Nice video. Did you hear the new Premier with Common called "In Moe" I thought it had a great beat, I would even rank it in his top maybe 40 beats There is also the new Rakim. He had said in an interview at another time that he produced about 80% of the betas in his his catalog. The new song is "Be Ill" . It's kind of minimal. Hard to tell if there is any bass on it. It has what sounds like a an old mysterious film soundtrack, a short clip of strings and maybe an oboe, and another sample of a woman singing a couple of notes. Those elements are kind of minimal The track is mainly a loud boom bap drum beat. It sounds like a very familiar beat but to me it's the best recording of one of these beats I ever heard and it really swings with funkiness. Am I reading to much into it? Do you think it's just a decent sample but nothing special? I was thinking maybe he had a drummer play it and looped it. Could it be midi? I don't know enough about production to make a good guess. The overall beat style, the whole song is typical Rakim, like it could have been form the 90s and he did his usual mystical-ish rapping on it and it also has Korrupt and Masta Killa. I don;t think it's anything specials for 2024 but it's pretty good as a teaser for the album and the drum sounds great. As you proabal;y know he going to drop and album that's mainly him producing other artists. He says he's an MPC aficionado
Absolutely. I used to check credits for engineers in the 80s and 90s. Joe ‘the butcher’ Nicolo, Howie Weinberg , Bob Power and a host of others that I can’t remember, due to my age!
Considering your background and work experience, I really appreciate your time breaking all this down. In light of all these video's that attempt to demonstrate Dillas' technique. One thing almost none of them mention is the most important thing but you said it, "You dont have Dillas' ear" I salute you for that alone!
I remember buying my first SP1200 it only had 10 seconds of sample time but it was super easy to learn and program in a room full of records the 10 seconds became limitless
2:14 great point. Most times, you could tell a RZA, Swiss Beats, Just Blaze, J.Dilla, Q-Tip, Dr. Dre beat from a mile away. Nowadays, nothing is about distinguishing your own sound, separate from the pack. Now, it's all about doing exactly what everyone else is doing. Different used to be respected. Remember the first time hearing Aquemini & being blown away? Nothing does that anymore.
there was a time when hip hop consisted mostly of "groups" which were made up of the MC(s) as well as a producer(s) and these groups worked together like aband does and as a result the "group" would develop its own sound, or style. imo the abdonment of this format for the "producer for hire" scene that exists today marked a decline in quality for the genre as a whole.
Uneek is very very very underrated to damn near not talked about. He’s in my top 5 producers of the 90s with Organized Noize, T-Mix, Battlecat, and Dj Quick.
WOW cool tip on the LP HP eq to the hat on separate tracks. I almost like that better than recording the separate outs from the MPC but we still could group them and send them to the filtering. We always recorded the MPC on to tape in the 90's (before that SMPTE strip gets weird) and still today to the DAW and work from there. When in LA did you ever work out of A&M, Skip Saylor's or Ground Control in the day?
90a hip hop is like the birth of modern jazz, jazz funk and cool...pioneers expanding and transcending the limits of their knowledge through a limited style of beats and rhymes. Nowadays it's formulaic pop, it sounds better on terms of sounds but ends up empty. Great pod!
it CANT come back because it was made by different people with different background in a different age group...i dont nderstand this hangup with hip hop...that sliek saying we want "New Wave" to come back...as if Adam Ant, Cyndy Lauper, Duran Duran and Culture Club can becomne 20 years old agin... music keep smoving..hip hop doesnt exist anymore...just liek my grandad listend to BB King, Huddy Ledbetter, which turned into Little Richard which turned into James Brown for my parents which turned into Donna Sumemr and Disco or Jimmy HEndrix... you guys need to stop with this trying to recapture the past...music lives in the current of whatever HONEST spirit creates it at the MOMENT...it doesnt stay in one place or even go backward
@@HuChing-ob4kk Is that why The Alchemist is still doing it for kendrick and eminem and they are the hottest right now??? what a dumb take hip-hop will always end with a sample.
Ha ha, true. Incidentally I took an old track that was mixed with SMPTE chasing, put into Cubase Pro and did tempo mapping. The tempo drift I saw blew my mind. Even old drum machines on their own clock moves around a little.
I have the mpc live 2. It does so many things that don’t interest me but it does one thing I love and that is chopping music into beats. I’m a total novice but I feel that after playing music and playing in bands for 30 plus years, this creativity still inspires me.
Oh wait till you have it longer and learn it. It’s the best piece of gear/most versatile piece of gear I’ve ever owned. Been doing this for almost 15 years, have had every groove box, multiple synths, daws etc etc. The Live 2 is a grossly underrated swiss army knife. I have finished full songs with vocals on it that sound amazing. And Akai keeps updating it unlike Native Instruments (dead company)
I started as a sample based beat maker in 2011, and will ALWAYS make sample based beats until my last breath. I'm not letting legalities scare me away from creating something different out of original compositions
Don't worry bruh The Alchemist and all those producers are still doing it, and kendrick lamar is the hottest right now and his major song they not like us was a sample hell all his songs are mostly samples this is stupid.
I remember one of the old engineers at recording school talking about all this stuff. But it wasn't in class, just an off the cuff conversation in the hallway. I feel like I learned more techniques and tricks from over hearing this guy reminisce than any of the actual classes. Specifically processing drums through the console and using the tone generator to add a sine wave sub-bass to kicks. printing Time code to tape may be less relevant now but knowing about how it works is so important especially when understanding how many things where designed to sync . Thanks for keeping this kind of knowledge out there. The "lore" is important and informative.
13:24 I STILL do this. Not with the tech from the 90s but I will often times take my sample I am using and do exactly what you described here. So funny that this is just a known technique that people have done forever now. Glad i stumbled onto your channel.
Yes, nudging was done to add feel, but many samples weren't sampled cleanly, and any extra space before a sample's initial transient would change a sample's timing. It's virtually impossible to edit samples cleanly on most samplers before the mid-90s, as few provided visual waveform representation. Also, the resolutions of low sample rate samples are low. So, there is no capacity for truly fine-pitch sample editing.
Personally (it may be a mental myth) I think that Roger programmed something other than swing and PPQ that became the distinguishing difference in the MPC. Other sequencers had 96 pulses per quarter note but…. I always thought it had something to do with how he programmed the accent on the “1” for the metronome. It pushed harder than the others. Was a bit louder. Perhaps it leaked into the sequence itself. Pushing the swing and making it more pronounced. Something made me identify a song using an MP as soon as I heard it in a studio. It just had balls.
I know he is successful, but Swizz Beatz tracks just don't do it for me, except for some of the DMX stuff. Tried listening to the LOX second album ( we are the streets)and them beats are Casio keyboard sounding and have not aged well at all. Thin and weak dollar shop sound
@@raypeakes4600 I guess you know the story of someone who sampled the trumpet demo? Swizz used MPC, Trinity and 2080...maybe 1080 too. He had an odd way of sampling
mindblown... never new that about the MPC with it not being able to keep perfect time. Was that just the 60 and 3000 or did you ever test a 2000 or XL?
