Make 90's sounding hiphop without hardware

[SEED78]

Originally Posted by MattmaN

mpc2k's are that clean.
In comparison to my old echo mia soundcard the, the echo sounded very close.
Sure there was a difference, but not much.
So the 2000 sounds kinda like a cheap soundcard. Not that it's a bad thing, but it does not help you sound like 1994 anymore than a soundcard/midi interface will.
Also with the 2000 you track out of the ouputs, and into mixers, and outboard processors, and by doing this your raising the noisefloor, and introducing the sound of other ad/da's.

you are right the 2000 isn't going to make anyone sound '94'

when tracking the signal chain is no more important than with other hardware sampler or synth, and sensible use and testing will get rid of that. by your logic raised noisefloor WILL make the 2000 sound more 94 as as people were tracking MPCs then...

the 2000 or XL are not (ear of the beholder) maybe the best sounding MPCs, but their sound is far from cheap if a person knows what they are doing, good layering, EQing can get round any of that - the nearest S series sampler in sound is meant to be the s3000xl, and thats been used on a gazillion pop records with no serious issues.

here is an example of a recent ish anthem made on the XL - don't sound like the 2000xl made this beat sound cheap!!!


I choose not to use the 2000xl (use MPC3000), but if someone specifically wants to go hardware route the xl is the best bang for buck out there at the cheap prices they go for - except maybe Akai ASQ + s950 combo

[BobbyTheProducer]

It's definitely possible. Me and my boy interned for Kay Gee from NBN/Divine Mill in 2005/2006. Everyone at the studio thought making beats on a computer was weird, so we brought in an MPC 2000XL for show and tell... Never even plugged it in. We pushed out around 3 or 4 dusty sampled 90's joints a week using only Reason, and no one was ever the wiser. And if a 90's era rap production icon (no pun intended) couldn't tell the difference, then your secret's probably safe.

[SEED78]

I don't know why people need to debate it any more - you CAN make a 90's sounding banger on the computer. I know people who sample in the box, their stuff rocks HARD, they have skills though. add to that I've heard people with no skills make lame MPC beats with no grit what so ever.

does everyone have the skill to do it in, or out of the box? judging by the threads upon threads about drums etc etc relating to that sound specifically I'm guessing not...

[peterpiper0815]

Originally Posted by MattmaN

Damu The Fudgemunk uses an mpc2000 right?
I see no reason why making 90's hip hop on a 2000 would be any easier than on a laptop with software.
The 2000 is a clean sounding sampler. Damu just knows how to tweak the sounds.
With that said, if Damu can make it sound like that with a 2000, you should be able to with a computer.....If your good.

Damu knows what samples to use, he often use (in my ear it sounds like that) high input gain in other words distorted amp-stage of the 2000 and he also use to sample at 78rpm.

to the op
But yes you can sound very 90ish in the box. I think it also will help if you think how to get the most out of near nothing. Think about the limitations they had back in the 90s and how they worked things out.

I like hardware but when I'm on PC I like the tracker concept. I really like the modplug tracker. It also have its own nice dirty sound.

peace

[MattmaN]

Originally Posted by SEED78

you are right the 2000 isn't going to make anyone sound '94'

when tracking the signal chain is no more important than with other hardware sampler or synth, and sensible use and testing will get rid of that. by your logic raised noisefloor WILL make the 2000 sound more 94 as as people were tracking MPCs then...

the 2000 or XL are not (ear of the beholder) maybe the best sounding MPCs, but their sound is far from cheap if a person knows what they are doing, good layering, EQing can get round any of that - the nearest S series sampler in sound is meant to be the s3000xl, and thats been used on a gazillion pop records with no serious issues.

here is an example of a recent ish anthem made on the XL - don't sound like the 2000xl made this beat sound cheap!!!


I choose not to use the 2000xl (use MPC3000), but if someone specifically wants to go hardware route the xl is the best bang for buck out there at the cheap prices they go for - except maybe Akai ASQ + s950 combo

I'm not saying the 2000 sounds cheap, but the cost of the converters, and quality is likely on par with budget soundcards.
Is that a bad thing?

[MattmaN]

Originally Posted by peterpiper0815

I like hardware but when I'm on PC I like the tracker concept. I really like the modplug tracker. It also have its own nice dirty sound.

peace

Yeah modplug does have a dirty sound.
Psycle tracker does too when you use the lowest quality setting on the sampler.
Good point.

[kaydigi]

Originally Posted by BobbyTheProducer

We pushed out around 3 or 4 dusty sampled 90's joints a week using only Reason, and no one was ever the wiser. And if a 90's era rap production icon (no pun intended) couldn't tell the difference, then your secret's probably safe.

How'd you achieve it in Reason? Grove templates and Scream?

