The 5 Way Path: Create a track out of only five audio samples

The rules are simple: using only 5 base samples, create a song. The hard part: no other audio may be used. This means no other digital audio, no synthesizers, no vocals, no instruments of any kind–just the 5 base samples. The fun part: you can process, chop up, fry, freak, and tweak the 5 samples in any way you want, using any tools you need.

Here’s the first set of tracks created by enterprising musicians: http://www.daevlmakr.com/Pages/5ways.html. It’s amazing to listen to how all the different artists created completely new tracks from the same sources.

So download the sample pack here: 5ways_baseloops.zip (8.2 MB), and get transmogrifying (I had to rename the two .aif files to .aiff to get them to play in Windows). When you’re done, email your track as 192kbps mp3s to

daemon@daevlmakr.com. Include information on your track plus a link to your chosen web presence and they’ll put it up on the 5 Way page.

And you should definitely check out the Daevl Plugs VST effects to help you–Peter and I from CDM gave them a very good review.