Great video, I appreciate your insight. I've read that Paul's Boutique would lose around 20 million if it was made today factoring in the cost of the over 100 samples having to be cleared. I understand they did clear the samples back then (eventually) but the cost was much lower at the time, around $250,000. Subbed.
A lot of those beats were Dust brothers beats that were going to be released as a stand alone project. The Beasties heard the album before release and asked to use them on Paul Boutique.
Something interesting about the SP1200 is that the sequencer resolution is 24ppq so even in “hi-res” mode (quantize off) your beats are actually being quantized to 1/64th triplet notes.
that makes sense because the sp1200 does have a rigid feel to the beats, I always thought that. I got to witness Easy Mo B rock that machine a few times. It always felt like nothing was happening, until he said "I'm ready to track this now"...and he hit play, and BOOM
Shiid do you need more than 1/32nd triplet tho you can get super funky just on 1/16tg grids like it not hard to make it seem as if…. Its called 16 levels and alternating different sections of of a drumbreak…. I know im giving free game but swinging a beat is so easy man its crazy when i hear how people talk about dilla programming… he was and is a goat but alot of people easily bit his style it wasnt hard to replicate
He was kinda pissed by 98-2000 that alot of people caught on… thats why dilla had a period of no samples or breaks because people were either actively listening or people was eavesdropping when he made beats
Love this, awesome video with a lot of great insights- but to one specific point, we need to do away with the myth that J-Dilla's signature drum style comes from just turning quantize off + natural fluctuation. Once Akai (cough cough Roger Linn) added timing control- nudging, swing, quantize, etc- for each individual note and/or track, Dilla used these features extensively to create variation in rhythm between the snare, kick, hat, etc, in a way that people hadn't before. Earlier stuff may have been unquantized playing (like Runnin by Pharcyde, which is an amazing beat) but the later unique "drunken swing" that many refer to when talking about Dilla was often a result of extensive use of the MPC's new timing modification features to create microrhythm- so, essentially the opposite of not using timing correction/modification features like many claim. To the point made here about Dilla being able to create amazing beats on the SP1200 or any other early sampler, that's obviously true (he did) and as mentioned, he had a great ear (better than most, depending on who you ask). However, there were specific features of the MPC at that time that were utilized by Dilla to create drum patterns in a way that other machines, in a purely technical sense, could not. There's a book about this, as well as many other great explanations and analysis people have made- like Questlove (drummer for the Roots), who has some great stuff about how he tried to relearn actual drumming in that style. The author of said book, though, did a pretty good article with Pitchfork that touches on it as quick high-level summary: pitchfork.com/features/article/the-obscure-j-dilla-beat-tape-that-changed-music-forever/ Obviously that's a very small part of the video here overall though. Cheers and thanks for sharing all this knowledge
Very interesting Tony thanks. As a UK House, Garage, rave, breakbeat and techno producer back in the 90's ( with some Hip Hop ) we're now examining the same thing now and asking why a lot of dance music beats sounds kinda ploddy in comparison now. There's a whole can of worms as to why but one thing that came up time and time again was the use of Atari 1040's and especially Notator which is still considered super tight. The Atari had midi built right into the mother board though and had one job as a computer to run the current software. ( I personally used the W30 which is an MC500 with a 12bit sampler attached as did a lot of "rave" producers in the early 90's ). Anyway I could talk about this all day but nice to see that others are nerding out on this too ;)
Thanks for the insight Tony! Love all the Mixing, Mastering, Quantization, Sample usage, Hard Work, HOURS spent, etc that yall used and continue to use to make the magic happen. God Bless! 🙏 for more cups of coffee coming your way!
You’re so right about the “drift” of the 60/3K. But I never knew why. Even “stiff” songs like Mary J/ Dr Dre “Family Affair” had live feel movement. (3K). You’d have to listen to the whole song to notice it. There were times when I’d be driving when it would dawn on me…. “That’s an MPC!” Out of nowhere. So subtle. Hey, I wonder what the human brain’s timing resolution is set to? Ray Charles could detect the slightest “drift” in his band and would get pissed off when it missed. James Brown also. I kinda have that sensitivity. You can keep your notes. If the timing ain’t right you failed 😂. So drum machines? Love at first listen. As far back as Sly Stones family affair.
James Brown wasn't on that level, he just made shit up to mess with the band so they'd feel like they were under his thumb at all times. Bootsy Collins has said that when they played their best shows, James would still make up some negative BS about 'how things went tonight' just to make himself feel like 'the boss'. He didn't know anything about arrangements any more than whether he liked what he was hearing or not.
great chat! thank you for the breakdown, some of these over generalised “how someone made a legendary beat” have so many holes in their theories. It’s nice to hear from someone who was in the room.
„Molding“…Dude that’s some pretty powerful info! Thanks for that! I think this technique would be the answer to a ton of people’s questions about „the 90s sound of Hip Hop“.
@@TonyBlackNYCthere was a lot of filtering being done on the Akai samplers, it was a very popular technique, you can hear the Akai filter sound on so many records. Of course Multing was part of hip hop production, probably more for bigger artists in bigger studios, it wasn't the only way to achieve that sound. Loved your video btw, subbed now.
The one 90's hip hop sound that is almost impossible to replicate through plug-ins or modern drum machines/samplers is the Akai S950 (same sampling engine as the 60-2) midi to an E-MU SP1200. Sampled off the vinyl at 45 RPM's (sped up), and then time stretched or pitched down in the S950 would create a ring mod like effect, and it was especially even more present when you would adjust the tone and channel filters on the SP1200. Some very good examples of this type of sound production were Nick Wiz, Pete Rock and Lord Finesse. I've tried to replicate this sound on my Emax SE and my Isla S2400, even recording to DAT but still can't quite achieve that very distinct ring mod sound of that particular sampling chain.
At the end of the day technology itself can only do but so much. You still have to have a good ear and a good touch to do what those guys that he spoke about actually did. He was the other guy in the room. Im betting he's knws all of those guys little tricks and secrets. Tony would probably be a really dope producer himself if he wanted with all of that knowledge he accumulated working with the best in the game for all those years. I salute you sir!!
it was the influence of jazz vibes, jazz grooves and jazz samples that made the 1990s for Hiphop so good, Jazz music is the Usa most famous music around the world. Hiphop producers rediscovered it again and inserted into the hiphop program
I have a question please Tony 😀. With all the resampling, processing and AD/DA conversion did the extra ‘noise’ or ‘distortion’ add to the character of the samples and production or take away from it? If you do all the same techniques in the box can you still achieve the same result or is it a more modern version? Love the points how the timing of the drum machines and mpcs would slightly drift, might test my old QY700 to see if it does the same thing! I wonder if someone has done a PhD on all this, so interesting! Thanks as always for your videos and insights!
The real answer is that everything has a cause and effect...yes, you can achieve it with modern tools but it does take some expertise, knowledge and experimenting. thx!
