Maschine Hip Hop Thread

Hey, thought I'd make a thread for Hip Hop producers & artists to get together and share ideas/processes/tips for Hip Hop production on the Maschine.

Which kits you use for certain styles for example. Is there a formula to your beats etc?

I'm gonna start this off with some questions I have, as a noob.

What's the best tempo to record hip hop loops on? I've been using 4/4 and it sounds, I dunno, a little too straight? Is it the swing feature I should be using to get that sort of laid out hip hop breakish beat?

Also, I'm curious to know how many bars you guys record on before it loops. Sometimes when I lay down a pattern it doesn't all fit in, or there is too much silence at the end of the pattern before it loops. Any suggestions on this?

- Kwan

 

For hip hop tempos range from around 70 - 100 depending on what style your doing. Tap tempo to a song that is similar to the style you are trying to do.
A four bar pattern is a good place to start, but make sure your loops are 1 bar or multiples of 2, like 2, 4, or 8 bars. 4/4 is a time signature and most popular music (including hip hop) uses it.
Put some swing in there if it feels right (don't forget to try the different swing values on the group page) but I've heard plenty of straight beats that still felt good. If you are pretty tight a taping beats try recording with record quantize off.
It's all about feel. Play around and you will find your sound.

 

Cheers the reply madvibe, those explanations were plenty helpful.

Do you find it useful to nudge the start of the downbeat to the start of the bar? Or do you just let it roll on from where you first start tapping in the beat?

 

Anytime kwan.
Always move the first beat to the beginning of the loop. It will save you from problems later on.
Oh i would like to add trying 16t quantize if you are want that 90s east coast feel like DJ Premier and Pete Rock.

 

Yeah? I love Premo and Rock.

Haha I started this thread on the pretense of sharing thoughts and ideas but really it's just a front for me to get my questions answered, awesome.

I'll be trying out everything you mentioned when I get home.

Cheers

 

Straight 16 of course can feel good. Many of the Eighties classics were straight 16. And it's making a comeback with all those TR-808 type of beats.

I recommend Swing too. Way back I used to quantize all my beats with 16T, but nowadays I don't use a fixed setting anymore. On Maschine I use Swing settings between 25% and 35%. It depends on the samples I use, but also on the mood I'm in. And using different Swing settings in groups can give good results too.

 

Yeah Lotuz I see watchu mean.

I had a play around with quantize and then swing and they do sound different.

Thanks for the tips, keep em coming.

 

I don't use the Maschine drum kits. For each beat I'll put together my own. For example a bassdrum from my own sample collection, a snare from the Maschine library, hi-hats and cymbal from a sample CD, etc. I don't want my beats to sound alike. There's nothing wrong with a recognizable style, but using the same drum sounds over and over again gets boring. Even when you're a top producer like DJ Premier, you'll have to keep changing your sounds.

 

yep - create your own kits from the off. Carve your own sound
But...the 808 bass is always a classic

 

808 is definitely a classic. For hiphop, maschine WOULD be excellent except for lack of midi out. Until then i'm stickin to my mpc, while the maschine eagerly awaits it's revival, upon release of midi out.

 

Yessum.

What is midi out exactly? Also, is there a kanye 'flashing lights' style keyboard synth sound on the maschine?

I am making progress through a track which I think is decent for a 2nd proper 'play' of the maschine. I'll try upload it this weekend.

 

Yeah, I primarily use the 808. I have my own kit though so I don't really use the included kit which sounds a bit shrill to me.

I haven't delved too much into any of the included kits. I usually make my own in Reason or EQ/compress some of the sounds then re-export.
I have VERY specific settings on my 808 kit that I have still to replicate from Reason, even in Battery. The kit just sounds so warm and present in Reason, but kind of wimpy in anything else. So I just sampled it.

I keep the swing fairly low on my stuff depending on what feel I'm going for. I usually play my beats out without Quant on and then do the 50% thing to tighten it up. I haven't used Maschine for any real sampling as the sampler is fairly weak, I still use Logic and/or Kontakt for that. I have the 2 Urban Arsenal packs and some of the drums on there are really good.

I haven't used Maschine for anything extensive and I use way too many synths for me to just use it standalone, so for the most part Battery and Ultrbeat rule at this point. One thing I have done is sample some of my synths in the different ranges then import into Maschine and create a sampled synth instrument its tedious and very time consuming. It oudl be nice if I could automate this somehow. I can;t ait until I'm able to imprt Kontakt instrumnts, it would save me LOTS of time. I really only do this if I want to use Maschine standalone and have only done it with a few instruments. I haven't really sar down and done any extensive work on this. I also have a set of waveforms (sine, square, saw) that I use to build instruments in Maschine. Primitive but it works.

BTW, I'm glad to see this thread as I haven't seen too many Hip Hop heads on here.

 

I know there's another thread on here where ppl can post up various projects of theirs which they created on Maschine.

Maybe we can use this thread for hip hop specific projects to show each other too.

 

1bar, 4/4, i dont quantize unless i want a quantized sound... swing is great but i have a problem with Maschines swing feature : swing is applied to all groups.... i like to apply swing to my hi hats mostly, so that is impossible w/maschine...

you can hear my beats here :
www.myspace.com/lespasta

 

That's only when you use the Swing knob on the controller. Each group has its own Swing setting (GROUP/SRC/KNOB 5).

 

Midi out will allow you to send midi out of Maschine to other synths. You be able to sequence sounds from softsynths and hardware.

 

That sounds ...useful.

So for instance, if I were using a keyboard somewhere, I could get the sounds from that into the Maschine?

 

You will be able to record notes in Maschine's sequence and have them play sounds from your keyboard. You would be recording the midi notes not audio, so if you wanted to change what you recorded or change the sound that was playing you could. Like when you load up one of Maschine's instruments but the sound would be coming from your midi keyboard instead.

 

nice... thanks

 

Here is something i made totally on the Maschine. I truncated the sample on an application then chopped the sample in the Maschine. The drums sounds are custom. So....ENJOY!

http://www.zshare.net/audio/597350274d9f1e4a/