Underground Sound

S

seven1

Guest
I know this a VERY general question, but i've been listening to a bit of underground music n i can't really identiy what instruments are used in alot of underground music.
I knows alot of the times theirs organs organs and the beats are normally very bass-orientated, but there are alot of 70's-80's sounds that I don't know of (and these are not sampeled).
An example of some sounds I want to know can be found here:

http://www.tightbeatz.com/download.php?fileid=79437, and http://www.tightbeatz.com/download.php?fileid=79384

I tried making a light underground/rnb beat - sorta Common inspired - but it turned out like **** lol: http://www.tightbeatz.com/download.php?fileid=79450

If somebody could help me, it'd be GREATLY apprecated!!
 
The underground sound is best noted by the fact that these are recordings that are done at the home studio. So, the underground sound is the sound of low-budget studios. So, it is the sound of low-budget equip mixed with half-knowledge of professional production. So, it should not be that hard to have an underground sound, as many here already have it. However, if you are trying to pinpoint a particular sound of an underground artist, that is much harder. You must make the same production mistakes that they have. That is a pretty hard thing to do perfectly. To make the same mistakes, that is.
 
The first link samples "just the 2 of us" or whatever that song is called. It's heavily filtered. The drum samples, I dunno exactly what they are, but just mix and match things that sound like they are what you want.

The 2nd one sounds like 2 different organ-inspired sounds + 808 kit and I can't hear the bass too well on these speakers. One of the organ things could be from a synth the other could be from a sample. I dunno.
 
thanks both. so ur saying, the way 2 go is chose my instruments as normal n then heavily filter them yeh? so other than that, there's nothing that distinguishes underground hip-hop (like Common n those type)(apart from heavy bass n actual drumkits)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
well with the new common album there was a conscious decision to give it a grittier sound, if you listen to stuff like madlib you'll spot the lofi elements too. The trick is to mix lo-fi and hi-fi sounds.

lots of ways to get a lo-fi sound, you can lower bitrates (rza's drums on old wu stuff), use distortion, tape saturation, anything that goes against the accuracy and transparency of a hi-fi sound.
 
jaffi said:
The underground sound is best noted by the fact that these are recordings that are done at the home studio. So, the underground sound is the sound of low-budget studios. So, it is the sound of low-budget equip mixed with half-knowledge of professional production. So, it should not be that hard to have an underground sound, as many here already have it.
Click to expand...

...are we now assuming that if you are underground, that you are not pro?? Or you only know about half of the knowlege as someone in the mainstream scene today???
 
underground is when artist create a piece of work that doesnt fit in with what i heard/seen in the mainstream.

the quality of the production shouldnt have anything to do with.

up and coming producers tend to make underground music as they usually create music that goes against the grain or they create a fresh/new sound in order to attract attention to themselves.

your beat sounds like its one of the first beats you made. it has that "ive just learnt to use this equipment and this is what i can do" feel to it. keep it up and dont be to quick to copy what you hear on the radio and youll be making ill underground music in no time!!!

peace
 
so ur basically saying any sorta hip-hop music that is only characterised by it's typical hip-hop strcture and drum pattern, that doesn't sound like mainstream hip-hop is automatically considered hip-hop?
 
i say ... "underground" has nothing to do with quality or instruments, it just describes the artist's goals in music. they say you're underground when you don't care about record sales and **** and you do the music which is coming from you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top