@@TonyBlackNYC thanks for the reply! I thought so, it’s like creating an amazing meal and finding the right balance of flavors and spices etc. Every chef does it differently but so amazing to see and hear how you cook up a production 🙏
Thanks for the insight. The best tip for me was right at the end. Producers would ask for a DAT of the kicks and snares after all of the processing and they become "the next generation" of samples for their next track. And each generation they get fatter or snappier. I will be using this method for sure. Thanks again !
Re: where drums sounds were sourced from -- you're, right of course. In my area, every producer was on their own to find drum breaks/hits (from vinyl) BUT... the "Ultimate Breaks and Beats" series ran from 86-91. I assume that, at the time, if you were (more) connected you would have had access to all those juicy breaks... on vinyl or a second-hand cassette.
I’ve been producing hiphop for over 25 years and parts of this just blew my mind. Thanks Tony! P.S - Krups were great consumer coffee machines 20 years ago. Buy a cheap Ranchillio Siliva and learn to cycle, you won’t regret it.
@@TonyBlackNYC I recommend buying an older (used, non digital) reconditioned model for cheap. Silvia’s seem to be going through the same analogue/digital transition that audio gear did back in the day. Ranchillio are like the SSL of coffee machines and the old Silvia’s are like if SSL released a consumer model back in the 90s/early 2000s (get to know the quirks, make classics). Pair it with a doserless rocky grinder and you got two solid bits of kit for your daily brew (buy used with new burrs and replace them in 15 years, haha). Learn/treat these machines like audio gear and you’ll have friends knocking for brews man! For fun, google Rancillio z9 (the eagle) for some coffee gear porn, haha. The best, and cheapest, coffee I had in Italy was pulled on one of these machines! The Coffee tech and audio tech evolution is so similar. I think you’ll really enjoy this new journey mate!, enjoy and good luck!
I don't know what happened in the last 10-15 years but the coffee machine industry has been cutting MAJOR corners. It's absolutely ASTOUNDING how terrible modern coffee machines are. The old Cuisinart ones from the earlier 2000s are built like tanks. One of the biggest regrets in my life was ditching my old one for something new, Thanks for the pro tip, I'll keep my eyes peeled in the thrilft shops ;)
"Well, I don't use quantizing" circle jerking dates back to the 80's when I began getting into music as a young teen. And to this day I'm still like...."I don't care; congratulations."
Your right bro used to use the sp when it was first released up until early 2000s and with the quantize off it wasn't truly off you could feel it was still on a high res grid
I had the MPC60 and produced some RAP groups here in Brazil... ...too much struggle for too little money involved... ...I still love the thing but my MPC60 was gone 20 years ago on trash... ...with the S950... Great devices but I couldn't get the good sounding I expected at that moment... ...maybe I could do that thing work properly in the virtual everything era we're witnessing... Loving your videos, Tony! Thank you very much for sharing these (gold) nuggets
This is why the dilla time book was full of shit and i told people to read it with a grain of salt … dilla quantized … i know this because i own a 60 with a 3000 brain and “dilla” time is easy to replicate
@@DMS8410 i mean look at the shear amount of producers and beatmakers today that use the “dilla” time today you would understand its not hard… you need to understand time correct… start there…. There is a lot of songs that are mistaken for dilla….
Thanks for sharing some knowledge man. I do like the multing technique / mixing layered bands- it's handy. One contention of mine though is that some of the producers mentioned did in fact employ the 'low end theory' technique (split bass/highs into two bands) and layer the low end over once again. This comes up around 'low-pass sections' of a lot of these hiphop songs where the top is then filtered but the thickness of the low-end remains. This may be in conjunction with multing as well, but I think it's appropriate to say they did both. What do you think?
as a person making beats since 84, the over analyzation is always funny cuz it was never that deep😂 we just wanted the sounds.. sometimes from back spinning the records for 5-6 minutes.. sometimes from speeding the record up to get it INTO the sampler.. but i digress
Exactly!! We were kids of the Baby Boomers who grew up in the Cold War on everything from James Browm to Crosby Stills and NAsh to LAwrence Welk..we marched in the band and got classical musical training then used the new tools available at the time to express ourselves i a unique way...all this analytical stuff is over the top... you gt kids 30 years later (Kendrick Lamar) trying to imitate what they thought was going on at the time whiel doing it today....they completely miss th epoint...just like every dumb hood rapper wants to be the "new Tupac"..IMPOSSIBLE. Music doesnt stay in one place it moves..the 90s were for the kid sof the 90s!! Just like Disco, Motown, Jazz, Blues belonged to our grandparent and parents..you CANNOT recreate it..and th NEW music comes from 'getting" what the older music was about....Metal came from Rock and Roll with came from Rhythm and Blues with came from the blues wchih came from bluegrass, etc
Wow when I think I remember that I was using cassettes to record the cv to run sequencers you make me feel real old :))))) Just discovered your channels and subscribed. 👍👍👍👍👍👍
@13:00 "Multing" For Millenials, and Gen Z, you will understand this another way: Stems. What AI, and some software, and apps on your phone/tablet do, is what he's describing. That's the basic explanation. Your AI/Apps etc are calculating the precise frequency of each sound and then cutting all the others to make stems. In our time, with the Multing method, we could manipulate those frequencies a little here and there, bring back a little of another frequency to add a different flavor. It's like making a stew, adding a little more of different seasonings to balance out the taste.
Great content! I'm carving for more 'know-how'...Trying to recreate this sound without knowing the process of enhancement and processing is really hard.I come from a small town in Poland...Tried to recreate the sound using chopped drumbreaks on a DAW at the beginning of 2000s...Never even came close...Young naive teenager i was thinking everything will sound FAT warm and dusty...😢
Your right I think sampling really changed hip hop I mean a album like public enemy’s second classic or a 3rd Bass Cactus album probably can’t ever been done. As a producer I can’t help but sample it just something about digging and finding a part in a song you can flip. I think it’s ridiculous how they make sampling so expensive
I'm really glad you mentioned this quantize thing because I saw this very popular and long Dilla analysis on YT that was very pro presented but said nothing for 30 mins other than "he turned off quantize"
I figured out about the MPC drift because my old soundcard had only 1 stereo input and no midi sync. When I would record for mixing, I would add a hi-hat at the beginning of each track in the MPC 2000xl. Then I would individually record the tracks to my DAW in several passes. After recording all the tracks, I would line them all up in my DAW for mixing (using the hi-hat as a guide for lining up the tracks). What I discovered is that the tracks would fall out of sync. I'm not sure your average listener would notice, but if you zoomed in on the waveforms you could see the drift. I eventually bought a new soundcard and now I tend to record all 8 outs at once or midi sync with the soundcard's clock.