[KevWest]

Originally Posted by kaydigi

How'd you achieve it in Reason? Grove templates and Scream?

you're thinking too hard. most of the east coast boom bap 90s stuff was 1/16T hard quantized. use that to your advantage. Then its just sampling from vinyl. You can easily recreate that sound in today's tools. I made this last night using a youtube rip someone posted at future producers totally in Reason. The drums are from my dirty drums reason refill

http://soundcloud.com/kevwestbeats/fp-sample-beat-challenge

[kaydigi]

Originally Posted by KevWest

you're thinking too hard. most of the east coast boom bap 90s stuff was 1/16T hard quantized. use that to your advantage. Then its just sampling from vinyl. You can easily recreate that sound in today's tools. I made this last night using a youtube rip someone posted at future producers totally in Reason. The drums are from my dirty drums reason refill

http://soundcloud.com/kevwestbeats/fp-sample-beat-challenge

Reup the link when you get a chance. For vocal samples etc.. are you processing them in Reason or using another daw/VST/ Battery 3 emulation to simulate 90's sound.

I'm not looking for your workflow techniques but more knowledge of what Reason is capable of in coloring sounds. I was spinning Marcberg today and man it's jaw dropping what was done on the LP.


I bought the wrong upgrade for Reason 5, I reordered the right Reason 6 Upgrade I should have it at the end of the week.

[KevWest]

I keep it simple without much processing at all. Light compression and eq. I keep it raw since the 90s were raw. FP Sample beat challenge by Kev West Beats on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

idk why the link didn't show up before but lets try it again

[Storyville]

Originally Posted by blastbeat

???
SP1200 is a digital sampler.

beat me to it.

[Danny Downer]

Man I gots me sum nize analogue sampla fo shizzle!!!

....the f*** outta here....

[okailla]

something like this?

[Zachariah]

Reason's coloring is versatile. You can get some "saturation" emulations out of the scream to help give you an analog feel.

To give you an authentic 90s feel, stay away from stock sounds. Whether they are drums or bass patches or whatever, I would recommend using your samples as your sound sources. Chop out claps/kicks/sticks/hits etc. and USE them. You can layer in some 808s or whatever you feel to bring it to life, but use your samples as the starting point.

For basses, play with your samples. Lo-pass them use maxxbass.

Layer your samples together. Have samples playing with and against eachother. CHOP CHOP CHOP.

[DannyMac]

The thing that most (almost EVERYONE) misses about the whole mic thing is the processing, samples may sound close done direct vs sound card, but after doing a chop, resampling etc the whole thing just seams to sit better and GLEAM .........and more to the fact PUNCH.
the attack of those machines is crazy - I work as an engineer not writer, but I own 2 2000's, a 4000 and a 3000 - writing beats on them is just a pure pleasure more than anything else, write in the computer and you have latency to deal with - a dedicated drum box has latency that is below 0.1ms - thats what gives you feel when writing a beat - like playing a real kit - most on a computer setup using USB or FIREWIRE would be lucky to get 3.5 ms latency AT BEST.
people rave about the feel of these boxes WAY more than the sound for this reason

[sonick909]

resample all your kits @ 26.040/12 a la sp1200. send your drum stem through a white noise generator and blend to taste.

as copies don't alter your original archives!

[peterpiper0815]

Originally Posted by DannyMac

most on a computer setup using USB or FIREWIRE would be lucky to get 3.5 ms latency AT BEST.
people rave about the feel of these boxes WAY more than the sound for this reason

So you want to tell us that these 2.5 ms are the reason?
Well then I got a solution for all of those "3.5 ms computer musicains": Use headphones

The speeed of sound is 343.2 meters per second (or 343,2 meters per 1000 milliseconds). So in 1 millisecond the signal the sound travvels a distance of 0,3432 meters (or lets say 34,32 cm). Equals round about 86 cm in 2.5 milliseconds.

So if you sit in front of your MPC and your speakers are 2 meters in front of you, the signal need 5.8 ms to reach your ears. I get the signal ealier if I use a PC and headphones

Originally Posted by sonick909

resample all your kits @ 26.040/12 a la sp1200. send your drum stem through a white noise generator and blend to taste.

as copies don't alter your original archives!

numbers just numbers . How many times people have to repeat that these pure numbers are just pure bs? It always depends on the software and HOW its resampled. The method. Try resampling with theese numbers in different Audio Editors and get different results (dont miss resampling in wavosaur cause this will give you complete different results with a nice lofi touch). Also depends on the source signal. Resampling of a low bassline without much attack (picking sound) to from 44 to 26 kHz wont give you a dirty lofi sound.


peace

[sonick909]

true true true, source sound is very important. I was sort of assuming drums since that's where the 90's dust mostly comes from with the exception of the very long environmental samples.

Regarding drums, these numbers (or similar numbers) work very well for turning a clean, dry analog kit into something very dusty. I've done it a million times, it works great, I use 8 bit since 12 isn't in Sound Forge, and that usually works great (sometimes a bit wonky on toms). Snare sometimes needs a touch of distortion.

But these numbers are very important to the 90's sound, there is no doubt about it.

[Lex A]

Originally Posted by SEED78

I don't know why people need to debate it any more - you CAN make a 90's sounding banger on the computer. I know people who sample in the box, their stuff rocks HARD, they have skills though. add to that I've heard people with no skills make lame MPC beats with no grit what so ever.

does everyone have the skill to do it in, or out of the box? judging by the threads upon threads about drums etc etc relating to that sound specifically I'm guessing not...

I have to agree 100% its really up to the producer and his ...creativity and skill sets......how creative he is at using his filters....etc to clean it up and make it .....bang...