"Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop"

[Naught]

I'm like 3/4 of the way through this book, and it's pretty dope. It's not a how-to guide to making beats; instead, the author delves into a lot of the aesthetic and ethical rules within the producing community, like using live instruments, what you can and can't sample, chopping vs. looping etc. If you're as much as a beat nerd as I am, you should check it out.

http://www.upne.com/0-8195-6695-0.html

[still illiterate]

i find most of the unwritten production rules funny. God forbid someone pick up a reissue

[KaeoFLUX]

teh ghey

[nestle quik]

if buying rereleases is a cardinal sin then this book doenst sound so interesting anymore

[The Phat Anorexic]

Yo
Can we get a book scan?
I ain't payin for that shit, but I'll read it..

[Naught]

I got it out of my school library, I didn't pay for it either.

[El Keter]

Beatmaking "rules" are stupid.

[Naught]

From the way people are reacting, I must've done a bad job of describing it. It's not some prescriptive manual where the author is telling you "this is how you must make beats". Instead, he interviews a bunch of producers in attempt to find out WHY certain rules are present (by a kind of unspoken consensus) within the beatmaking community.

[El Keter]

He clearly didn't talk to any members of this "beatmaking community."

[Walter Sobchak]

He clearly didn't talk to any members of this "beatmaking community."

not knocking the quality of the producers here [other than still ill, haha downloader] but do you really think anyone on this level deserves to be talked about in a book?

[El Keter]

He clearly didn't talk to any members of this "beatmaking community."

not knocking the quality of the producers here [other than still ill, haha downloader] but do you really think anyone on this level deserves to be talked about in a book?

If I had any money I'd give you some to buy a sense of humor.

Regardless of what "level" someone is on acting like there's a "beatmaking community" is fucking ridiculous.

Honestly I really don't care what a bunch of dudes who pay $800 for 45's at Record Conventions and whine in magazines about how their contemporaries who used the same sample as they did on some track that was playing in their basement one time "stole their beats" think are the "moral rules" of making a fucking beat.

If their opinions are worth listening to then so are the opinions of anybody who buys records and uses samples to create new music... whether that person is you or me or Has or Kayo or whoever the fuck.

[Walter Sobchak]

Regardless of what "level" someone is on acting like there's a "beatmaking community" is fucking ridiculous.

i disagree and do beleive there should be some sort of moral code held up when producing.

and don't talk to me about humor, you're the one who threatened to ban me from a board for religious discrimintation just for thinking your hair was gross.

[still illiterate]

real dj's don't use cd turntables. blammo

[Walter Sobchak]

real dj's don't use cd turntables. blammo

ouch, you got me this time dave, but it's only a supplememnt to my 2 1200s. also, i'm buying a 2nd mixer and third 1200 so maybe that'll balance out.

[El Keter]

i disagree and do beleive there should be some sort of moral code held up when producing.

I just don't think dudes who's whole artform is based on the "theft" of other people's art are in very a good position to moralize about whether it's right to use the same sample as somebody else, buy reissues, sample from MP3's or whatever else.

The most ridiculous thing I've ever seen was Pete Rock crying in 'Wax Poetics' about how Puffy stole his beat... for "Juicy."

I think Mtume would have some issues with Pete's moralizing.

Shit like that only legitimizes the claims that sampling is artless and lends credence to bullshit anti-sampling legislation.

We all have access to the same records. And none of us actually recorded the original songs. Chopping the shit out of a two-second sample doesn't make you more legitimate than a dude who uses a big two minute chunk of a song. Paying $300 for an original Skullsnaps LP doesn't make you a better or more "authentic" producer than the dude who bought the re-issue for $12. Being pissed because some other producer sampled a drum hit off of your record and re-equed it and used it on his is just as wack as some drummer from a band in the '70s being pissed that you sampled HIS drum hit.

But whatever, I'm not on some special "level" so my opinion doesn't really count.

[Hasenfefer]

I just don't think dudes who's whole artform is based on the "theft" of other people's art are in very a good position to moralize about whether it's right to use the same sample as somebody else, buy reissues, sample from MP3's or whatever else.

troof.

[Walter Sobchak]

I just don't think dudes who's whole artform is based on the "theft" of other people's art are in very a good position to moralize

i think the whole theft means theres more need for a code of ethics. seriously, programming is probably the easiest part of making a beat. these people who don't dig are just lazy. i also think the people who pay 300 for a record on ebay are as rediculous as the people who don't dig at all. i think people just need to go through the dirty stacks and find something new instead of using things people have allready determined as samples.

[Walter Sobchak]

keep in mind... i think i think i think and i know i'm not the end all. its just what i try to obide by and would like the people i work with to do as well.