90 rap was a drum loop and a sample loop or chopped sampled. Props to Rza for introducing tge sped up vocal chop. That " For Heaven's Sake" was ahead of its time.
did you do any work at Chung king varick street? was interning there around 2006 when ari Raskin was the in-house engineer and Zach Hancock was assisting for Tony Maserati there. Zach also worked for Alycia at her home studio
Thanks for this, Tony! 🔥 video. BTW re coffee machine. I got myself an ECM espresso machine and never looked back, there is nothing more frustrating than a bad coffee machine lol
That bpm drift due to lack of processing power on the MPC is such a revelation. I've found that the inconsistency of timing is what's really getting your head to nod. It's almost like your brain notices that something is off and has to keep track of the pace by itself. The key is to not make it noticeable
I made my first beat in 1999, at age 14. In a sense, everything I had access to sounded kind of crappy, and since most genres did not exist, no one around me understood what it was that I was doing. That was the most important factor back then: if you were making beats, you had to have your own vision of what you were doing. No one else could conceive of it. I remember my friends saying things like, but it sounds like fake drums . . . . , and the only thing anyone could do was laugh and say 'you are not hiphop' or techno sucks. now a days there is no such thing as 'fake drums' and those limited genres that kept everyone in a box
now a days there is fake drums, they are electronic. maybe you don't understand as a drum is an acoustic instrument . a sample is an approximation of that acoustic sound..hence every electronic sample or modulated synth sound IS fake drums by default. The box is where that fake drum sound comes out of ... a band with live musicians playing non quantized / non assisted by computer effects / pitch correction.. is how timeless music is made. Your friends were not wrong but you simply accept that particular processed sound over a real person playing a drum kit.
@PushinButtons- If understanding what real vs fake drums are , renders me 'elite' (to you) ..then so be it Corky the Button Pushing robot ... and what does this equation render you.. I'll tell you - a contrarian moron. Only your shadow loves to argue with you and your baseless input. Cheerio, cornflake! Elite student of the drum , signing off.
... Please make a video talking about your experience with DeVante Swing, his process & your process recording his compositions... I ask as there is still really nothing out there that covers this in great detail. As you will know yourself, DeVante is one of the greatest writers/musical geniuses of our generation/this era... (Ask anyone who has worked with him, or was producing at the time also.. They all mention his greatness).. Please 🙏
I am curious if the "older" MPCs are solid state electronics or analog I know my Yamaha A3000 is SCSI but it appears pretty much wholly digital.. even in 2000 or so the SHARC DSP by analog device became more regular for audio fxs processing.. in fact my Behringer DDX3216 is more or lesss like a 386 or 486 computer with special SHARC DSP Chips. Curious what is actually under the hood on them . I so want to durn the mixer into an actual old style computer with CGA monitor etc.. as the cpu supports CGA output not just LCD. Curious if the MPC are just like 386 computers as even the yahama computers and a lot of keyboards around that time either run like commodore style motorola or 386/486 chips with audio processors for sampling etc.. that level is pretty cool to look into as with some firmware hacking you could probably run a basic dos or commodore like operating system on the older machines.
RZA used an SP1200..You can hear it in WU beat sonics. The old now beat up SP1200 that RZA used was recently up for sale online. It had stripped off painting on it. No labels above the buttons ... I don't know how he managed to use it with the buttons unlabeled. Maybe it was all muscle memory for him.
One more note about samples and Ensoniq Mirage...I started off with the Mirage sampling basslines, kicks and snares 8 bit, and all of those sounds you could load into the EPS/16+/ASR. I still have all of them.
I'll try to keep up with this and get into some more soon, thanks for the engagement.
Why not release a sample pack ? That would be great
@@mustardegg2 go dig for your sounds…
lOVE THIS 90S HIP HOP INSIGHT. WE NEED MORE !!
You don't half talk a lot of shite. You make some good points then just waffle all over them
Nice video. Did you hear the new Premier with Common called "In Moe"
I thought it had a great beat, I would even rank it in his top maybe 40 beats
There is also the new Rakim. He had said in an interview at another time that he produced about 80% of the betas in his his catalog.
The new song is "Be Ill" . It's kind of minimal. Hard to tell if there is any bass on it. It has what sounds like a an old mysterious film soundtrack, a short clip of strings and maybe an oboe, and another sample of a woman singing a couple of notes. Those elements are kind of minimal
The track is mainly a loud boom bap drum beat. It sounds like a very familiar beat but to me it's the best recording of one of these beats I ever heard
and it really swings with funkiness. Am I reading to much into it? Do you think it's just a decent sample but nothing special?
I was thinking maybe he had a drummer play it and looped it. Could it be midi? I don't know enough about production to make a good guess.
The overall beat style, the whole song is typical Rakim, like it could have been form the 90s and he did his usual mystical-ish rapping on it and it also has Korrupt and Masta Killa.
I don;t think it's anything specials for 2024 but it's pretty good as a teaser for the album and the drum sounds great. As you proabal;y know he going to drop and album that's mainly him producing other artists. He says he's an MPC aficionado
Engineers the unsung heroes of 90s hiphop
Absolutely. I used to check credits for engineers in the 80s and 90s. Joe ‘the butcher’ Nicolo, Howie Weinberg , Bob Power and a host of others that I can’t remember, due to my age!
Still are now, especially today the beats are carrying these “rappers”
Engineers are unsung heroes of any thing ever
@@RL-xf2fydude, I came to talk about joe the butcher lol. But yeah, I was doing the same after cypress hill, black Sunday album.
So true, I would love to see some more videos about this.
Considering your background and work experience, I really appreciate your time breaking all this down. In light of all these video's that attempt to demonstrate Dillas' technique. One thing almost none of them mention is the most important thing but you said it, "You dont have Dillas' ear" I salute you for that alone!
much appreciated-tb
I remember buying my first SP1200 it only had 10 seconds of sample time but it was super easy to learn and program in a room full of records the 10 seconds became limitless
Yeah, plus slowing down to time stretch could get a lot out of that 10 seconds.
2:14 great point. Most times, you could tell a RZA, Swiss Beats, Just Blaze, J.Dilla, Q-Tip, Dr. Dre beat from a mile away. Nowadays, nothing is about distinguishing your own sound, separate from the pack. Now, it's all about doing exactly what everyone else is doing. Different used to be respected. Remember the first time hearing Aquemini & being blown away? Nothing does that anymore.
all true...no one ever asked me to make their kick or snare sound just like one of their peers
there was a time when hip hop consisted mostly of "groups" which were made up of the MC(s) as well as a producer(s) and these groups worked together like aband does and as a result the "group" would develop its own sound, or style. imo the abdonment of this format for the "producer for hire" scene that exists today marked a decline in quality for the genre as a whole.
DJ Uneek on those early Bone Thugs beats is something that needs to be studied.
Uneek is very very very underrated to damn near not talked about. He’s in my top 5 producers of the 90s with Organized Noize, T-Mix, Battlecat, and Dj Quick.
Bone Thugs, never copied because they so unique.
WOW cool tip on the LP HP eq to the hat on separate tracks. I almost like that better than recording the separate outs from the MPC but we still could group them and send them to the filtering. We always recorded the MPC on to tape in the 90's (before that SMPTE strip gets weird) and still today to the DAW and work from there. When in LA did you ever work out of A&M, Skip Saylor's or Ground Control in the day?
90a hip hop is like the birth of modern jazz, jazz funk and cool...pioneers expanding and transcending the limits of their knowledge through a limited style of beats and rhymes.
Nowadays it's formulaic pop, it sounds better on terms of sounds but ends up empty.
Great pod!
