Orchestra hit

[2] The sound is used in pop, hip hop, jazz fusion, techno, and video game genres to accentuate passages of music.

[4] In 1990, Musician magazine stated that Fairlight's ORCH5 sample was "the orchestral hit that was heard on every rap and techno-pop record of the early 1980s".

[7] These devices allowed sounds to be replayed at specific times and at regular intervals by sequencing, which was extremely difficult through previous methods of tape splicing.

[1][16] Anne Dudley and Trevor Horn used an orchestra hit with the Art of Noise as a sound effect rather than a melodic instrument.

[7] The stabs in the song may also be substitutes for other instruments in the rhythm section, possibly drum fills, and the use of orchestra hits and other samples is particularly noticeable between the first chorus and the start of the guitar solo.

[20] The sound was a low-resolution, eight-bit digital sample from a recording of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite[8] – specifically, the chord that opens the "Infernal Dance" section, pitched down a minor sixth.

[22] Early orchestra hits were short in duration (often less than a second) both due to the nature of the sound (a staccato note) and the restrictions on sampler memory.