In the spirit of the new year, I would like to spread good music as far as possible, so please share this with someone who you think might enjoy and tell them to tell a friend and so forth and so forth. This is a remix I did of 'Everybody's Gotta Live' by LOVE, a band created and fronted by Arthur Lee (R.I.P.). The original song is just acoustic guitar and vocals, so everything else you hear is me. Thank you Oli (my brother) for laying in the bass parts! Have a great new year and remember: don't just be... LIVE.
One day back in high school I was at a yard sale and I saw this dusty old VHS for sale, and with a name like 'Piranha 2: The Spawning' , I could not resist buying it immediately. My younger brother and I probably watched it about 4 times, and after a while the music started to stick with me for some reason (the flying piranhas, not so much). I got the samples for this beat from a tense underwater scene (if my memory serves me right), and not only that but I had just purchased my first Technics 1200 turntable and decided I would 'scratch' (though I had never done so before), and this is the masterpiece that came from that session.
It is that time of year to relax and unwind, and most importantly spend time with friends and family. That is part of the reason there were no posts the past couple days, but I'm sure you can forgive me. Here is a short chilled out beat I made years back.
A reminder to everyone during this holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, to show extra compassion and caring throughout your day. You would be surprised how little effort it can take to be considerate. On that note, here is a drum heavy hip-hop beat.
This track is what happens when you pull 3 entirely different records out of your collection and blend them together.... The main piano/tabla sample is from Oregon (world/folk group), bassline is from a soul 45 but I can't remember which one, and Howlin' Wolf provides the blues hum and harmonica licks. An unlikely combo, but I think it worked out pretty well. This is another one from the high school sessions.
Jazz is my favorite genre of music, and has often inspired me to make music, pick up an instrument, or even just go outside and enjoy nature. The song 'There's A Trumpet In My Soul' by Archie Shepp grabbed me right away when I first heard it, if my memory serves me it was in my parents collection but it may have been something I picked up back in high school. Anyways, I sampled and chopped up the track and this is what I came up with.....
A dedication to those snippet style beats, the ones that are barely longer than a minute (or shorter).. just enough to make you want to rewind and hear it again. I think the picture speaks for itself.
Ok, so after that 2 day "stretch" of no blog posts I am back! A very close friend (a.k.a. brother from another mother a.k.a. man with the bass in the place a.k.a. the sweat collector selector) was in town from overseas and we had more important issues to tend to such as hanging out and playing music loudly as to upset the neighbors, talking nonsense and dropping knowledge bombs until 6 in the morning at the studio, DJing a Christmas party that was filled with great people and great music, things of that nature. Since I left you high and dry though, I am including 2 short bonus beats on top of my daily headknodder so you don't feel like you missed anything at all.
This post is dedicated to those who get grimy and gritty on a day to day basis. The picture is of a filthy piece of wood which I thought looked pretty damn good. I definitely had some grit in mind when I made this track back in 2002.
Today is a perfect day to stay inside and focus on whatever you may be working on, today in Toronto we finally have some significant snow happening and it is NOT warm outside. Here is a beat I made a few years back, someone posted samples up on a music forum and a bunch of producers took a crack at using the same sample to make a beat.
I chose this photo because I really like the multiple roadways and overpasses all connecting together, and something about the contrast of the sky with the concrete caught my eye. This track was inspired by the more acoustic sounds that you don't usually hear in hip-hop beats, but acoustic guitars and upright bass can work really well if you do it right. I get pretty busy with the drums on this one (thanks MPC 2000).. : )It was made during this exact time of year, but 9 years ago...
A rainy Sunday night track for those of you who might be lazing around on your computer, this track is essentially a compilation of different short beats all put into one long track, sewn together with short interludes from records.
I am pretty sure this was the first beat I made where I sped the record (LP) up to 45 RPM instead of 33, to get the tempo up to a hip-hop tempo... I was never a fan of the "chipmunk" vocal sound but I think it kind of works here. The photo clearly relates to the title of the track...
There is no deeper reason for the title of this track other than the fact that I indulged in a fair amount of greenery right before putting it together...you will be able to hear it in the music (I hope...)... shout out to my boy Ennio.