The way you explain everything makes me learn in such an interested way. Subbed and you gained a huge fan.
great feedback, thanks!
Thanks for the reminder of how special the 90s were in Hip-Hop. Creativity was at an amazing peak for producers back then.
it CANT come back because it was made by different people with different background in a different age group...i dont nderstand this hangup with hip hop...that sliek saying we want "New Wave" to come back...as if Adam Ant, Cyndy Lauper, Duran Duran and Culture Club can becomne 20 years old agin...
music keep smoving..hip hop doesnt exist anymore...just liek my grandad listend to BB King, Huddy Ledbetter, which turned into Little Richard which turned into James Brown for my parents which turned into Donna Sumemr and Disco or Jimmy HEndrix...
you guys need to stop with this trying to recapture the past...music lives in the current of whatever HONEST spirit creates it at the MOMENT...it doesnt stay in one place or even go backward
@@HuChing-ob4kk Is that why The Alchemist is still doing it for kendrick and eminem and they are the hottest right now??? what a dumb take hip-hop will always end with a sample.
@@Allious131 thats not hip hop..that is "flip flop"..in NO TIME in black history has music stayed the same for 30 years
Ha ha, true. Incidentally I took an old track that was mixed with SMPTE chasing, put into Cubase Pro and did tempo mapping. The tempo drift I saw blew my mind. Even old drum machines on their own clock moves around a little.
I have the mpc live 2. It does so many things that don’t interest me but it does one thing I love and that is chopping music into beats. I’m a total novice but I feel that after playing music and playing in bands for 30 plus years, this creativity still inspires me.
Learn it, it’s worth it. Trust me. Watch Tubedigga vids
Oh wait till you have it longer and learn it. It’s the best piece of gear/most versatile piece of gear I’ve ever owned. Been doing this for almost 15 years, have had every groove box, multiple synths, daws etc etc. The Live 2 is a grossly underrated swiss army knife. I have finished full songs with vocals on it that sound amazing. And Akai keeps updating it unlike Native Instruments (dead company)
I started as a sample based beat maker in 2011, and will ALWAYS make sample based beats until my last breath. I'm not letting legalities scare me away from creating something different out of original compositions
Don't worry bruh The Alchemist and all those producers are still doing it, and kendrick lamar is the hottest right now and his major song they not like us was a sample hell all his songs are mostly samples this is stupid.
I remember one of the old engineers at recording school talking about all this stuff. But it wasn't in class, just an off the cuff conversation in the hallway. I feel like I learned more techniques and tricks from over hearing this guy reminisce than any of the actual classes. Specifically processing drums through the console and using the tone generator to add a sine wave sub-bass to kicks. printing Time code to tape may be less relevant now but knowing about how it works is so important especially when understanding how many things where designed to sync . Thanks for keeping this kind of knowledge out there. The "lore" is important and informative.
13:24 I STILL do this. Not with the tech from the 90s but I will often times take my sample I am using and do exactly what you described here. So funny that this is just a known technique that people have done forever now. Glad i stumbled onto your channel.
Yes, nudging was done to add feel, but many samples weren't sampled cleanly, and any extra space before a sample's initial transient would change a sample's timing. It's virtually impossible to edit samples cleanly on most samplers before the mid-90s, as few provided visual waveform representation.
Also, the resolutions of low sample rate samples are low. So, there is no capacity for truly fine-pitch sample editing.
you hit some key points...I'll attempt to get into them in the future vids. thanks. tb
This isn’t true … at all i chop on a dime beat in my 60 no pops or clicks … you should use one some time and same with an sp1200
To get right on the sample start point, I would drop the sample a couple octaves, tweak start point, and listen for the pop. A pain, but it worked.
@@mikemeengs5720 or you could hit record as the sample begins
Damn I had no idea that the MPC had 96 pulses per quarter note. Thanks for taking the time to upload this and share the knowledge. Amazing.
The new ones have 96 or you can set it to have 960. So the old school way or much more resolution.
Personally (it may be a mental myth)
I think that Roger programmed something other than swing and PPQ that became the distinguishing difference in the MPC.
Other sequencers had 96 pulses per quarter note but….
I always thought it had something to do with how he programmed the accent on the “1” for the metronome. It pushed harder than the others.
Was a bit louder.
Perhaps it leaked into the sequence itself.
Pushing the swing and making it more pronounced.
Something made me identify a song using an MP as soon as I heard it in a studio.
It just had balls.
This is real knowledge from an actual professional. Earned a sub.
do not take tips from this guy, hahaha
What?? 😂
@@ambreakupsI am listening to this guy and he is making up shiii..
@@knos360 he was "in the studio" with them. god damn it, this whole video is bullshit, i wish i didn't comment. Don't @ me.
Glad to have found this! There is another guy that used a Stethoscope to say Hardware is alive, though I can’t seem find that channel.
Always wondered or the break drops where done programmatically in the sequencer or muting the channels on the console.
on the desk...coming soon I'll talk about it
This was great! More hip hop talk please
I know he is successful, but Swizz Beatz tracks just don't do it for me, except for some of the DMX stuff. Tried listening to the LOX second album ( we are the streets)and them beats are Casio keyboard sounding and have not aged well at all. Thin and weak dollar shop sound
He has a unique style, technique...I can't disagree, but the winners write the history books.
Roland jv2080
@@raypeakes4600 I guess you know the story of someone who sampled the trumpet demo? Swizz used MPC, Trinity and 2080...maybe 1080 too. He had an odd way of sampling
@@TonyBlackNYC I was surprised when I bought my JV that the audition loop was a swizz beats banger. That's the sign of a great piece of inspiration
@@raypeakes4600 thats not really the way it went down...its quite a story, look into it.
let me know if you find out.
mindblown... never new that about the MPC with it not being able to keep perfect time. Was that just the 60 and 3000 or did you ever test a 2000 or XL?
I don't think 2000's were out yet. I would guess they're the same.
You said like Akai MPC 60
Congrats Tony B 😊🎉🎈 🥳
it could make me blush
Love your channel Tony B I found you on EA SKI live !🙏🏾💥💥💥
Great video, I appreciate your insight. I've read that Paul's Boutique would lose around 20 million if it was made today factoring in the cost of the over 100 samples having to be cleared. I understand they did clear the samples back then (eventually) but the cost was much lower at the time, around $250,000. Subbed.
A lot of those beats were Dust brothers beats that were going to be released as a stand alone project. The Beasties heard the album before release and asked to use them on Paul Boutique.
@@yankees29he's not talking about beats, he's talking about straight samples from other older records.
Great conversation! Thank you!
These details inspire doing some tinkering rewiring re-recording to get something beefy. Priceless first hand inside information...thanks for sharing!
