Scottzilla
Member
urban is going towards the songwriter route tho too
Beats - Complexity vs Simplicity
- Thread starter j.troup
- Start date
Xabiton
Cupcake God
You missed the point. The difference between those genres and rap are all about how they are approached. A lot of guys who make hip hop instrumentals approach making an amazing instrumental without much thought to the song because they are trying to amaze people with their instrumentals. They don't go beyond the instrumental and get to the song vs Rock and Pop and Country ect who think about it all as one cohesive piece of music. Play a pop acapella and its generally bland and boring play a pop instrumental/beat and its bland and boring. Play them together and now its something that can keep your attention because they work together like a QB and his offensive line. They have to be totally in sync to work. Hip Hop is more like a relay team. I run my part of the race then you run your part of the race then he runs his part of the race and hopefully if we all do well individually we win the race but if say the mix engineer does a bad job with mixing it will run the song because he didn't do his part correctly. Everyone is too focused on doing what they do and not enough on working together.
---------- Post added at 07:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:15 PM ----------
There is more money in it. Kanye West is a pioneer in that respect. He sat down made his own music wrote his own lyrics and had his stuff mixed and it cut costs down tremendously. Think about how much it would have cost to get a Just Blaze beat back then? Back when Just was just as hot as Kanye and Timbo and every record on the radio was one of them or the Neptunes. Them records were going for at least 50k a piece. If he makes his own beats he cuts his budget down tremendously. People have caught on to that why spend hundreds on beats when I can learn to make my own. Why spend hundreds on mixing when I can learn to mix myself and make my own songs promote and distribute myself. Now I don't have to split the money ect. Granted being a jack of all trades has its disadvantages but right now I think there are more advantages than disadvantages to it. If I was interested in being a performer I would consider singing on my own stuff.
mwandishi
New member
Nice analogy. But don't u think that's how hip-hop has always been. I make the beat u rap on it. I mean u seen the clip from fade to black where Timbo plays the dirt on ya shoulder track and jay just goes in. Is it a that in pop i need the singer to make the song so we have to work from the start? I think an undertone of this thread is that hip-hop producers can't do pop. I disagree. Anyway nice analogy X. my 2 cents.
Listen to this interview (kinda old "Chic's" guitar and bass players), i think they make some goods points as it relates to this thread.. Specifically being labeled as "x" type of musician or that's simple.
I think a talented producer/musician can do any style if they're serious.
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yeah ppl sneak dissin hip hop producers thats all im sayin lol.
It is what it is. In todays game people wanna hear impressive beats lol. At the same time u cant over complicate, but 1 5 7 and a bassline and drums aint gonna really cut it in urban rap unless u have a lyricist
It is what it is. In todays game people wanna hear impressive beats lol. At the same time u cant over complicate, but 1 5 7 and a bassline and drums aint gonna really cut it in urban rap unless u have a lyricist
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Xabiton
Cupcake God
I have the Fade To Black DVD I wish they would show the whole thing lol but the bulk of the studio stuff is on YouTube. I think the only scene that is not there is the Rick Rubin one which imo is the best one. Actually I don't think Allure is either but anyway. I am not saying that hip hop producers can't do pop I am saying that hip hop producers have a very different mentality than pop producers. Because pop producers are custom making a track for an artist in the studio and its a total collaboration from start to finish that their entire process of making a track is totally different than most hip hop guys who have completed instrumentals (usually) and say here is what I got add on to it. Its usually done with bridges verses variations ect all done. Its a song by itself and could be released as an instrumental and do well a lot of the time because its already completed hip hop dudes these days are mastering beats even. Mastering is a finalization process that is meant for albums because it generally eats up the last of the head room left available for recordings. Its a huge part of why songs sound over compressed because everything only sounds great solo but anyway that's a whole different issue. My point is hip hop producers present artists with a completed instrumental song and then say come add to my song rather than let's make a song together and you are an active part of my song writing process from the start. Its totally different and to a point that is why pop is winning over hip hop because they understand that everything in a song has to gel and hip hop these days really sounds slapped together songs don't sound custom made anymore like they used to imo. Anyone can fit on any beat because everyone is making the same kinds of beats and again they are really finished songs without vocals.
