Boom Bap Discussion: Super Loose timing

I'm coming into this thread mad late, and tbh alot of the posts were way longer than I care to read lol. (not your fault I just have ADD)

but I wanted to comment on a few things. I have found 1) late timing for that off feel is far > than early timing.

also I tend to do a mixture of both quantize off and on. mixing it up with some swing. I tend to program my drum parts with the kick snare and hi hat at the same time and when I wanna go really out it makes it much easier as I can actually vibe like a drummer would as oppossed to just trying to push and nudge notes out.

also dilla was kinda late to the whole off feel, he wasn't really an innovator in that regard. this style is clearly clearly heard from prince paul and rza. (even back in dela days.) (not to take away from dilla because dilla was a great producer) just feel credit is due where it should be.

either way another few things I like to do. is when I sample my drums up. alot of the time if I want a off kilter flow of the beat is I will leave a good bit of dirty air on the snare before the transient. this give the timing a bit of a late snap to it. and with multiple snare samples can really vary up the sound a bit.

I tend to do my melodies with out quantize because if you do then the rigidness of the drum machine will really show itself.

good thread btw.... nice to see people getting back to creative discussions on here.

 

Agreed, sort of. The mid-nineties isn't exactly late. (Also he was born in Detroit in '74, which made it unlikely for him to be rocking parties in the Bronx in '88.)

"Not the first to do it" would be totally appropriate to say. "Not an innovator" I couldn't disagree with more.

But you're right that there are several prominent producers who were doing their thing in the late 80's/early 90's who deserve much of the credit. Also right that this has been one of the most interesting threads on here in a minute.

 

I didn't mean to start a dilla debate lol we all know how long and deep they can get ... let me just say this I love and miss dilla his contributions were mega.

back on topic one other thing I was thinking about that a good friend of mine likes to do. he would use a rubber ball on his mpc when doing drums... for some reason it always worked for him to come up with these funky styles.

it's not for everybody but he would use it to just change his natural timing. damn dude is always a genius on the mpc. matter of fact let me show him some love [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X9MUnLHoH8&feature=related"]IAMISEE - Carry On (GNUmix) - YouTube[/ame]

 

Do you mean like a raquetball, or like a SuperBall/bouncy ball?

That sounds ridiculous, but interesting.

 

kinda like a raquetball ....

 

Huh. I have a ball that's kind of like a raquetball (it's a little too big to be one, I'm not sure what the hell it's for) that I sometimes bounce off the wall/ceiling when I'm trying to work through an idea.

I'll give it a try sometime.

 

Just to chime in on Dilla....he definitely left a huge wave of influence that I think snowballed after he passed. I may be wrong about this but I would dare to say that he's partly to blame for the "over compressed" sound that (IMO) is becoming more and more popular (Mr. Dibiase and many others) I'm a transient man myself...not to say that over compression isn't flavorful...it's just another facet of modern "boom bap" production. IMO What Dilla did more than anything was get people to think outside the "box" and start getting creative.

@QueMusiQ and @FLux302 good posts

I was thinking the same thing.

 

I think that can be attributed as much to mainstream loudness war nonsense as anything, though. (Edit: Also 80's retro-chic. It's once again cool to sound like New Edition/late-career Cameo.)

And not to take this train any further off the tracks, but what it comes down to for me is the fact that Donuts is basically the primary treatise on the notion of hip-hop production as standalone composition, as opposed to "just a beat" that's somehow incomplete until an emcee gets involved.

 

I'm with you on this.

 

Did a thread similar to this
Maybe will find something useful in there

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=106370

 

I see what you're saying, but I think that might arguably belong to DJ Shadow's Endtroducing...Or perhaps Steinski's cut and paste Lessons, or even Coldcuts Beats and Pieces and more Beats and Pieces...
Ah a debate with people who know their $h!t! And yet are perfectly reasonable in their attitude to other opinions... What a strange idea..How refreshing :lol:
I'm in...

 

to dilla been doing innovative beats for a long while go back to 96 busta's first solo or tribe 's beats rhymes and life. check pharcydes 2nd album labcabin.

rza's **** was not offbeat but it dis have some sloppy/loose feel to it but it was not classic off beat **** dilla was the main doing that.

 

rza did indeed use off beat rythms often... when I get back home maybe I will post some examples. but thats here nor there. and I personally feel dilla's early work with tribe was him at his best.

as for the instrumental as a standalone yeah I agree with dreddknight on that... dj shadow really exemplified that fairly early on (though you could also point to mantronix with that as well)

another lil cool tip is in the way you quantize. I have alot of friends that produce is and I find a common thing people tend to do is stick to certain quantize settings... when they probably shouldn't for instance I have friends that swear by everything quantized at 16th note quant. and some that go by 16 triplet quantize but they don't vary the other parts that they quantize... instead try doing things like start your beat 16th, then move on to other parts at 16T etc... allow some air in the mix through timing separations. other wise things get really chunky.

 

The Ummah did (or didn't do, depending on your opinion) the original beat that became Got Til It's Gone in 93/94 if I remember correctly.

Endtroducing was 96, and COMPLETELY shatters my point. I also heard it close to 10 years before I heard Donuts (I was born in 86, so I was late to some of this stuff as well), so kind of a silly linguistic mistake for me to make. Replace "first" with "most important" in my original statement and I stand by it, although obviously everyone's opinions will differ.

As far as Steinski is concerned, his work is interesting to me, it's often beautiful sound collage, but I don't know if it's hip hop. I could say the same thing about Negativland, for instance.

Coldcut is hard (same with Z-Trip's Uneasy Listening and all the old Shiggar Fraggar Show CDs I have in a box somewhere) because turntablism just sounds different. It's a different thing, to me. It had to happen to get to Dilla and everything that came later, but I guess I put it all in a separate category.

 

nah see now we are going into a deep dark corridor bring your boots. lol...
hip hop is the primary genre then there are many sub-genre. the sub genre do indeed effect the primary and visa versa. steinski, invisible skratch pickles etc are all hip hop... just members of sub-genres inside of it.
nothing wrong with that.

oh btw time for a shameless plug (though I don't do much off beat in this album (but there is a little) please peep the Via Flux album over at http://flux302.bandcamp.com/album/via-flux-the-album

if your into this stuff you prolly wouldn't mind my album. there are some vets that are spitting on it that have comeback to finish what they started.

 

I (try to) make boom bap.

Check out my joints : www.youtube.com/beatsbyweight
Much Love

 

I like your track weight, good job

 

This is an interesting thread. You guys are very talented. I'm always trying to obtain that early 90s boom bap sampled sound using all original instruments and effects. I call it Faux-Sampled Beats. I think the closest I've come is with Faux-Sampled Beat 9, but I'll let you guys decide.

http://soundcloud.com/chisel316

Peace \/
chisel316

 

Do you have some of these up on youtube? I think I heard a few of these before...
Regardless of that I really like your sound...

 

Nice track and i agree that this is an interesting thread. I never understood why a lot of people bashed timing, but apply swing to get as close to a natural sound as they could. A lot of artist choose not to quantize because it's gives them more control over the timing (like a real percussionist) but I will admit, I do get thrown off when the drums are just off beat but to each his/her own.