AraabMuzik Documentary with a Blazing MPC Performance

Dope documentary of araabMuzik – first part films araabMuzik in everyday life situations while the audio from an interview plays out. The second part has araabMuzik with his MPC hooked up to a series of lights that go off when specify sounds are triggered from his MPC giving it a visual representation of his music. definitely worth checking out!

make sure to check his album Electronic Dream – ARAABMUZIK

9th Wonder Interview with Karmaloop TV

9th Wonder at Rhode Island College touching on some of his collaborations and his experience teaching hip hop. Short but dope.

Dj Premier Tells The Story Behind His Classic Records

One of the best, if not the best, producers in hip hop, DJ Premier has laced many hip hop tracks in his 20+ years producing.  DJ Premier drops the science behind 38 of his classics as he kicks it with the people over at Complex Magazine. The hit producer know for his signature scratch chorus covers Gangstarr classics like “Just To Get A Rep” , “Dwyck” , “Mass Appeal” , and “Above The Clouds” and many of his hit collaborations like  Jay-Z’s “D’Evils” ,  B.I.G.’s “Unbelievable” , Nas’s  ”Nas Is Like” and Royce da 5’9′s “Hip Hop.”  This article is filled with gems like the following when DJ Premier is talking about  Nas’s “N.Y. State of Mind:”

That was just amazing because it happened in this room. Actually, anything from ‘92 and on, we did it here. It was just amazing watching him work because I was already a fan of him when he did ‘Back to the Grill,’ ‘Halftime,’ ‘It Ain’t Hard to Tell,’ and ‘Live at the Barbeque.’ So when I heard him on those records I was like, ‘Yo, I got to do something that’s on the same level.’ So I came in here, and flipped the ill, gutter, Joe Chambers sample (‘Mind Rain’). I can tell you because it’s cleared. [Laughs.] Nas watched me build the beat from scratch. And he wrote the verse in the studio. If you listen to ‘N.Y. State of Mind’ you’ll hear him going, ‘I don’t know how to start this shit,’ because he literally just wrote it. Before he started the verse, I was signaling him going, ‘One, two, three,’ and he just goes in like, ‘Rappers I monkey flip’em, in the funky rhythm.” He did that in one take. After he did that first verse, he goes, ‘How was that? Did that sound all right?’ And we were just like, ‘Oh, my God! The streets are going to go crazy when they hear this!

Head on over to Complex Magazine to check it out!

Cole

Making The Beat | Three Different Techniques (Pt.3)

In part one of our 3 part series on how to approach making a beat, we talked about sampling.  In part 2 we detailed the Keyboard Approach to making hip hop beats.  In our third and final installment of how to approach making a hip hop beat we talk about the Composite Approach.

What is the Composite Approach?

Essentially, the Composite Approach is the combination of the first (Sampling) and second (Keyboard) approaches to beat making. Instead of relying on one method, the Composite Approach offers a versatile option by combining the two.  It is called the Composite since the Samples and Keyboard sounds are melded together to create a cohesive sounding track.

How’s it done?

The Composite Approach in hip hop production combines Sampling and the Keyboard Approach – so basically part of your beat comes from sampling and part comes from sounds you played. That’s really the only requirement for a beat to be considered a Composite Beat. There are no real guidelines for how much of the Composite Beat needs to be sampled and how needs to be played from the keyboard. Perhaps you have some skills on the piano but need to step your drum production game up – you just can’t seem to get your snares to sound so rich and crisp. So you’ll sample some drum sounds from one of your favorite producers, or from an old 70’s record, or wherever you hear a snare that appeals to you. The rest of your beat you could lay down with your keyboard skills. Or maybe you have a sick drum pattern laid out, some killer keys on top, and some viscious violin stabs…all you’re missing is a nice bassline.  So you might sample a bassline that you like to round out your beat.

Similarly you may use samples for your whole record and just add a simple hi-hat from your keyboard. Or your beat is all samples but you need but you feel like you need a nice vintage 1920′s brass sound on top  to complete the hook.

Producers who rely on Composite Approach do not have to always follow this method, of course. If they feel like it they can make a record done entirely with samples, or a record done straight from the keyboard sounds. In fact at times it’s good to switch it up.

Another option, which arguably is the Keyboard Approach, is to sample yourself. Typically you may sample something like a piano melody, or a couple horn stabs. You can always play a sample yourself, then chop it up, add some effects, and loop it just like you would with a typical sample.  It’s a great way to go about beat making and something producers should consider trying.

