually realized that a good way around this would be to utilize BG keysounds, but by that point in the song process it was hard to actually do so. Similarly to the previous bullet point, I wonder if somebody who makes a lot of sabuns would have an advantage in this area because they would remember which songs have keysounds that aren't cut down into individual notes.
- Plunderphonics as a genre usually plays with the idea of the samples being recognizable, but that's difficult when you're using a lot of one-shot sounds and there are so many BMS to begin with. Personally, I viewed this BMS as an experiment in making a track with a limited sound palette and didn't bother actually having the samples sound familiar to the listener. The majority of samples in this BMS are very difficult to recognize offhand, and some that were used as background layers may be impossible to recognize even if you know they're in the song. That said, I do think others like the BG samples from IN and Bの悲劇 will be pretty familiar immediately, even though they have been slowed down and manipulated. Others like the noise from Gothlia's A-1 entry and the effects from the Sakuzyo field recording BMS are obscure but were also left nearly completely unprocessed, so they may stick out to people who remember a lot of BMS.
- Because of the wide amount of different samples used, getting permission from the artists of the sampled BMS would have been a major hassle (especially since some of the artists may not be very active these days), so I didn't ask for permission this time. I would not have done this if not in an event that I think specifically draws out risky works. Additionally, BRS does not actually have a rule against sampling non-profit works, so no rules were broken, but personally if I were event host I would still disqualify an BMS like this if one of the sampled artists was unhappy being sampled, and I was prepared to be disqualified if it came down to it. Thankfully nobody has seemed to have any problems with it? I was also avoiding sampling people who I thought would be more likely to have an issue with it, so I refrained from throwing in the entire vocal material from ！？ this time.
- Most keysounds that aren't in the background track should be easy to find the source of by cross-referencing the filenames with the readme file.
- I didn't sample any of my own BMS works because it felt too easy.

The original idea came to me when I was playing through the original PABAT and a keysound from one track stuck out to me as something I'd find interesting to hear recontextualized. So uh... that keysound is indeed in here. From the beginning I knew I wanted to make trip hop because it's a genre that benefits a lot from sampling and I have a lot of respect and fondness for old BMS with that uncanny trip hop feeling. This may have cut down on the novelty factor because it's very musically similar to BMS works that already exist, but, well, I like playing with the aesthetic of old BMS too much!
Originally I actually wanted to sample at least one keysound from every BMS event that I had on my computer, but I quickly realized fitting it all together would be more trouble than it was worth. This is why there's an unusual amount of credited samples from BMS that originate from events with names high in the alphabetical order.

The song was written with the image of an alternate reality. Due to the production method, I wanted to make something that was unfamiliar yet familiar in an ominous fashion. It's very much an "I enjoy and often make this mood of music" track, so once again the identity was probably pretty obvious to people who pay attention.

I was running out of time near the end of the production process. Because of this, I wasn't able to use all my ideas for the BGA, though it still gets the point across. (I'll refrain from talking about the scrapped ideas because knowing what could have been will just make the work look worse by comparison, I think.) I only ended up making one chart, too. I think having only a novelty VERYHARD pattern is actually the ideal fit for the song, but I imagine it may have hurt how the work was received. Ah well.

At this point I've attempted plunderphonics in BMS twice. It may come off a bit risky, but it's fun for me, so I'll probably keep going (though I don't want to sample other BMS without permission again!).
I'm somebody who likes to jump between genres a lot, but if you compare dead hum and this BMS, they have contrasting styles, so I don't consider them redundant. dead hum is built around plundered loops but is not 100% plundered, whereas this track is 100% plundered but highly unrecognizable (and uses a technique that can only exist because of the BMS format).
In the future I'd like to make a BMS that's loop-based and 100% plundered if I can get away with it, but it'll take a lot of sample hoarding first.
There's also the more explicitly satirical plunderphonics like Negativland (purists may argue only this is actual plunderphonics), but I don't really have anything meaningful to say, so I can't see myself attempting this.
Anyway, that's all. Wow, I'm sorry there are so many words in a language most people in the community can't read, but that's how things are.
I had to listen to this track a lot while finishing it up on short notice, so I've lost the ability to judge it critically and I'm not sure how happy I ended up with it overall, but it was certainly fun to make.
If nothing else, I hope it gives people a feeling similar to what old underground BMS were like. Supposedly.

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