So, here's a little about me and shit I been feeling recently.

So, first off, I'm an MPC nut, like, something crazy. Currently own a MPC 2KXL, but, had a chance to really put in some work on a 1000 from Summer 0f '07 to March of '08. That JJ OS makes that thing a beast. It's a cot damn shame that Akai is pussyfooting it on the development of their own OS. At this point, it kind of seems to me that they're happy that someone else is doing their work. But, let those cats from JJ OS truly get enterprising and decided to release a software version of the OS. Suddenly, cease and desist orders will flood their inboxes.. Way of the world, eh?

Anyway, as you can tell from the music that suddenly comes blaring through your headphones or speakers whenever you enter my page, I'm an aspiring producer. A little history behind some of the beats, you say? Why not...

Dillishis was kind of my tribute to Dilla without really aping his style. I kind of just poured my emotions into that one and that's what came out. That man truly changed my life since the first time I heard one of his productions, which was on the Pharcyde's "Runnin", followed shortly thereafter by Tribe's 1nce Again. Been hooked ever since.

Be Tough was me just trying to utilize this sample that I had sitting around for the longest (probably since like 2005). My original intent was to make this really 808 heavy, down south type of beat but with the ill vocal sample throughout. Needless to say, it didn't come out that way. But, maybe one day I will decide to "remix" it and get more closer to my original vision. I guess you could say that beat is the closest thing I have up that's "hip-hop".

I started as strictly hip hop but then this "electrocrunk" (the name I created for my type of music) just started coming out whenever I touched the keys. I'm trying really hard to get back into hip hop but it's kind of hard to get "reacquainted" with the sparseness that hip hop music entails. Not that I'm knocking it or anything, cause it still is the largest portion of my listening diet, but, it's just difficult. I want to add a synth here and some strings there EVERYTIME. ARRRGGHHHHH.

Funny story: I posted a link to some of my tracks over at the Crate Kings forum, and , what was the first thing most of the cats replied: "Why don't you make some hip hop; What's up with this electro stuff?; Where's the filtered samples?" You know, the prototypical closed-minded hip hop listener response. Dudes really need to raise up off that shit. I don't know when was the last time they saw Jel or El-P top the charts or go gold, but, they seem to think that stuff is God's gift to hip hop. And, don't get me wrong, I love that stuff. I listen to it way more than I do stuff like Akon or Souljaboy, but, that type of hip hop is very limited in the ears it will touch.

Electrocrunk is just some other shit. I knew this chick who was on this French comp and she let me hold the cd for a bit. I came across the ill sample and decide to freak it a bit. Since the beat had some much going on in it already (melodically), I decide to just append drums. Came out pretty ill, I think.

"Can't I Dream??" is that other OTHER shit. I kinda wanted to make something really impromptu, in the vein of Madlib's Beat Konducta stuff (which, for the most part, I don't really like, but, I digress...). Also, it was kind of powered with my frustration of not being where I want to be right now, as far as my musical aspirations. I just sort of feel that I'm making some pretty good shit and all these other hipster cats be getting all the praise on the internet for their off-kilter, Flylo and J. Dilla derivative beats. But, my lack of exposure is to a large degree my fault, so, I'll be working on correcting that soon.

Trancey was kind of my response record to Usher's Love In This Club. I REALLY liked that record and kind of wanted to challenge myself to create something similar but BETTER. And I think the BETTER part was affirmed for me when I found out that Polow (a cat that I still respect heavily) used two Garage Band loops to create that one. In the end, I can't knock that man because he got paid off of his lackadaisical effort and I'm still grinding. By the way, mine is totally original, inside and out.

I Need It was something I just wanted to knock out to create an R&B track for a boy of mine that sings. It is wholly original also. I kinda wanted to get that "Strawberry Fields" kind of thing going on with the flute in that song. Hopefully I came somewhat close. As you can tell, I still need to get a little work done with my bridges. I kind of "don't" know where to go, but I think I'll start maybe jumping to the relative minor of the scale used for the main portions or the 3 or 5th of said scale. If ya'll have any suggestions, holler.

New Wheels was just another ill ass sample that I came upon and just kept adding stuff until that which you hear came out. My boy claims it's my illest beat thus far. Don't know about that, cause, if you heard the shit I got coming??!! WHOOOOOO!!!

Lastly, is Neptuney. I guess, kind of my homage to the Neptunes and their exemplary discography. I think a lot of dudes tend to knock them, but, they are some of the most idiosyncratic yet successful producers known to the urban music genre. I'm like, who else can take cheap synth and string sounds, stock keyboard drums and percussion and come up with some shit that has serious replay value? While most electro bands continue with their self-masturbatory idealization of vintage gear and the records they love to emulate that were concocted from those pieces, these dudes were using whatever was at their disposal, including such frowned upon gear as the Korg Triton and Korg 01w. And, I say, WHY NOT. Fuck everyone that tells you need a specific piece of musical equipment in order to legitimize your art. FUCK THAT. Make good music and leave those bedroom producers in the same room of their house that they woke up in.