This one goes back to Junior year in high school, I had a bunch of samples I wanted to use so I just made 5 short beats using the same drums / bassline, hence the name Medley....I have a couple more beats with this approach which will be posted at a later date.
Here's another one influenced by my heavy Endtroducing listening sessions, and additionally Pre-Emptive Strike by DJ Shadow, mainly for the track 'High Noon'.
Lots of different drum programming and sample layering went into this one, as I was starting to use my MPC 2000 more frequently. The drum break is by the band Port Authority... I will leave up to curious parties to Google that ish.
The traditional method of making hip-hop beats usually involves one person sitting in their room / studio / where ever they make music, and putting something together on their own. I love this part of the process, when I can be with my own thoughts and ideas and have no distractions. Regardless of how comfortable this method is for many beat makers / producers, it can limit you to a degree, and creative collaboration can be a good way to influence your ideas and sounds. There are instances when it will not work at all , you might bring someone in who has ideas that clash too much with your vision but at least you gave it a try and learned from the experience.
This track was originally started as just drums and samples and my good friend (and incredible musician) Alonzo ( http://soundcloud.com/alonzo-wang ) played the keys and bass line on this one, circa 2002. I love what he added to the track, it definitely allowed me to create more of a musical arrangement.... the moral of this long winded paragraph is: collab with someone whos music you feel and see what happens!
There is something great about the rain, unless of course you are caught in it and you don't want to get wet. I use to work on music inside while it was raining all the time, I remember specifically waiting for it to rain before starting a track sometimes, because the rain used to be loud on the roof and sometimes I would hear patterns and rhythms in the downpour. Appropriately, this track starts out with rain and thunder and then some maniacal laughter, I am not sure what compelled me to add that laughter, but it is kind of funny. Either way, enjoy the music and enjoy the rain!
I love movie soundtracks, the tension, the instrumental pieces, the different moods that the composers create, it makes for a great listening experience... also they are awesome for sampling. I definitely sampled some Michel Legrand for this one, from 2 of his soundtracks: The main samples were chopped from a song from "The Windmills Of Your Mind" OST, which is great. There are a couple string chops from 'A Matter Of Innocence' which is full of wicked tracks, including some funky ones with nice guitar and drums. I don't know where I got the guitars from though...
This beat contains some organ licks (see 2:43 in video) I grabbed from the legendary duo of Brian Auger + Julie Driscoll , for a b-boy breaks style track, pretty minimal and repetitive. If you watch their video with the sound off and listen to my track it is kind of trippy. If you listen to their song and watch their video at the same time, be careful.
This track is the first ever musical collaboration I had with my older brother. I played him the sample and drums and he played the bassline. I remember we recorded the bass directly into a Marantz tape deck (which was actually really nice), and then I took it to my computer and recorded it in and moved the notes around to fit in time. The rest of the track is full of different samples and layers, this one was done during grade 12, I remember it quite well actually. The 'Deep Thoughts' logo has very little to do with the music, but the track is called 'Thoughts' and Jack Handey is awesome so it fits.
I missed my posting yesterday, which I was trying to avoid but who checks these things on Sundays?? (If you do please let me know and I will try not to miss it again).
Monday is here again, so i figured some jazzy vibes would suit the mood.....
you get one guess who is playing bass on this one.
Today I have some appropriate Saturday night music, with the words of the incredible musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk speaking his piece about 'Bright Moments', hopefully some of you can relate to his words.
There is something I've always liked about that weird in between interference you get when turning the radio dial. I think I sampled an AM station for the intro on this track, it felt like a good way to set off the mood. The bass is very filtered so the whole 'frequencies' thing describes a very important aspect of making music. Understanding what frequencies blend well together and which ones do not is key to making your music sound proper. Click on the picture above to see the different range of frequencies that instruments take up. Let me know how this one sounds (keep in mind I used cheap computer speakers combined with an 18" sub...)!
On some more introspective spoken word tip today with the music, here's one I made in 2001. I remember chopping up some Joe Zawinul and Mark-Almond for this one, with the Earth, Wind & Fire spoken word free jazz nuggets on top. Enjoy... the secrets of life.
I was a pretty chilled out kid in high school, and this track is a perfect representation of where my head was at back then. Definite Endtroducing influence with this one.