Why Would You Use The Keyboard Approach?  The Advantages

The Composite Approach offers the same advantages and disadvantages as that comes with Sampling and the Keyboard Approach.  Since we already outlined those in detail we will skip it here. We will say, however, the more your beat uses samples, the more of the advantages/disadvantages of sampling you will experience. The reverse holds true for the Keyboard Approach.  That being said there are still some advantages specific to the Composite Approach

1. You’ll be a More Versatile, and Prepared, Producer.

Imagine this: You’re getting your once in a lifetime shot. There you are chilling with Jay-Z and his engineer Young Guru.  Your playing beats for Jay and he’s nodding away, feeling what you got. But then he tells you he has this idea for a track and wants  you to flip a sample off a record he just handed you.  If you only play your beats and don’s sample, what do you do?  Panic.  But if you are versatile and know how to sample, you’re in luck.  Think this is made up?  How do you think 9th Wonder got the chance to produce Threat off of Jay-Z’s Black Album?

2. It Can Spark Your Creative Side

Since you are not reliant on one method, you have different ways to go about approaching your beat-making.  This can come in handy if you are stuck in a creative rut. Can’t quite lay out a melody you are satisfied with?  Try sampling.  Tired of digging through crates of records to come up short finding a horn sound you like?  Play your own.

3. They Complement each other

Digging through crates looking for samples will give you inspiration for melodies that you may want to use, or certain sounds you may want to create.

What are the Drawbacks?

1. You Still Have to Create a Cohesive Sound

Combining old school samples with some of today’s modern sounds can make for some interesting mixes – and not necessarily for the better. You want your beat to sound cohesive, and not like a mish mash of random sounds with different effects and feels to them. This requires some knowledge of producing to blend the sounds to make a nice beat. Likewise, to really create a sound beat you’ll have to have a good ear and understand what blends well together. If you sample a flute from a record, it will pay to understand what key it was played in so that when you play the complimentary keys you know what key to play in.

2. Tons of Options

With lots of options to go about producing it can be overwhelming and a challenge. Many producers get caught up in all their sounds, and all their records that it can actually hinder performance. Being able to manage going through all your records and sounds on your computer takes time and discipline.

3. Jack of All Trades, King of None

Trying to master both sampling and playing the keys takes a lot of time and can be discouraging to producers. You’ll probably never be as knowledgeable and skilled on the MPC as someone who is 100% dedicated to sampling. Likewise for the keys. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you really want to be seen as the guru in either field, it may be worth sticking to the one approach that works for you.

The Composite Approach gives you even more freedom, control, and versatility then either the Keyboard Approach or Sampling. It allows you to start from scratch, create some of your own unique melodies and rhythm and fill in the rest with samples. Or, create a solid beat with samples, and take it to the next level by playing on top of it. It requires understanding sampling and music theory to be done right and a decent amount of time to invest in both approaches.  However, producers who have a handle on the Composite Approach are some of the most versatile and face the least limitations to producing.  When done right, it can be the most rewarding of the three approaches.

This is the third and final installment of our Three Techniques to Beat-Making series and we hoped you enjoyed it. That being said, we’ll end off on the same note we ended the first two posts. Whatever approach you choose, the most important way to produce is one that represents you. No one approach is going to all of a sudden make you a hit-maker. Just pick what works for you and produce beats that are representative of you, not someone else.

Till next time,

Cole

This post was written while listening to: Tical – Method Man

Making The Beat | Three Different Techniques (Pt.2)

In part one of our 3 part series on how to approach making a beat, we talked about sampling.  In part 2 we’re going to discuss a very different approach to making beats in hip-hop: the Keyboard Approach.

What is the Keyboard Approach?

The Keyboard approach is simply playing the beat, whereas in sampling you would search for a sound that you liked, chop it up and loop it, then use that sample to produce a beat. With the keyboard approach you play a melody, bass riff, horn loop, etc. The sounds you use may be the stock sounds from your software but when you put those together when composing a beat then everything is original – from the notes you play to the melodies and rhythm you are creating.  It’s all original and all your own.

How’s it done?

Now you don’t have to have a full studio with keyboards, trumpets, violins, flutes, drums, etc to follow this approach.  Most music-making software puts a whole studio in your computer. This is the most common way for doing The Keyboard Approach. Using software such as Logic or Reason and an external keyboard such as the M-Audio Keystation 88es. We won’t go into the details of hooking up equipment, but basically one you are all set up when you press a key down on the keyboard it triggers, or plays, a specific sound in the software. You set up the software to tell it what to play; for example a Grand Piano or a string section. If you take a look at the software and click around with your mouse you can play the sounds that if offers. In this case, the keyboard is the same as clicking with the mouse, so in essence, your keyboard is a glorified mouse.

What sounds can I play? The sounds that you can play are dependent on what your software sequencer offers. Many offer some great sounds out of the box but there are plenty of places where you can buy additional sounds.

The way the software knows what to play when a key is pressed is done through what is called MIDI.  MIDI is basically a language that allows tech pieces (like your computer and keyboard) to talk to each other and understand each other. Your keyboard is speaking the same language as the software. So when you press a C note on your keyboard it tells the software “hey, play the C note right now” and your sequencer will play a C-note. What sound it plays it dependent on what you set it up to – you can tell it to play the C note in a piano, flute, or whatever you set it to.