Something interesting about the SP1200 is that the sequencer resolution is 24ppq so even in “hi-res” mode (quantize off) your beats are actually being quantized to 1/64th triplet notes.
that makes sense because the sp1200 does have a rigid feel to the beats, I always thought that. I got to witness Easy Mo B rock that machine a few times. It always felt like nothing was happening, until he said "I'm ready to track this now"...and he hit play, and BOOM
Shiid do you need more than 1/32nd triplet tho you can get super funky just on 1/16tg grids like it not hard to make it seem as if…. Its called 16 levels and alternating different sections of of a drumbreak…. I know im giving free game but swinging a beat is so easy man its crazy when i hear how people talk about dilla programming… he was and is a goat but alot of people easily bit his style it wasnt hard to replicate
He was kinda pissed by 98-2000 that alot of people caught on… thats why dilla had a period of no samples or breaks because people were either actively listening or people was eavesdropping when he made beats
Love this, awesome video with a lot of great insights- but to one specific point, we need to do away with the myth that J-Dilla's signature drum style comes from just turning quantize off + natural fluctuation. Once Akai (cough cough Roger Linn) added timing control- nudging, swing, quantize, etc- for each individual note and/or track, Dilla used these features extensively to create variation in rhythm between the snare, kick, hat, etc, in a way that people hadn't before. Earlier stuff may have been unquantized playing (like Runnin by Pharcyde, which is an amazing beat) but the later unique "drunken swing" that many refer to when talking about Dilla was often a result of extensive use of the MPC's new timing modification features to create microrhythm- so, essentially the opposite of not using timing correction/modification features like many claim.
To the point made here about Dilla being able to create amazing beats on the SP1200 or any other early sampler, that's obviously true (he did) and as mentioned, he had a great ear (better than most, depending on who you ask). However, there were specific features of the MPC at that time that were utilized by Dilla to create drum patterns in a way that other machines, in a purely technical sense, could not. There's a book about this, as well as many other great explanations and analysis people have made- like Questlove (drummer for the Roots), who has some great stuff about how he tried to relearn actual drumming in that style. The author of said book, though, did a pretty good article with Pitchfork that touches on it as quick high-level summary:
pitchfork.com/features/article/the-obscure-j-dilla-beat-tape-that-changed-music-forever/
Obviously that's a very small part of the video here overall though. Cheers and thanks for sharing all this knowledge
Very interesting Tony thanks. As a UK House, Garage, rave, breakbeat and techno producer back in the 90's ( with some Hip Hop ) we're now examining the same thing now and asking why a lot of dance music beats sounds kinda ploddy in comparison now. There's a whole can of worms as to why but one thing that came up time and time again was the use of Atari 1040's and especially Notator which is still considered super tight. The Atari had midi built right into the mother board though and had one job as a computer to run the current software. ( I personally used the W30 which is an MC500 with a 12bit sampler attached as did a lot of "rave" producers in the early 90's ). Anyway I could talk about this all day but nice to see that others are nerding out on this too ;)
Thanks for the insight Tony! Love all the Mixing, Mastering, Quantization, Sample usage, Hard Work, HOURS spent, etc that yall used and continue to use to make the magic happen. God Bless! 🙏 for more cups of coffee coming your way!
You popped up in my feed today.awesome.subscribed.
can we get a pt 2 of this process as you do it?
You’re so right about the “drift” of the 60/3K.
But I never knew why.
Even “stiff” songs like Mary J/ Dr Dre “Family Affair” had live feel movement. (3K).
You’d have to listen to the whole song to notice it.
There were times when I’d be driving when it would dawn on me….
“That’s an MPC!”
Out of nowhere.
So subtle.
Hey, I wonder what the human brain’s timing resolution is set to?
Ray Charles could detect the slightest “drift” in his band and would get pissed off when it missed.
James Brown also.
I kinda have that sensitivity.
You can keep your notes.
If the timing ain’t right you failed 😂.
So drum machines? Love at first listen.
As far back as Sly Stones family affair.
James Brown wasn't on that level, he just made shit up to mess with the band so they'd feel like they were under his thumb at all times. Bootsy Collins has said that when they played their best shows, James would still make up some negative BS about 'how things went tonight' just to make himself feel like 'the boss'. He didn't know anything about arrangements any more than whether he liked what he was hearing or not.
great chat! thank you for the breakdown, some of these over generalised “how someone made a legendary beat” have so many holes in their theories. It’s nice to hear from someone who was in the room.
Hi Tony! You talk about the Multing. I think you also made a vido where you demonstrate it, but I cant find it anymore - is it taken down?
I think it is the "how to obliterate a beat..."
Thank you for some of the gems you dropped. There is a lot ideas of how to do sound design and tape saturation to enhance sounds!
„Molding“…Dude that’s some pretty powerful info! Thanks for that! I think this technique would be the answer to a ton of people’s questions about „the 90s sound of Hip Hop“.
its "multing" but my pronounciation could be to blame...thanks.
@@TonyBlackNYC 🤣 thanks anyways
@@TonyBlackNYCthere was a lot of filtering being done on the Akai samplers, it was a very popular technique, you can hear the Akai filter sound on so many records. Of course Multing was part of hip hop production, probably more for bigger artists in bigger studios, it wasn't the only way to achieve that sound. Loved your video btw, subbed now.
Love this guy! On point with the drifting. Akai vs Roland. Great video.!
The one 90's hip hop sound that is almost impossible to replicate through plug-ins or modern drum machines/samplers is the Akai S950 (same sampling engine as the 60-2) midi to an E-MU SP1200. Sampled off the vinyl at 45 RPM's (sped up), and then time stretched or pitched down in the S950 would create a ring mod like effect, and it was especially even more present when you would adjust the tone and channel filters on the SP1200.
Some very good examples of this type of sound production were Nick Wiz, Pete Rock and Lord Finesse. I've tried to replicate this sound on my Emax SE and my Isla S2400, even recording to DAT but still can't quite achieve that very distinct ring mod sound of that particular sampling chain.
At the end of the day technology itself can only do but so much. You still have to have a good ear and a good touch to do what those guys that he spoke about actually did. He was the other guy in the room. Im betting he's knws all of those guys little tricks and secrets. Tony would probably be a really dope producer himself if he wanted with all of that knowledge he accumulated working with the best in the game for all those years. I salute you sir!!
it was the influence of jazz vibes, jazz grooves and jazz samples that made the 1990s for Hiphop so good, Jazz music is the Usa most famous music around the world. Hiphop producers rediscovered it again and inserted into the hiphop program
as a guy who plays jazz, i'm grateful for hip hop bringing those sounds and chords back to pop music.
@@jimmythebold589 just listen to the albums from the group called A Tribe called Quest...Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders.... for starters...
I have a question please Tony 😀. With all the resampling, processing and AD/DA conversion did the extra ‘noise’ or ‘distortion’ add to the character of the samples and production or take away from it? If you do all the same techniques in the box can you still achieve the same result or is it a more modern version?
Love the points how the timing of the drum machines and mpcs would slightly drift, might test my old QY700 to see if it does the same thing! I wonder if someone has done a PhD on all this, so interesting! Thanks as always for your videos and insights!
The real answer is that everything has a cause and effect...yes, you can achieve it with modern tools but it does take some expertise, knowledge and experimenting. thx!
@@TonyBlackNYC thanks for the reply! I thought so, it’s like creating an amazing meal and finding the right balance of flavors and spices etc. Every chef does it differently but so amazing to see and hear how you cook up a production 🙏
Instant sub! Keep these vids up Tony, some of us need these discussions/lessons!
