I was going through some of my files and found this little hip hop beat I did about 2 years ago.

It is an original beat, played on the Genesys and recorded using the wave recorder on the Genesys.

Here is the link. http://download.yousendit.com/08D483195E3F4706

Are you asking what we think?

chas

Interesting beat. How much of it is "preset" specific to the Genesys?

Squeak

Took a quick listen......I'd love to hear a finished product using this beat.....what are you doing with it?

Thanx for sharing

All of the sounds are specific to the Genesys. There were no samples or external sounds in this beat.
The string sound I tweaked just a little bit with a quick sound edit. And of course I had reverb chorus and eq on some of the sounds.

Also, I neglected to mention that the bass drum is very low and may not come through on speakers that don’t have subs.

I have had a few people rap and do reggae on this beat (I need to record them).
Fortunately or Unfortunately, I myself don’t (can’t) rap.
If I were to have some one doing something on the beat, I would then mute tracks at certain times (beats/measures) during the song so that everything is not playing all throughout the whole song.

It's a cool beat, and my Mackie HR824's certainly made the room boom with the bass!

But it kind of makes me sad to see how little is needed, in the way of 'music', to make a hiphop song. I know it's an old fogey thing, but I am disappointed the way that this music has developed (or rather, devolved) to the point of minimalism in the music parts. Yes, layer 16 tracks of some girl doing old Aretha Franklin licks on top, and some thug rapping about 'nappy headed ho's', or whatever else they can sing about without getting fired (like poor old Don Imus) or censored by CBS (who profit enormously from gangsta rap artists on their label with FAR worse potty mouths), and you might have a hit.. But it still annoys me that THIS is what has come to rule the charts.

It's not that I don't like the music (at times!), but it gives me so little to actually play!

Yes sad but true. And also the use of traditional instruments be comes less and less. Once you can use a computer and have an imagination then you are on your way to beat making. That is not bad if it makes some people happy. But lets hope that our arrangers do not take that road.

Then I must be the oldest of the old fogeys because, hard as I try, I just can't get my head around it or am able to see any musical value in it. It can't be a race thing since I'm Black (I think it's a musical thing since I'm a musician).

The only Rap/HipHop (not sure what the difference is) song that I've liked was Gangsta Paradise (Coolio??) and that had a lot to do with the background vocals. I'm pretty sure it involved some Stevie Wonder samples as well.

However, as a musician, I can still recognize that there is still "good" and "bad" in every genre', including HipHop. For instance, if that inate rythym ain't there, you can probably forget about "making beats" or producing good hiphop tracks. I suppose Rap is some kind of basic poetic form but the music behind it is purely rythmical (as opposed to strong musical structure and content). However, I am admittedly musically ignorant in this area and am more than willing to be 'educated' in case I'm missing something.

As far as using the Genesis for hiphop, I'd say stick to the Akai MPC's and save the Genesis for Schlager.

chas

You gotta understand something though. Yes, Hip Hop's strength is often in the "simplicity" of the beats. However, just because the beat is "simple" doesn't mean it's simple to write either. That's what's so freakin hard about writing Hip Hop sometimes. The saying "less is more" clearly applies to it, but trying to make a modern catchy beat by the guidelines of "less is more" can get very hard to do.

Creating good Hip Hop can take a great deal of creativity. You need to make a beat that stands out from the rest, you must know how to edit and tweek voices and have a good grasp on sampling. So many people just associate Hip Hop with sampling everything and no real work goes into creating it. That assumption is so far from the truth.

Hip Hop has come a long way over the years. This is a style of music that changes by the day. You could rip out a tight beat at 12 noon today, and by 12 noon the next day that beat is already o'l school I've said this many times on this forum. "Writing CHEESE-HOP is much easier than writing Hip Hop". I did a lot of Hip Hop when my wife and I were just dating in college and both living on campus. It was a lot of work, and wasn't easy. There's a lot more to it than just the beat itself. There are many other factors that play into the completion of the song. If anyone here thinks that Hip Hop is a talentless and easy as pie style of music, I say you're sorely mistaken. There's so much more to it that often does not gets discussed here, such as where to apply the breaks, vocal effects, background vocals and effects that apply to them, re-sampling the beat and slicing it or using auto-chop to get different variations of the same beat,.... the list just goes on........... I've posted a few Hip Hop beats here, but those are just beats. If I was to use those for a complete composition the "beat" itself is a just small fraction of the completed work.

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 04-30-2007).]