[Hasenfefer]

its just what i try to obide by

do you.

and would like the people i work with to do as well.

that's where you cross the line...trying to push your rules on other people is lame.

if i were in an elevator and heard a dope musak song coming out of the speaker and had a tape recorder, i'd sample that shit and use it. i have over 800 records but if i come across a sick sample on a CD or mp3 you best believe i'm going to use it. does that make me any less of a producer? like you could listen to 10 of my beats and tell which samples came off wax and which came off cds or other mediums? i really doubt it.

[tayoisnt]

if you use pre-recorded material as the foundation for your own music, then, on a very fundamental level, you're a thief, i'm a thief, we're all dirty rotten forward thinking post modern motherfucking thieves.

all this sampling ethical codes bullhockey smacks of safeccrackers bitching about hackers siphoning funds electronically out of virtual accounts as opposed to rubbing plastique on an iron door trying not to blow a finger loose. there are different ways to do things, just like sampling itself was originally, more than anything else, a different way to do something.

that said, i do impose one restriction on myself, in terms of sampling. don't expect anyone else to follow, appreciate or respect it, but i adhere to it absolutely.

i never sample anything recorded after 1985. an arbitrary year chosen not for the production techniques that were discarded as the 90's got nearer. hip-hop started getting...noticeable, damn near ubiquitious in the mid 80's. when i sample a record, i want to get the sounds into a hip-hop context from scratch. as such, i don't think pulling noises from a song that may have been built with even the slightest hip-hop affectation or awareness is fair. it's...like, fooling a homeowner into leaving me a key to their basement, while i roll in with the bulldozer and jackhammers to find their own demolition equipment sitting in the corner. a bit dusty, a little outdated, but they already tried to do what i'm attempting.

anyway. that's the shit i built to weigh my hands down. something to consider. have a great weekend fellas.

[Walter Sobchak]

that's where you cross the line...trying to push your rules on other people is lame.

i don't go to people and tell them they have to do anything. i just don't care to work with people that don't do it like that.

also, i'm really not even a stickler for ONLY vinyl sampling. the biggest thing i can't stand are the sample packs and these free breakbeat sites. i mean, would you put an MC on your tracks that got his lyrics from the internet and then just decided how he was gonna flow them on your beat?

[Naught]

Wow, who knew you guys would be so damn touchy about this?

[Cryptic One]

call me a purist

i pretty much only sample from vinyl

and i only sample from original copies

in the end it doesnt matter... a dope beat made with a reissue on a cd is still a dope beat

but, there is something about the process of digging through records, taking the records home, throwing the needle to the wax, etc that i find fun

and thats me... i would never tell anyone they had to do it that way... to me downloading music for sampling just isnt fun... to me scanning a CD for a sample just isnt fun... and in the beginning, thats why i got into this in the first place... was to enjoy it

as far as the re-issues vs OG thing goes...im a record collecter... i collect music that i think is good firstly... and secondly i collect rare records that are worth $$$ (i still have to like the music)... i have no intentions on selling them, but as geeky as it may sound... it parallels any collecter, be it coins, comics, etc.... a re-issue isnt worth shit... its like if you collected antique cars and got a replica of a 1957 chevy instead of the real thing... its just not a collecters item period... not to mention the fact that if something is re-issued, chances are that its a very known record, and that you have a group of a billion and one producers with the same re-issue because its easily and readily available... i will buy re-issues on CD for listening purposes tho, if i like the music im not going to deprive myself of listening to it because i need the original... and also when i used to spin alot i would spin on re-issues... no sense in taking that $100 record out to a bar to get it broken/scratched by some drunken chic requesting me to throw on some Britney Spears


for those that arent diggers... fine do your thing... actually everyone... fine do your thing... i'll do mine

and i do agree, the whole downloading samples and pre-packaged sample thing is just lazy... but again, if something dope comes out of it, all bets are off... in the grand scheme of things, the end result is much more important then the trip there

[nestle quik]

i never sample anything recorded after 1985. an arbitrary year chosen not for the production techniques that were discarded as the 90's got nearer. hip-hop started getting...noticeable, damn near ubiquitious in the mid 80's. when i sample a record, i want to get the sounds into a hip-hop context from scratch. as such, i don't think pulling noises from a song that may have been built with even the slightest hip-hop affectation or awareness is fair. it's...like, fooling a homeowner into leaving me a key to their basement, while i roll in with the bulldozer and jackhammers to find their own demolition equipment sitting in the corner. a bit dusty, a little outdated, but they already tried to do what i'm attempting.