All the beats I have posted so far were created using Cool Edit Pro and Fruity Loops (for drums only), above is a screen shot of what a waveform looks like in Cool Edit. I did all my chopping using that program, and it took a long time. I used to figure out the precise lengths of samples and chop them mathematically, which was a little crazy but it worked for me. For example, a 2 bar section at 90 BPM (Beats Per Minute) is 5.3333 seconds long. If I wanted to chop a 1 bar sample I would make a new file that was 2.6666 seconds long, and if I wanted to make a half bar sample it would be 1.3333 seconds long, etc, etc. This was my main method for creating my chops/loops for the early years of beat making, and it was incredibly precise, though I don't know if I would have the patience to do the same nowadays, especially with programs like Recycle and the new features in Logic 9 which make chopping such a breeze. Here's a Monday beat to get your week started.
"If your conviction is not to go to war and kill people......whole lots of people have been killed for their convictions, put in jail for their convictions. Any time you have a high moral decent conviction you never have to worry about going crazy."Dick Gregory, 1969.
Dick Gregory says those words on his 1969 2LP, "The Light Side: The Dark Side" , and I used that section , plus more from his piece entitled 'Draft Resisters' for the track I am posting today. I had started a beat back in early September 2001, and had been meaning to finish it but had not gotten around to it, when I remember my Mom waking me up one morning to tell me there had been a plane crash in NYC, so I turned the TV on and watched as the 9/11 saga unfolded. I had been listening to a lot of the Dick Gregory album I mentioned and I found the perfect parts to lay over my instrumental, and I completed the song that same day. I had just turned 18 and I was aware of the military draft and now that this terrible tragedy had happened, I knew there was potential for a lot of young people to go to war, and I was not OK with that.
There never seems to be enough time in a day... everyone always says this but it rings true for me all the time. This track I am posting today is called 'Frustration', which stemmed from my desire to create music but at the same time being expected to finish my homework. We can all relate to this constant push / pull of everyday life, balancing work that we want to do and work that we are required to do. The key is trying not to do everything at once, as tempting as it is. Even though I made this track 10 years ago it still seems relevant, though I didn't think about that at the time.Now off to my radio show set and DJ gig!
Hip-hop tracks with horn samples are such a staple in the huge catalog of classic beats from the early days, and one of the best to ever use horns in his production was Pete Rock. 'Mecca & The Soul Brother' by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth was one of those albums that I listened to over and over and over again, and after that it was 'The Main Ingredient' which continued the tight production with classic jazz and soul samples, though I do prefer their first album. This beat was my 'Pete Rock' / Horn samples track that I knew I wanted to make. I took samples from a bunch of different records, I know Sonny Rollins was the source of the horns, but the bassline and the piano i can't remember...A.W.B. on the BELLS!
One of my inspirations when I started making music was DJ Shadow, because I listened to Endtroducing over and over, trying to hear all the different layers of samples he used to form his songs and I found it pretty amazing. This track was my take on layering, adding part after part on top of the track and then fading away but never dropping out elements. As you keep checking this blog you will hear more examples where I use multiple sample sources in one beat, while maintaining a balanced sound that works.. the challenge is a fun one.
I'm sure most of us can remember back in high school when we realized we had emotions, and the track I am posting today, "Pain" is named for one of those. Despite the song title though, once the song was completed I was actually feeling "Joy". The previous day I got the information that my girlfriend was breaking up with me, so naturally I was unhappy, but little did I know how fortuitous this breakup would be.
The next day I had already made plans to dig through a garage full of records where a local dealer had his collection, and I was so excited I actually forgot about the previous days events. As I went through the records I was pulling out great stuff left and right, it was one of my best digging experiences (at that time). Lots of soul, funk, jazz, rock and all at roughly 2 bucks each. I was so happy I could barely contain myself. I threw the records in the car and rushed home to listen to the haul, and immediately remembered the breakup. "Why don't I express my emotions by making a beat?" I thought to myself. Long story short, I pulled out some of the records I found during the dig and put together a track, which I was quite happy with.
The moral of the story is: If you are feeling down, go buy some awesome records and then make music with them and you will feel ok again. (after listening to this song again, I was definitely in an 'aggressive' mood!)