Now, in conclusion, I'd like to hip ya'll to this joint that got me going crazy for the past few days. It's a song by Brandy called "A Capella (Something's Missing)". I did an entire post over at OKP discussing this same track, so I won't take up any more space or time on my blog retreading the already trodden. I'll just let you peep and be the judge.

Just to let ya'll know, I think I might do an "official" release of my first beat tape, which will include the songs you hear on the left with maybe 1 or 2 additions. Let me know if ya'll interested in that.

Until then.... If you'd like to talk production techniques, exchange drums, talk about production styles, let me know.

P.S. If any of you guys can "correctly" identify any of the samples in any of my tracks, I'll hit you with a free drum break for you and you only.

Peace.

Heating That Ass Up Better Than The Hibachi

Well, here I am again. Been on a little Sabbatical and haven't really had much time to put up that niceness for ya'll. Here's some shit I came upon while trying to block out the noise that is so prevalent on my job. But, I'll tell you this little known fact: This is not the break that I originally wanted to lace ya'll with. I actually forgot the track that I had found that break on, so, just for ya'll, I'm going to have to go back and listen to all the albums I have ripped on my Sansa clip to see if I can find it. If I do, we good to go.

Anyway, no passes, no bullshit this time around. Just heat. And, oh yeah, that track in my now playing sig? That's a little bit of the same. Be sure to check out the man Kenny Fresh to find out what that's really all about.

Also, the .aiff file is in there this time for those who need all that extra fluff.

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Now playing: Hawthorne Headhunters - She Wanna (feat. JimiJames & Coultrain)
via FoxyTunes

Feels Like Another One...

Just so that ya'll can't say that I've left ya'll hanging. Here's another one. Gotta find that link though. Pass will be in the comments shortly. Also, wanted to let ya'll know that I've got a pretty interesting post going at Okayplayer where I'm trying to devise a Record Industry Rulebook. Check it out, ya'll might be able to glean something from it.

Also, I got a new track in the Reverbnation player to the left. It's called "Can't I Dream??". Feedback would be great.

And then she turned around and give the bassist the rest!!

Aight, so I'm back. I got a pretty good response for the last break and I'm gonna try to keep this going as long as I can. Let's remember ya'll, the more feedback, the more breaks. Simple arithmetic. You know how to add and subtract, right?

She's Ready To Give The Drummer Some

And, just like that, I FINALLY begin my drum breaks posts. Okay, so I'm loading the breaks up as REX 2 files for those of us using Recycle. For those of us not using Recycle? Well, you're shit out of luck. Now, these are freebies, but here are some rules. By no circumstances is anyone to ask me why I don't upload them in .wav or any other file format. I won't. Secondly, for the next break to be added, I must get at least 10 comments. No comments, no more breaks. And, lastly, don't ask for the name of the artist or song or album from which the break came. Another thing that won't happen. Now, remember, this is from the goodness of my heart and one silly bastard can wreck it for the rest of ya'll, so, please conduct yourselves properly. Also, if I'm seeing like 100 downloads with like no comments, link is dead on arrival. Would be a shame though, because most of the breaks that I'm uploading have probably never been used before or they're at least pretty rare.

And, here is the first in the series.

Let's see how this works out.

P.S. I had to change the file up. I rar'd it up and added a password. I saw that knuckleheads couldn't simply just leave a comment. So, new policy, 10 comments and then the pass is given. Maybe ya'll can work with that.

Damn, it's like someone could give ya'll the gift of life and ya'll still wouldn't praise him or give him thanks.

EDIT: Pass is in comments. A brother's allowed to have a change of heart, right?

Sample Snitchin' Part 2

Doesn't the picture say it all. Anyway, here are the tracks.

First, the original:

boomp3.com

You should know what that is (in instrumental form for those who lack):


boomp3.com

Now, if you listen to the last 15-20 seconds of the first original I posted, you should notice a run that sounds very familiar. Well, that run was combined with this other piece found later in the song:

boomp3.com

To create this gem:


boomp3.com

Had enough yet? If not, drop some comments so I can continue down this rosy path.

Here's something that I was blessed with...

Just wanted to make a quick update. I got this gem from the good man El Reza. It's from a pretty great band from out of Japan called Soil and Pimp Sessions. It's their new single and you might be interested.