Thanks for the insight. The best tip for me was right at the end. Producers would ask for a DAT of the kicks and snares after all of the processing and they become "the next generation" of samples for their next track. And each generation they get fatter or snappier. I will be using this method for sure. Thanks again !
Thanks for explaining the mult's process.
it seems like I might have to get into it a bit more...it was a big part of things for sure.
Loved hearing your knowledge
And nice tip at the end
Fantastic video, my man! Eye-opening, for sure.
Re: where drums sounds were sourced from -- you're, right of course. In my area, every producer was on their own to find drum breaks/hits (from vinyl) BUT... the "Ultimate Breaks and Beats" series ran from 86-91.
I assume that, at the time, if you were (more) connected you would have had access to all those juicy breaks... on vinyl or a second-hand cassette.
I’ve been producing hiphop for over 25 years and parts of this just blew my mind. Thanks Tony!
P.S - Krups were great consumer coffee machines 20 years ago. Buy a cheap Ranchillio Siliva and learn to cycle, you won’t regret it.
I'll check out the Siliva
@@TonyBlackNYC I recommend buying an older (used, non digital) reconditioned model for cheap. Silvia’s seem to be going through the same analogue/digital transition that audio gear did back in the day.
Ranchillio are like the SSL of coffee machines and the old Silvia’s are like if SSL released a consumer model back in the 90s/early 2000s (get to know the quirks, make classics).
Pair it with a doserless rocky grinder and you got two solid bits of kit for your daily brew (buy used with new burrs and replace them in 15 years, haha).
Learn/treat these machines like audio gear and you’ll have friends knocking for brews man!
For fun, google Rancillio z9 (the eagle) for some coffee gear porn, haha. The best, and cheapest, coffee I had in Italy was pulled on one of these machines!
The Coffee tech and audio tech evolution is so similar. I think you’ll really enjoy this new journey mate!, enjoy and good luck!
I don't know what happened in the last 10-15 years but the coffee machine industry has been cutting MAJOR corners. It's absolutely ASTOUNDING how terrible modern coffee machines are. The old Cuisinart ones from the earlier 2000s are built like tanks. One of the biggest regrets in my life was ditching my old one for something new, Thanks for the pro tip, I'll keep my eyes peeled in the thrilft shops ;)
"Well, I don't use quantizing" circle jerking dates back to the 80's when I began getting into music as a young teen. And to this day I'm still like...."I don't care; congratulations."
Your right bro used to use the sp when it was first released up until early 2000s and with the quantize off it wasn't truly off you could feel it was still on a high res grid
RZA produced all the instrumentals for Wu-tang Clan's debut album on the SP1200. The unit recently sold at an auction for about 70 grand USD
I heard about that...amazing. I worked with him in 96. Definitely had an MPC and a 1200...and ADAT, cassette, etc
In his book he explained that he also used the ASR-10
I had the MPC60 and produced some RAP groups here in Brazil...
...too much struggle for too little money involved...
...I still love the thing but my MPC60 was gone 20 years ago on trash...
...with the S950...
Great devices but I couldn't get the good sounding I expected at that moment...
...maybe I could do that thing work properly in the virtual everything era we're witnessing...
Loving your videos, Tony!
Thank you very much for sharing these (gold) nuggets
Once you dive in to the MPC3000’s ‘timing correct’ settings you can find the right way to nudge your kicks and snares and get that “Dilla” timing.
This is why the dilla time book was full of shit and i told people to read it with a grain of salt … dilla quantized … i know this because i own a 60 with a 3000 brain and “dilla” time is easy to replicate
Most people who buy vintage gear have 0 idea how to use it or even tuff it out and learn
@@Darie2006 can you show an example of that? Show how is easy to replicate Dilla? Thanks
@@DMS8410 i mean look at the shear amount of producers and beatmakers today that use the “dilla” time today you would understand its not hard… you need to understand time correct… start there…. There is a lot of songs that are mistaken for dilla….
Thanks for sharing some knowledge man. I do like the multing technique / mixing layered bands- it's handy. One contention of mine though is that some of the producers mentioned did in fact employ the 'low end theory' technique (split bass/highs into two bands) and layer the low end over once again. This comes up around 'low-pass sections' of a lot of these hiphop songs where the top is then filtered but the thickness of the low-end remains. This may be in conjunction with multing as well, but I think it's appropriate to say they did both. What do you think?
I think you're on to something with this drift theory
it is nerdy, but in a musical way, it makes perfect sense. I'm going to do a little more about the MPC again soon.
We need more of these 90s Hip-Hop breakdown videos!
as a person making beats since 84, the over analyzation is always funny cuz it was never that deep😂 we just wanted the sounds.. sometimes from back spinning the records for 5-6 minutes.. sometimes from speeding the record up to get it INTO the sampler.. but i digress
Exactly!! We were kids of the Baby Boomers who grew up in the Cold War on everything from James Browm to Crosby Stills and NAsh to LAwrence Welk..we marched in the band and got classical musical training then used the new tools available at the time to express ourselves i a unique way...all this analytical stuff is over the top...
you gt kids 30 years later (Kendrick Lamar) trying to imitate what they thought was going on at the time whiel doing it today....they completely miss th epoint...just like every dumb hood rapper wants to be the "new Tupac"..IMPOSSIBLE.
Music doesnt stay in one place it moves..the 90s were for the kid sof the 90s!! Just like Disco, Motown, Jazz, Blues belonged to our grandparent and parents..you CANNOT recreate it..and th NEW music comes from 'getting" what the older music was about....Metal came from Rock and Roll with came from Rhythm and Blues with came from the blues wchih came from bluegrass, etc
I play live instruments, guitar, bass, Mandolin etc in my music on the MPC it keeps things organic I find
Great video - thanks for sharing all this info from the GOLDEN ERA!
I’m hitting the subscribe button! Please keep sharing the knowledge and stories!
high-value content. thank you for uploading.
Wow when I think I remember that I was using cassettes to record the cv to run sequencers you make me feel real old :)))))
Just discovered your channels and subscribed. 👍👍👍👍👍👍
@13:00 "Multing" For Millenials, and Gen Z, you will understand this another way: Stems. What AI, and some software, and apps on your phone/tablet do, is what he's describing. That's the basic explanation. Your AI/Apps etc are calculating the precise frequency of each sound and then cutting all the others to make stems. In our time, with the Multing method, we could manipulate those frequencies a little here and there, bring back a little of another frequency to add a different flavor. It's like making a stew, adding a little more of different seasonings to balance out the taste.
interesting translation
@@TonyBlackNYC Thanks! I did it sometimes, but I saw it done a whole lot. (I'm 48 and got my start in LA)
Great content! I'm carving for more 'know-how'...Trying to recreate this sound without knowing the process of enhancement and processing is really hard.I come from a small town in Poland...Tried to recreate the sound using chopped drumbreaks on a DAW at the beginning of 2000s...Never even came close...Young naive teenager i was thinking everything will sound FAT warm and dusty...😢
Your right I think sampling really changed hip hop I mean a album like public enemy’s second classic or a 3rd Bass Cactus album probably can’t ever been done. As a producer I can’t help but sample it just something about digging and finding a part in a song you can flip. I think it’s ridiculous how they make sampling so expensive
Hey Tony, what are your thoughts on the resurgence of the cassette tape as a viable medium for music to mainstream audiences?
not a believer
I'm really glad you mentioned this quantize thing because I saw this very popular and long Dilla analysis on YT that was very pro presented but said nothing for 30 mins other than "he turned off quantize"
Damn, he answers all the questions i had since 20 years making Beats!