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That's the thing nobody is dissing hip hop I love hip hop I am just saying that its process has become cluttered and unorganized over the years. Nobody really makes custom songs anymore because nobody really works together anymore. Its all an email system and someone just picks a beat that they like and does them on it. How many times have you heard a beat that out does the rapper? People who are into hip hop are into that but pop fans are not. Pop fans still like vocals and lyrics and melodies and to dance and like a whole song. Hip Hop heads separate songs into what they like. Like that Nas and Scarface joint I posted yesterday cats are saying oh shit Nas went in and did his thing. Others are saying oh shit this Justice League beat is ill but nobody is talking about the song as a whole. They are talking about aspects of it. Pop fans don't go and say oh that Lady Gaga beat is ill or man oh man I really like that David Guetta beat. They say damn this SONG is great. Emphasis on a finished product vs 2 separate ideas thrown together where people cannot focus on both. Producers imo need to fall back calm down and stop trying to do beat gymnastics and just make something that sounds dope. Let the rapper shine he is the star not you.
901_Rice_Street
Rice AKA Clyde Drexler
This is what you call real shit. Complex simplicity.
You don't like this song...this beat.......I don't like you as a person or anything. Plain and simple.
You don't like this song...this beat.......I don't like you as a person or anything. Plain and simple.
Xabiton
Cupcake God
I don't follow SSO
SSO knows how to walk "the fine line". it all stems back to what Ill Rocka said a page or so ago.
but umm, the only time I truly have a problem with it is when producers do complex shit "just to do complex shit". you can do anything tastefully. I think I might have a few complex beats but I'm keeping the vocalist in mind 97% of the time soo....
I feel like if you gotta do all them switch-a-roo's and transitions n' shit you need to be droppin beat-tapes instead.
but umm, the only time I truly have a problem with it is when producers do complex shit "just to do complex shit". you can do anything tastefully. I think I might have a few complex beats but I'm keeping the vocalist in mind 97% of the time soo....
I feel like if you gotta do all them switch-a-roo's and transitions n' shit you need to be droppin beat-tapes instead.
Ill do a transition now and then but honestly that stuff should be left up to the engineers lol.
Not saying it as in we arent engineers im saying it normally doesnt happen till the song is being made lol not on the beat but i still do it just cause ppl record on a two track a lot now days any way
J
JeanLukPigheart
Guest
If Max Martin and Dr.Luke chose some "black sounding" alias and decided to make the best rap record there is, they could do it.
Same goes for a dance (house/techno) or rock record.
Won't work the other way around.
"Real hip hop" was always based on canibalizing on other, older music. This goes to a certain degree and then a saturation takes place and you can't do much more than make the 808 louder, introduce some drum rolls (wooooo! reinventing the wheel! LOL) and some tape-stop effects.
If all you do is rap music and all you listen to is rap music, then genetics tell you, that you'll have to deal with the effects of incest/inbreeding.
And that's exactly what happens in rap music today. Besides, the BPMs always rise and fall depending on the predominant drug the party-goers use. The other effect is that of working out/running/dancing......your blood pressure rises slightly, your heartbeats/minute rise.
That's why 80BPMs are nice if you want to fall asleep, but not for partying.
The other thing is, half of the US is "strapped & retarded", so you can't build a scene and create huge events, where 90% of the "thugs" are mean muggin standing in the corner waiting for someone to "disrespect their block" by stepping on their shoes......so that they can shoot up the place.
That's simply the reality of "rap music" and nobody wants to deal with that.
The "peaking into the hood" mentality died out, after even white teens realized that it's all fake.
Choose: dance party with 18-30 yr old people, 50/50 men/women, good mood, people dancing, high, having fun
vs.
18-30 yr old people, 80/20 men/women, everybody being ****ing posers, standing in the corner, counting their cash (LOL), trying to act as tough as a welfare-gangsta can (LOL).
Choose one. I know which one you choose.
It was a culture and now the CULTURE is dead, so what do you expect? Inbreed-same-ol-same-ol-"music"-for-posers...........and other producers, who get a hard on because you did that 32nds snare roll for 2 bars instead of 1 and you pitched the 808 (OMG!!! YOU IZ GENIUZZZ!).
Incest, inbreed = retarded
BOOOOORING
Same goes for a dance (house/techno) or rock record.
Won't work the other way around.
"Real hip hop" was always based on canibalizing on other, older music. This goes to a certain degree and then a saturation takes place and you can't do much more than make the 808 louder, introduce some drum rolls (wooooo! reinventing the wheel! LOL) and some tape-stop effects.
If all you do is rap music and all you listen to is rap music, then genetics tell you, that you'll have to deal with the effects of incest/inbreeding.
And that's exactly what happens in rap music today. Besides, the BPMs always rise and fall depending on the predominant drug the party-goers use. The other effect is that of working out/running/dancing......your blood pressure rises slightly, your heartbeats/minute rise.
That's why 80BPMs are nice if you want to fall asleep, but not for partying.
The other thing is, half of the US is "strapped & retarded", so you can't build a scene and create huge events, where 90% of the "thugs" are mean muggin standing in the corner waiting for someone to "disrespect their block" by stepping on their shoes......so that they can shoot up the place.