I plan to continue my Dilla Sample Snitchin' series and I also want to start this new thing of posting REX'd drum breaks that I find while listening to the crates, so, if you're a producer, stay tuned.

peace.

Here it is... Sample Snitchin' Part 1

The first installation of Sample Snitchin' with, as you can tell from the picture above, a Dilla Delicacy from Welcome 2 Detroit.

Let me start off by giving you the original (true Dilla fans will know the track crafted from the piece as soon as they hear it):

boomp3.com

Nice little fusion piece leaning more towards the free jazz area. Would love to give you guys the artist and track name, but I'm not trying to invite postmortem lawsuits on the Yancey household. The portion used is actually from around the 0:19 point.

Now, here's the track he molded from a small snippet within the original:

boomp3.com

Tell me that the final track isn't just pure genius. Dilla definitely did a great job of erecting a very strong sound garden around the sample, adding a very deep and sparse bassline along his signature off-kilter drums.

I know that some may say that sample based music is not "music", but, after listening to what equates to pure genius here, how can you deny such music's place?

In my opinion, a great sample job is when you hear the original and you go, "I would have never thought of sampling that shit, and, even if I did, it sure wasn't going to come out sounding nothing like that."

That is the case here today, ladies and gentleman.

I will continue to series based on the feedback I get on this post. I have another track where Dilla made two beats just from the 20 second intro of this one song.

But, if you don't comment, you may never hear it, so... You know what to do. Until then, peace.

And, here I stand with my gun in my hand...

So, I just wanted to let ya'll know that I'm still here. I got like no comments on my last post, bu t that's cool. I've never been part of the in-crowd, nahmean? Also, the fact that I only get to update the blog like every 2 weeks doesn't help too much either, does it?

Anyway, I'll probably get a post with actual content up tomorrow. I am planning to begin a series called "Sample Snitchin'". Now, don't get me wrong, I won't actually be exposing the original artists or song titles of the songs the samples were pilfered from (I'm not trying to make life any harder to sampling producers out there), but I will be providing the track used (with no ID3 tags for you sneaky bastards out there) and the song it was used within. I also might only provide a snippet of the original track. It's all up in the air.

Well, just as a heads up, the first producer to be exposed will be none other than the late, great J. Dilla. And, TRUST ME, I'm going to be providing you with some ish that you have not heard on any of the million plus sample mixes that have sprouted up out of the nebula since his passing.

So, that's it. Stay tuned and TRUST ME, the samples will be some ish you haven't heard.

Lastly, I wanted to plug my myspace page: Harmonix Analogue

I should be adding a new beat to the page sometime this weekend, so be sure to hit it up.

Anyway, until tomorrow, peace.

Back To Shed Some Light

Okay, so this time around, I'm going to shed some light on of my favorite producers: Roddy Rod.

I don't know much about him other than he's a member of and producer for the group Maspyke. He's also a member of the Low Budget Crew along with Oddisee, Kev Brown and Kenn Starr.

Here are two discographies of his work, one from Discogs and one from Prodby.

If you guys haven't heard of Prodby, please be sure to utilize it from here on out. Great place for finding out who produced what. You can even submit changes, corrections or new submissions. I hope they don't pull a CDDB and then go private using all of the submissions we ardent music listeners have provided.

Anyway, here's the Roddy Rod album I will be providing you guys with, Oakwood Grain:




Here's a sample to whet the tastebuds:

boomp3.com

Great album.

Enjoy.

A Little Something From The Underground

Here's something that most of you guys may not have heard. Buff1 hails from Detroit and the group Athletic Mic League.

He's pretty adept with the lyrics but the true star of this album are the Lab Techs.

They produced about 16 of the 18 tracks on the album and the styles scattered amongst the productions are so varied you would be led to think that the album was the average hip-hop hodge podge release. Wrong!!! Wrong!!!

So, enough already. Listen up!

And enjoy one of the better underground releases that saw the light of day last year. I'll will probably post a couple of the tracks within this post sometime tomorrow for those who don't trust my tastes as of yet. Until then....

Back In The House, Once Again

So, I decided that after more than a year and half, maybe I should give this blog thing a go once again. I'm not really sure of what direction I should go with it though. I don't want to make it just your average "album" blog, because there are so many blogs that are already taking care of that arena immaculately, it makes no sense for me to join the fray. Either way, there are two things I love, good beats and great songwriting. So, the blog may just be a mixture of those two.

Moving on, here is an album that was requested from Basso from over at the wonderful The Growing Bin. Peep the site if you haven't already been.

Other than that, I'll be back soon enough with a decision made on where I want to go with this blog and I'll be moving forward full speed.

Here's the Zero 7 - The Garden release as promised.

Also, for those with too much time on their hands, head on over to my Myspace page and tell me what you think of the tunes. peace.