To keep this video really short and straight to the point.
MPC60/3000 Had Roger Linn swing timing.
I figured out about the MPC drift because my old soundcard had only 1 stereo input and no midi sync. When I would record for mixing, I would add a hi-hat at the beginning of each track in the MPC 2000xl. Then I would individually record the tracks to my DAW in several passes. After recording all the tracks, I would line them all up in my DAW for mixing (using the hi-hat as a guide for lining up the tracks). What I discovered is that the tracks would fall out of sync. I'm not sure your average listener would notice, but if you zoomed in on the waveforms you could see the drift.
I eventually bought a new soundcard and now I tend to record all 8 outs at once or midi sync with the soundcard's clock.
90 rap was a drum loop and a sample loop or chopped sampled. Props to Rza for introducing tge sped up vocal chop. That " For Heaven's Sake" was ahead of its time.
Rza always had a guitar sample looped into his earlier beats. Sick
did you do any work at Chung king varick street? was interning there around 2006 when ari Raskin was the in-house engineer and Zach Hancock was assisting for Tony Maserati there. Zach also worked for Alycia at her home studio
never went through chung king...I know Tony of course, good dude.
Thanks for this, Tony! 🔥 video.
BTW re coffee machine. I got myself an ECM espresso machine and never looked back, there is nothing more frustrating than a bad coffee machine lol
Roland TR 909 drifts like crazy via midi beat clock.
Did you ever work at Dajelon in Rochester?
No I did not.
@@TonyBlackNYC thanks for getting back to me
That bpm drift due to lack of processing power on the MPC is such a revelation. I've found that the inconsistency of timing is what's really getting your head to nod. It's almost like your brain notices that something is off and has to keep track of the pace by itself. The key is to not make it noticeable
this is gold. thank you so much for sharing.
Wish you to hear your story about Devante Swing. How you and him worked on making music and so on.
I made my first beat in 1999, at age 14. In a sense, everything I had access to sounded kind of crappy, and since most genres did not exist, no one around me understood what it was that I was doing. That was the most important factor back then: if you were making beats, you had to have your own vision of what you were doing. No one else could conceive of it. I remember my friends saying things like, but it sounds like fake drums . . . . , and the only thing anyone could do was laugh and say 'you are not hiphop' or techno sucks. now a days there is no such thing as 'fake drums' and those limited genres that kept everyone in a box
now a days there is fake drums, they are electronic. maybe you don't understand as a drum is an acoustic instrument . a sample is an approximation of that acoustic sound..hence every electronic sample or modulated synth sound IS fake drums by default. The box is where that fake drum sound comes out of ... a band with live musicians playing non quantized / non assisted by computer effects / pitch correction.. is how timeless music is made. Your friends were not wrong but you simply accept that particular processed sound over a real person playing a drum kit.
@PushinButtons- If understanding what real vs fake drums are , renders me 'elite' (to you) ..then so be it Corky the Button Pushing robot ... and what does this equation render you.. I'll tell you - a contrarian moron. Only your shadow loves to argue with you and your baseless input. Cheerio, cornflake! Elite student of the drum , signing off.
@PushinButtons- he is just dumb..ignore him. Some guys get a little bit of knowledge without a REAL connection to the "art" and act like @ssholes
A good example of that jump in resolution technology (96 vs 480 per quarter note) can be seen between the Yamaha QY70 and the QY100 mobile sequencers.
Dope video. Subscribed💯
Great stuff Tony Black! Good to see this.
I know you! thanks!
@@TonyBlackNYCYes! You do know me and I you😂! Man so good to see you making these insights available to people who love the music creation process!
Can we use some technic to get that feeling?
loved this
... Please make a video talking about your experience with DeVante Swing, his process & your process recording his compositions...
I ask as there is still really nothing out there that covers this in great detail.
As you will know yourself, DeVante is one of the greatest writers/musical geniuses of our generation/this era... (Ask anyone who has worked with him, or was producing at the time also.. They all mention his greatness)..
Please
🙏
Yesss!
Such insight into the process of classic beat making and also a coffee machine review.
the akai s950 sampler had its part to play in 90s hip hip music as well
dont leave this little bad boy out of the picture with its amazing filters
Yeah my understanding was a lotta cats used the LPF on the S900/S950 to get filtered-out basslines
@@r-omega thats right
you still my hero Tony! what was that Exciter box again on the masterbus? BBE?
behringer edison
I am curious if the "older" MPCs are solid state electronics or analog I know my Yamaha A3000 is SCSI but it appears pretty much wholly digital.. even in 2000 or so the SHARC DSP by analog device became more regular for audio fxs processing.. in fact my Behringer DDX3216 is more or lesss like a 386 or 486 computer with special SHARC DSP Chips. Curious what is actually under the hood on them . I so want to durn the mixer into an actual old style computer with CGA monitor etc.. as the cpu supports CGA output not just LCD. Curious if the MPC are just like 386 computers as even the yahama computers and a lot of keyboards around that time either run like commodore style motorola or 386/486 chips with audio processors for sampling etc.. that level is pretty cool to look into as with some firmware hacking you could probably run a basic dos or commodore like operating system on the older machines.
Great insights thank you!
RZA used an SP1200..You can hear it in WU beat sonics. The old now beat up SP1200 that RZA used was recently up for sale online. It had stripped off painting on it. No labels above the buttons ... I don't know how he managed to use it with the buttons unlabeled. Maybe it was all muscle memory for him.
most of the 90s wu stuff is asr-10. from 36 chambers through '96 or '97 at least
@@wigmaster7894 RZA drums sound nothing like an ASR
@@FC-xc3zy rza said this himself in several interviews you can look it up. but maybe he did the drums on akai/emu and samples in the asr
@@wigmaster7894Drums on SP 1200 and samples on ASR10/Akai 900 that's how it usually works
From RZA's book, he used an ASR-10 on Enter the Wu-Tang and used an SP-1200 on Tical, that's fact.
Very interesting to hear about how the quantization even if turned off , will still exist to some extent
anything that is "looping" is quantized to some extent.
One more note about samples and Ensoniq Mirage...I started off with the Mirage sampling basslines, kicks and snares 8 bit, and all of those sounds you could load into the EPS/16+/ASR. I still have all of them.
Sampling ain't dead! Just less prevalent in the mainstream. All the best hop hop has been underground anyways
FL Studio has 960 ppq but the default is set to 96 so you have to go into the settings to change it.
Some great insight here. Especially the recording/mix processes. Thanks for sharing