.

i fully adhere to this,well not fully,because i will sample a movie theme if it grabs me,alot of movies are still very orectral and not hip hop altered so-to-speak


but i totally agree with not sampling any r&b,jazz or rock after this point,nova actually caught flack over at prowlers for sampling an alicia keys song,thats practically a hip hop beat already

[Employee]

call me a purist

i pretty much only sample from vinyl

and i only sample from original copies

in the end it doesnt matter... a dope beat made with a reissue on a cd is still a dope beat

but, there is something about the process of digging through records, taking the records home, throwing the needle to the wax, etc that i find fun

and thats me... i would never tell anyone they had to do it that way... to me downloading music for sampling just isnt fun... to me scanning a CD for a sample just isnt fun... and in the beginning, thats why i got into this in the first place... was to enjoy it

as far as the re-issues vs OG thing goes...im a record collecter... i collect music that i think is good firstly... and secondly i collect rare records that are worth $$$ (i still have to like the music)... i have no intentions on selling them, but as geeky as it may sound... it parallels any collecter, be it coins, comics, etc.... a re-issue isnt worth shit... its like if you collected antique cars and got a replica of a 1957 chevy instead of the real thing... its just not a collecters item period... not to mention the fact that if something is re-issued, chances are that its a very known record, and that you have a group of a billion and one producers with the same re-issue because its easily and readily available... i will buy re-issues on CD for listening purposes tho, if i like the music im not going to deprive myself of listening to it because i need the original... and also when i used to spin alot i would spin on re-issues... no sense in taking that $100 record out to a bar to get it broken/scratched by some drunken chic requesting me to throw on some Britney Spears


for those that arent diggers... fine do your thing... actually everyone... fine do your thing... i'll do mine

and i do agree, the whole downloading samples and pre-packaged sample thing is just lazy... but again, if something dope comes out of it, all bets are off... in the grand scheme of things, the end result is much more important then the trip there

Great post.

I also think that there is a wide generational divide at work here, too. Those of us who originally purchased equipment in the late-80's/early-90's tend to have a much different view of producing/sampling etc. Once I figured out that I sucked at making beats, I turned to engineering. To be totally fucking honest, though, if I were a nineteen-years-old who'd never worked with a piece of hardware or vinyl before and I had a computer, I'd download shit all day, too.

[Walter Sobchak]

good post cryptic. you are always on point it seems. i wish i'd gotten to talk to you a bit when you were in town [Des Moines].

Most of what I've been talking about here is how people go about finding samples, not the collecting aspect of records which maybe be one in the same to some. I spend lots of money on some records if i really like the music but it's not because i know theres a sample on there I want to use, it's just to listen to/hoard. If i were buying that record as a collector's peice i would want the OG. When i go digging for samples though, i don't care what the record is, good/bad music or OG/reissue. If it has a break or loop on it i havent heard before, i'll buy it.

[Naught]

in the end it doesnt matter... a dope beat made with a reissue on a cd is still a dope beat

What's interesting is that the majority of the cats interviewed in this book (which included Jake One, Domino from Hiero, others I can't remember right now) expressed the EXACT same sentiment. Everyone was like "Oh it doesn't matter if you sample from a repress if it's dope, it doesn't matter if you sample from CD as long as it's dope" (the book was written too early for mp3s to reall come into the picture) but then - almost to a man - went on to say "but me personally, I always sample from the original vinyl."

i never sample anything recorded after 1985. an arbitrary year chosen not for the production techniques that were discarded as the 90's got nearer. hip-hop started getting...noticeable, damn near ubiquitious in the mid 80's. when i sample a record, i want to get the sounds into a hip-hop context from scratch. as such, i don't think pulling noises from a song that may have been built with even the slightest hip-hop affectation or awareness is fair. it's...like, fooling a homeowner into leaving me a key to their basement, while i roll in with the bulldozer and jackhammers to find their own demolition equipment sitting in the corner. a bit dusty, a little outdated, but they already tried to do what i'm attempting.

.

i fully adhere to this,well not fully,because i will sample a movie theme if it grabs me,alot of movies are still very orectral and not hip hop altered so-to-speak


but i totally agree with not sampling any r&b,jazz or rock after this point,nova actually caught flack over at prowlers for sampling an alicia keys song,thats practically a hip hop beat already

No offense, but don't you sample from mp3s? If so, that seems like a kind of backwards attitude. If not, my bad.

[Guest]

From the way people are reacting, I must've done a bad job of describing it. It's not some prescriptive manual where the author is telling you "this is how you must make beats". Instead, he interviews a bunch of producers in attempt to find out WHY certain rules are present (by a kind of unspoken consensus) within the beatmaking community.

Yes, to put it more concisely, it is an ethnographic study, which in and of itself is pretty cool since most hip hop books are lit. crit tracts.

[still illiterate]

but see what we're getting into is that some people think that every beatmaker should be a record collector, why can't a beatmaker just be a beatmaker? You give a producer pots and pans he'll make a dope beat, give a collector bongo band and he won't know what to do with it.

we're talking about two different things here, and because the creators did both(soley because of circumstance)people think that everyone should do both. But it's a completely different time, and there are so many more tools right now, it would be ridiculous to limit yourself and your music in any way.

[Walter Sobchak]

we're talking about two different things here

not really, we're just talking about the ethics behind sampling. my point being that when you sample you are stealing people's compositions so you should at least put SOME work into finding the samples.