loopin' up drum breaks

Next to Jamaicans talking rhythmically over drums, DJ's and Emcee's in New York were rapping over drum breaks long before anyone else. Practically all of the original tracks were drum breaks. Me personally, I hate using other people's drum loops. But it's pretty much how rap started.
 
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The use of loops was very common due to the polyphony and memory limitations of the hardware samplers being used at that time, plus a lot of cats didn't understand how to get the most out of the technology back then.
 
AlecFerguson1 said:
how often do u guys think producers in the 90's looped up breaks instead of programming the drums. something ive always wondered
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Looping drums was common in New York until producers like Marley Marl and Paul C came along. Marley accidentally recorded a snare from a James Brown sample. When he heard the drums play along with the sample, a light clicked in his head and he decided that he would sample kicks and snares from the records and replay it on a drum machine. Paul C was this phenonemnal white kid who produced and engineered. He was known for chopping up James Brown drums like no other. He did alot of early work for Ced Gee's group Ultramagnetic mc's and taught Ced alot. Ced Gee went on to produce for his group UltraMagnetic as well as KRS-One's debut album Criminal Minded. Paul C also mentored Large Professor. He was murdered but his legacy lives on.
 
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Drum looping is wack to me. It's effortless work to loop a drum break and throw a sample over it. Chopping the drum break up and giving it a whole new sequence to make it your own is even better
 
xmpc9000XL said:
Drum looping is wack to me. It's effortless work to loop a drum break and throw a sample over it. Chopping the drum break up and giving it a whole new sequence to make it your own is even better
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Looping doesn't have to be like that.

The reality is that most cats don't know how to cut a proper loop and by extension they don't know how to work with tempos, and because they don't know how to cut a proper loop what they end up using is the more common fake loop which is basically a phrase of music triggered repeatedly as a one shot sample, as opposed to looping autonomously like a proper loop does for as long as a note is held, which brings me to my point, proper loops of various kinds can be interwoven and played in a fashion which is most similar to playing chords which I think is easily on par with setting a single polyphony to trigger slices with just the one finger.
 
hollandturbine said:
Looping doesn't have to be like that.

The reality is that most cats don't know how to cut a proper loop and by extension they don't know how to work with tempos, and because they don't know how to cut a proper loop what they end up using is the more common fake loop which is basically a phrase of music triggered repeatedly as a one shot sample, as opposed to looping autonomously like a proper loop does for as long as a note is held, which brings me to my point, proper loops of various kinds can be interwoven and played in a fashion which is most similar to playing chords which I think is easily on par with setting a single polyphony to trigger slices with just the one finger.
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I would love for you to elaborate on this or possibly link a video because I'm reading it thinking this sounds interesting, but wtf is he talking about.:D
 
Basically what you do is set up different loops on different keys and you blend them or drop them in and out, like on the first key you might have a shaker loop, then you might bring in a loop with a kick and a snare by pressing the next key, so now you have a kick and snare loop playing over the shaker loop, then you might start dropping a snare roll loop in and out with your other hand, then you might feel like adding a guitar loop which you alternate or cut into with a guitar loop on some other key, vocal loops, different drum loops, whatever.
 
hollandturbine said:
Basically what you do is set up different loops on different keys and you blend them or drop them in and out, like on the first key you might have a shaker loop, then you might bring in a loop with a kick and a snare by pressing the next key, so now you have a kick and snare loop playing over the shaker loop, then you might start dropping a snare roll loop in and out with your other hand, then you might feel like adding a guitar loop which you alternate or cut into with a guitar loop on some other key, vocal loops, different drum loops, whatever.
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I think I get it, but I'm guessing your not making hip hop. I think your tip applies to faster dnb tempos. I'm thinking that if you do that at slower tempos, it would sound crazy. I don't know though. Thanks for the advice.
 
jjbing3 said:
I think I get it, but I'm guessing your not making hip hop. I think your tip applies to faster dnb tempos. I'm thinking that if you do that at slower tempos, it would sound crazy. I don't know though. Thanks for the advice.
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The technique is well suited to hip hop.
 
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