That being said, most keyboards are not really keyboard, but rather what is called MIDI controllers since they are really just controlling what MIDI notes are being played. M-Audio has a slew of MIDI Controllers with a wide range of features.Personally we use the pro-station hooked up to Logic

We won’t get too much into the details of MIDI and all its features and all the nitty gritty details of how it all works.  As long as you get the basics – you press the keyboard and you hear sounds, notes, melodies.

Hooking up the keyboard to to a computer is by far the most popular. However there are also keyboards that come with sounds built in such as Korg M3.  Here you can play the sounds straight from the keyboard and record them into your software or hardware sequencer. Additionally, you can play live instruments and record those as well – just check how ryan leslie gets down.

Quick side note:  Sampling vs Samples

It’s worth clarifying the difference between Sampling and Samples. Sampling, as described earlier, is taking a piece from a record and perhaps chopping it up and looping it. At that point what you have is a sample – it’s a discrete sound like a piano look from an old Leslie track that you flip into a beat. The software such as Logic and Reason are full of samples  thousands of them. They range from every note a popular piano will play to some drum sounds to even loops. The difference is these samples do not come from records. Music artists, producers, engineers, go into the studio and play all the notes of a piano and record each one. These are then packed up and put into the software. So they are samples of musical instruments, but do not come from records. Sampling is taking a small part of an established records and creating a stand alone sample from it.

Why Would You Use The Keyboard Approach?

The Keyboard Approach offers some great advantages.  Five of the biggest advantages are:

1. You don’t have to worry about sample clearances.

One of the major attractions to the Keyboard Approach is the producer does not have to worry about clearing samples. In our last post we described how clearing samples is one of the disadvantages of Sampling. When you use the Keyboard Approach this is not a concern which means more money in your pocket.

2. Full Control

The Keyboard Approach to making hip hop beats gives you full control over your sounds – everything from how much it is compressed, to the amount of reverb, to how strong each note is played and when exactly they are played. Full control gives you more precision when developing your beat and composing your song.

3. Many Many Sounds, fairly easy to go through

Many software packages offer tons of sounds pre-installed and you can always find more sounds and virtual instruments all over the web. With the Keyboard Approach there is no shortage of sounds and they are fairly easy to go through to find something you like. Just click on an instrument, press a couple keys and see if you like what you hear.

4. Allow your creativity to go wild

With virtually unlimited sounds and effects, there’s almost no limit to what you can produce. The number of combinations of effects and sounds is endless.

5. Hear the beat, play the beat

Ask many producers and they will tell you quite often they hear a beat inside their heads first. When Sampling you have to listen to crates of records until you find something close to what you want. The Keyboard Approach allows you to instantly play that beat (provided you have the skills to play what you are hearing in your head). It’s very instant and right away. You hear a beat in your head and think “yo that’s dope.”  Just fire up your PC, get on the keys and lay it down.

What are the Drawbacks?

1. You need to know what you are doing on the keys, son

Many producers who take this approach may claim they are real musicians, but you really have to know what you are doing to create a solid, complete beat. If your knowledge of scales, melodies, rhythm, chords, and music theory is limited so will your beats. You have to now how to arrange your notes and music to create a thorough rap beat. However, with time and practice, understanding even some of the basic concepts such as chord progression will allow you to quickly create some nice tracks.

2. Many many sounds and tons of gear

-The flip side of having a ton of sounds is it’s a lot go to through and can be overwhelming to manage all the sounds. Producers will have gigs of sounds that they have never gone through.  Can make it harder to develop your sound if you are constantly using new tunes

One of the great misconceptions of producing is the more gear the better. We mentioned at the end of our last post about sampling that back in the early days of hip hop production,producers turned something out of nothing. They didn’t have much but was creating masterpieces. Just because you have way more sounds and technology does not mean you are going to be any better. In fact time exploring is time away from practicing which is exactly what you need to develop your skills.

3. Hard to recreate that sound you like.

You may like a sound, a certain feeling from some of your favorite hip hop records. May be tough to recreate that sound that was developed through sampling using some of the newer technology.  Not that it can’t be done, but with all the overwhelming options it may be tough. There are definitely plugins available to help you create certain feelings such as a warm sound. But getting to a very specific sound you hear and replicating it can be painstaking and may require a ton of knowledge about audio engineering and that just comes with time and practice.

The Keyboard Approach gives you a world of freedom and control. It allows you to start from scratch and craft the entire beat without Sampling. It requires some understanding of music theory if you want to create a solid beat. The major advantage is there are no sample clearances so nothing for you to clear and you have a ton of freedom.  You’l create loops and sounds that no one else has access to and it is easier to create your own distinct sound.  And like we mentioned in our last post, the most important aspect to producing is to be yourself and create a sounds that represents you, not someone else. If the Keyboard Approach works for you, by all means go all in and make it happen.

Keep checking back at our blog to learn about beat-making

ColeDash

This post was written while listening to: Get Rich or Die Tryin’ – 50 Cent