Try this Producers/Beat Droppers

Like many people, I listen to a lot of genres of music. As a musician, producer and recording engineer, I listen to music with an ear developed by my experiences in those positions. I am also someone who likes to see progression whether it be in music or life in general.

With that in mind…producers take note. This is what I want to hear and see done in your music and my own:

  1. Have the pros do what they are professionals at. If you have a keyboard riff, have a professional keyboardist play it. If you have a horn section stomping out a chord progression, have an arranger arrange it properly. Trust me it will be many times sicker if you pick the right person for the job instead of trying to do everything yourself. When picking these musicians you probably want someone who digs Hip Hop and can play it or its relatives soul/R&B. More specifically you need someone who can groove. There are a lot of keys players out there that are amazing but have no concept of the groove.
  2. On the same note, never master your own record and try to have a professional mix engineer mix it. So many Hip Hop records sound like SHIT. They have so much potential but ruin it with messy/harsh mixes and/or terrible mastering. Professional mix engineers will be able to make that vocal line that is buried by your really bad ass synth cut through. They will make it so you can hear both well. They will place your well chosen instruments in the right place in the sound field and audio spectrum.
  3. Related, be conscious of your arrangement and the instruments you chose. In general you have your drums (includes kick, snare, Hi Hat), bass, harmonic instruments (piano, pads etc.), melodic instruments (lead synth, guitar riff, etc.) MC and singer. To be effective all these instruments have to work together so pick them well.  Having both a rhodes and a pad that is focused around 100Hz to 500Hz is not a good idea. In this case because the Rhodes also has important frquencies within that range.If you have both maybe make it so the Rhodes is essentially mono and centered and the pad is spread wide Left and Right. Imagine what goes into composing for an orchestra. That is a lot of instruments that have to be audible through at least two speakers if not just one. On top of all this your arrangement has to make sense musically. There is a lot to cover in arrangement and a lot of it relates and carries into mixing as well. I think this topic deserves another article.
  4. Come original. Hip Hop has so much potential to stretch musical boundaries. You can combine any genre with a dope beat and call it hip hop. Imagine if instead of sampling 4 measures of a Mozart piece. You collaborated with someone and wrote an original Hip Hop symponic master piece. I love well chosen samples and the DJ is an essential part of Hip Hop but sampling has made us lazy. There so many crazy synths out there but for some reason there aren’t many new sounds in our records. Imagine some of the crazy sound design in the movie the Matrix in a hip hop piece. Explore your instruments, be a sound designer, orchestrate a big band hip hop piece. The possibilities are endless.

Let’s drop some ill beats and move hip hop into the future.

Teksoul

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July 5, 2008 | Filed Under Producers/Beat Droppers | Leave a Comment