I hear you, Squeak, and I do believe that putting out quality hiphop does involve all the processes you described plus a goodly amount of talent.....but.....isn't one criteria of "good" music is that it stands the test of time. I mean, 'Funny Valentine' is going to be a great tune 100 years from now as will Beethoven's "5th" as will Joe Cocker's 'You are so Beautiful' as will Monk's 'round midnight' as will Bing Crosby's 'white christmas' as will Lennon's 'Imagine' as will Ravel's 'Bolero'. It may not be your cup of tea but they all have that one thing (longevity) in common. If something is going to be considered dated after such a brief duration, is it any wonder that we question it's (musical) value?

chas



[This message has been edited by cgiles (edited 04-30-2007).]

It's not just some Hip Hop songs that may not stand the "test of time". That applies to all genres of music. There are "one hit wonders" in all styles of music. As we're all getting older whether we like it or not we're turning into our parents when it comes to music

The many styles of music today are changing. I know that my little girl will eventually laugh at what I listen to, and I'm sure I'm going to hear tunes down the road that she loves that will have me plugging my ears.

Squeak

All very good points. While some hip hop beats are less is more, there are others that require some musical know how. And at the end of the day with hip hop and any other type of music, it is the production that makes the difference. That is how do you put everything together to make it sound good and poleasing to the intended market.

Like the kids on the old Dick Clark American Bandstand used to say..."Got a nice beat...good to dance to".

In some markets, that's the primary requirement.

Chas....very good observations about timeless melodies across the spectrum. Speaks well of your in-depth knowledge of music history and major players/writers and milestones.


Also, I REALLY appreciate the reasoned approach every person who posted here took. It could easily have "gone south" .


Good work, folks!


Russ

well for my 2cents, it isn't hip-hop, and r+b today, well it isn't r+b...those who know, will know what i am saying, and thats all im saying.
dennis

Did I miss something?

Talk about standing the test of time, though.... I remember hearing very early hiphop, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, etc. in the late 70's, early 80's, and no-one thought it would last the decade. Yet here we are, nearly thirty years later, and it's dominance continues to grow. Very few jazz styles lasted in the marketplace that long... even swing, or bigband.

It's not that I don't like some of the music, although like many I worry about the ethics behind a lot of gangsta lyrics (and why on earth ANY woman would want to shake her booty to such misogynous tunes beats me... You've come a long way, baby!), but it seems to be an un-performable music for most musicians. The beat is primary, but rarely reproducible without sampling, and the main content on the top is not a lot of music, but multi-layered vocals and rapping. Good for the singers and rappers, but it leaves the poor keyboard player with little to play other that triggering loops.

Perfect for DJ's (after all, they invented it!) but for the live musician not a whole lot of MUSICAL challenge... Lots of technical ones, but little to PLAY...

...which begs the question; what do Hiphop consumers buy the records for, the music or the lyrics? If it's the lyrics, then how important is it to "make beats"? Maybe you'd be better off pumping out rap lyrics. Seriously, which would do better in the marketplace, a great (hiphop) beat (and background) and lousy (hiphop) lyrics or the opposite? Do the two ever come together (an example, please)? I don't hate all hiphop music, just the "put your hands in the air...." type. Of course, I feel the same way about 80% of Rock and 95% of Country. But that's just personal taste on my part, it doesn't mean that there aren't some "sweet spots" in all of those genre's. It's just that I have to wade through too much s--t to get to them. There is not a single genre of music that doesn't have at least a couple of songs that I absolutely love (well maybe not schlager ), but in almost every case it's not usually representative of the genre and is classified that way because of who's performing it. As much as I might love and admire say McCoy Tyner, I also love Willie Nelson, right down to his pot-smoking, womanizing image (it's like and honesty that says, "hey, I am who I am").

I have no idea where I was going with this (old age does that ) so I'll turn it back to the HipHop experts. Diki, you there?

chas

Please.... don't label me an 'expert'!

It's just one of the styles we occasionally have to deal with at the studio, and there are others there FAR more knowledgeable than me. I just try to have a very open attitude about what I listen to, and if it makes my butt move, that's good enough for me!

The hardest thing we have to deal with as older musicians (I'm 51) is the patience to wade through the rivers of cr*p music to find the nuggets of gold. I don't believe that river is any deeper or flows any faster than it did in our youth, but our tastes weren't as finalized by then, and we just listened to everything and made our minds up afterwards. It is MUCH harder, now we have an idea about what we like and dislike, to listen as extensively (especially as now we have satellite and iPods, where you can choose what you listen to [and NOT listen to!]) as we used to.

To not get 'generation gapped' into irrelevance, you almost have to FORCE yourself to listen to general radio, warts and all. Or you NEVER get to hear the new, good stuff until it is SO mainstream, it's practically passé...