Music Process

My goal with this blog is to provide you tips and ideas to boost your production skills and make sure you stay up on the game.  Today I stumbled upon a great article by one of my favorite producers Blockhead.

http://phatfriend.com/2011/03/22/how-my-music-is-made-fuck-the-bullshit/

Turns out his set up and process is pretty simple.  But one of the key things I got out of the article is that everyone has their own style and work process.  Back in the day I didn't want to waste time learning a new program, or trying something new because I get so set in my ways.  I am glad I finally got out of my 'put 2 samples together and call it good' rut and learned so much more about mixing editing and composition.  But at the end of the day find the process that clicks for you.  Usually that process is the fastest, and there for more productive and lucrative.

While studying Abelton and learning more tricks and tips from online videos or articles I am realizing that almost every step in your music creating process can be done in so many different ways.  Pitch shifting and chopping up samples alone each have 3-4 different ways to get accomplished in Live.  Just remember on your quest for the number one spot, go with what works for you, what you feel comfortable with.  Once you get that base skill set to crank out hits like I did back in the day with just 2 samples you can learn and build and soon be making hits with 20 tracks in Pro Tools with all sorts of routing and plug in's as easy as it was when you first started.   This process you develop helps create your sound, your personality as a producer and musician and is what you can build on to seperate yourself from the thousands of other "hip hop producers" in the world.

-AP

DRUM BREAKS

What up gang?  Its been a min since our last post here and I think its time for a useful little post on drum loops.

So as we all know it was a sad day on Friday with the passing of MCA.  So I was listening to some Beastie Boys on the way home from work and heard some good drums I hadn't made note of in my collection at the end of "Electrify" on Hello Nasty.  I figured this would be a good time to make a post with a few of my favorite loops from songs that I like to use in my production. Here is a couple of the tracks that have the drum samples at the very beginning.  Enjoy!

Asher Roth "La Di Da"

Atmosphere "Struggle Song"

Biz Markie "Return of the Biz Dance"

The Darkness "Love is Only a Feeling"

Eminem "Amityville"

Immortal Technique "The Illest"

I can't give away all of my secrets just yet, but here is a little list to get you started.  Stay tuned for Pt 2!

For downloading the files I recommend keepvid.com, just copy and paste the youtube address and you can download the mp3 to your computer.  Enjoy, look forward to seeing what you come up with.

-Pike