That's simply the reality of "rap music" and nobody wants to deal with that.
The "peaking into the hood" mentality died out, after even white teens realized that it's all fake.
Choose: dance party with 18-30 yr old people, 50/50 men/women, good mood, people dancing, high, having fun
vs.
18-30 yr old people, 80/20 men/women, everybody being ****ing posers, standing in the corner, counting their cash (LOL), trying to act as tough as a welfare-gangsta can (LOL).
Choose one. I know which one you choose.
It was a culture and now the CULTURE is dead, so what do you expect? Inbreed-same-ol-same-ol-"music"-for-posers...........and other producers, who get a hard on because you did that 32nds snare roll for 2 bars instead of 1 and you pitched the 808 (OMG!!! YOU IZ GENIUZZZ!).
Incest, inbreed = retarded
BOOOOORING
mwandishi
New member
I really surprised nobody nobody mentioned the black eye peas. Backpack hip-hop to full blown pop.
My point is that if the producer has the talent and they decide to go that route ( some people call it selling out) they can do it. I stop listening after the Ferge addition.
My point is that if the producer has the talent and they decide to go that route ( some people call it selling out) they can do it. I stop listening after the Ferge addition.
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EnigmaticHipster
New member
that depends. it only happens in america other places like russia and britain where hip hop is a predominant genre of choice shit like that doesn't go down
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I had to write an essay on pop music, this guy Adorno in the 40s hates, saying it was simple,standerdized music, with interchangeable parts, with no one part haveing any real depth or meaning, so that the audiance expects the hook,drop ect.. I think its aload of BS, and think Katty Perry as a pop artist is dope, although the last album was way overcompressd and kinda suckd becase of it, even though the beats where killa
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Oh yhea and I think a great song should stand alone with just piano and singer, without a bunch of drops and FXs
---------- Post added at 05:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 PM ----------
Oh yhea and I think a great song should stand alone with just piano and singer, without a bunch of drops and FXs
J
JeanLukPigheart
Guest
"Hip hop" is definitely not a "predominant" genre; neither in the UK nor Russia. The CULTURE there is still alive though. Everywhere where you got breakers, a DJ culture, people painting, playing instruments, no disregard for intelligence (big one in the US, where hip hop was "the hood's CNN" and a way to express yourself!), you got a local hip hop scene.
And that's what I was saying. The moment the culture dies, it becomes just a race to beat the dead horse harder. Canibalizing, incest, inbreeding, "cheating".
It's just BAD vibe, BAD energy music. Go back 15-25 years and you had a whole SPECTRUM of different sub-cultures in hip hop.
Today?Best sprayers? Probably Poland and Latin America. Best breakdancers? Probably east Asia and countries like France and Germany. Best DJs? UK, Asia.
Most cliches, exploitation, dumbing down of the culture, sell out, etc... = US
It's just the way it is.
I'd rather hear a new artist in the vein of Sean Paul than another dead-boring Jay Z album.
When I feel like listening to some "real hip hop", I put on a The Roots record and it works.
So, if it smells like a dead horse and doesn't move, like a dead horse.........then STOP BEATING IT!
It's DEAD, move on.
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KelevraOne
Not too Kelevra son
That's on the mainstream level. If you check out the local and indie levels of hip hop it is more varied than ever in the U.S.. You got your trap music, Boom Bap, Jerkers, Weirdos, Jazzy spoken word type and every other type of hip hop there is. If you're checking for the big names then it's choked down and simplified.
GodParticle
New member
This. I don't know where this whole "The culture is dead" thing is coming from Hip Hop is still thriving.
Legal Dollaz
New member
Excellent thread. More rap producers need to start considering themselves self-contained ARTISTS. Instrumental Artist to be exact.
I good amount of rap instrumentals I hear that are considered very complex don't need any vocals at all and should definitely be marketed as instrumental songs. I don't understand why rap producers are scared to make that leap of faith, especially after producers in other genres like Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia, etc...have shown the way in terms of popularity and financial viability. The overall VALUE of your creative output will increase if some of ya'll decide to go in this direction because there are instrumental songs that I just love by themselves. Sure beats getting the same "this track is crazy but I really don't know which artist of mines it could work for" feedback.
I good amount of rap instrumentals I hear that are considered very complex don't need any vocals at all and should definitely be marketed as instrumental songs. I don't understand why rap producers are scared to make that leap of faith, especially after producers in other genres like Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia, etc...have shown the way in terms of popularity and financial viability. The overall VALUE of your creative output will increase if some of ya'll decide to go in this direction because there are instrumental songs that I just love by themselves. Sure beats getting the same "this track is crazy but I really don't know which artist of mines it could work for" feedback.
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