Rockchops, you're taking that quote from Andy out of context, paladin was asking about the samples that Andy had willingly uploaded to the forum for use...there is a huge difference between that, and using samples ripped straight from the individual tracks of a mix he did, which was never supposed to be dissected and accessed publicly.
And of course using another person's samples won't make a bad mix sound good, but it's the principle I don't like, especially when we're talking about ill-obtained Rock Band samples. People pay Andy a lot of money to mix their records (rightfully so), and undoubtedly a significant part of that is his drum sound. Sure, a few stolen samples used on other people's projects isn't going to undermine Andy's status as a mixer, but it still is very irritating to me that people feel like they have the right to use his work like that. I love his drum sounds as much as anyone else, but I also respect that his samples belong to him, and I can't just go using them and taking credit for a mix that I might put them into. I don't know if Andy was pissed when he learned about the Rock Band files being hacked open and made freely available on the internet, but if I were in his position, I sure would have been. Maybe by now he's just over it, but I still think that any upstanding engineer should let his samples be.
