Some of the best features are increased screen resolution and better workflow for chopping samples. If you’re familiar with the 2000xl and zones, you’ll love sampling on the MPC 1000 with JJOS. Another cool feature is the capability to change parameters on all 16 pads at once instead of only individually. When making a hip hop instrumental, JJOS will save time. It really is a must have. check it out here: http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~mpc1000/

GoldenAgePreamp

Are you recording vocals over your hip hop instrumentals or tracking a band? Doesn’t matter! The Golden Age Pre 73 is one of the best preamps under $1000.

Regardless of how you end up as an apprentice or intern, there are some very basic rules to avoid calamity. The 1st of which is never move someone else’s instrument to setup a mic or make room in the studio. Don’t touch the drums, don’t move a guitar, nothing. Ask the artist to move their gear to prevent a mishap.

As you can imagine, some recording artists have very expensive instruments. Do you want to be responsible for replacing a $25,000 set of drums? (And thats cheap!) What if the instrument or piece of gear was truly one of a kind and irreplaceable? There are some basic rules to follow that hold true in any studio.. this series of posts will make sure you are prepared whenever you are in a recording studio whether its making hip hop instrumentals or just recording other artists.

Rule #1:
To avoid thinking about replacing top notch gear any more than you have to; when in question, just don’t touch it.

The song is nice and you might find yourself listening to it on repeat a few times.. The video is awesome! A nice, soultrain type vibe going on; the dancing is classsssic!!

check it out:

Best dance moves goes to this guy, looks like he could do some serious popping or break dancing:

The song and video are pretty creative and unique.. What do you think?

Its a common practice to find a drum break, then sample it out of the original song. Once the audio snippet is made for the break, you can copy and paste it or loop it to make it longer. A lot of Hip Hop Instrumentals utilize drum breaks or sounds that originated as a break.

Most professionals making hip hop beats will sample individual drum hits or chop the break up into smaller pieces. Once the break is chopped, you can re-arrange the hits to make different drum patterns. It is not uncommon to layer other drum sounds on top of the break.

To re-use the drum sounds for other hip hop instrumentals, you can pitch the break down, EQ it or run them through some filters. The Korg KaossPad 3 is great at filtering and modifying sounds. I’ve heard of Ableton Live, Cubase, Pro-tools or even effect pedals being used to effect audio and tweak it. There are other programs that you can use to make beats or effect drums, but those are just a few of the most common.

Ok, so whats the point of the post? Well, I wanted to give you some tools to make hip hop instrumentals with. If you are starting to make beats or are a seasoned veteran, drum breaks are always a nice find. Below, there are download links for 3 really cool drum breaks you can sample. In some future posts, I’ll filter these and make different patterns and post them up! You may have to right click and select “save as”

Hip Hop Instrumental Tools: Break 1
Hip Hop Instrumental Tools: Break 2
Hip Hop Instrumental Tools: Break 3

Today, we are going to look at “hypnotize” by Notorious B.I.G. This Instrumental is recognizable as soon as the first hit sounds. The sample is most definitely taken from Herb Alpert “Rise”. If you haven’t listened to Herb Alpert and the Tijauna brass, you should. Throughout his career, Herb Alpert has had 14 Platinum records and five #1 hits. If you see any of his records in the $1 bin, grab ‘em up! Most producers making hip hop instrumentals, have a stash of records and having a few by Herb Alpert, won’t hurt. To make hip hop beats, you need to have knowledge. Both of audio and music in general. If you need a funky bass line or heavy break, where do you start digging? This comes in time and the post today is to try and help new producers and those trying to get to the next level. Here’s the sample that was used in creating the Hip hop Instrumental for Hypnotize.

The original sample:

Do you hear the bass and that funky hit? Without a doubt the same snippet of audio was used.

The Song:

If you are a new producer making hip hop instrumentals or want to sharpen your skills, try sampling the original song and make a beat with it! It doesn’t have to be a copy of Biggie’s Instrumentals, but have fun, be creative and you’ll more than likely like the finished product.

Just about every hip hop producer is going to have crates of records.   These are a great source for sounds to sample and make Instrumentals with!  I gained a lot of knowledge about processing audio when starting to sample.  If you are just starting out, here is a term that will help you: Timestretch, its amazing.

Anyway, records to the upcoming or professional producer making hip hop instrumentals are essential; These are your soundbanks for your sampler.  By modifying and tweaking the original song, you can get an amazing sound that just wouldn’t be possible otherwise.  Using an MPC1000, Ensoniq ASR-10 or similar piece of equipment you can morph audio and bend it to do what you want.   My biggest mistake when starting out was taking the “I’m not going to sample” approach.  Even professionals in the industry sample and then hire in some session musicians to replay what they made.  Doing this prevents the need to clear the use of the record with the publisher.

Some hip hop instrumentals are chopped and end up being a unique creation and some are just loops- or a small part of the record recorded and copied over and over again with drums on top.  Well known hip hop producer Kanye West is notorious for using long loops of songs.  In the next few weeks, there will be some new posts of hip hop instrumentals and what was sampled to make the track, you will be surprised at the blatant re-use without changing the sound.  Likewise, there will be some really good examples of how a hip hop beat can contain a sample song and end up being unrecognizable. DJ Premier is one of my favorite producers for the simple fact that sometimes you have no idea what he did to make his instrumentals.

Listen to the track below- hear anything you recognize?  This is a classic break! You’ll catch it at battles or whenever any one of about 40 different popular songs come on.

Here’s a list of songs where a sample from the Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache” was used:

• 2 Live Crew – “Megamixx”
• Apache – “The Beginning”
• Breeze – “Watch the Hook”
• Busta Rhymes – “What the Fuck You Want!!”
• Busy Bee – “Old School”
• Chubb Rock – “3 Men at Chung King”
• Coldcut – “Say Kids, What Time is It?”
• Dee Patten – “Who’s the Bad Man”
• Digital – “Metro”
• DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince – “Live at Union Square”
• Double D & Steinski – “Lesson 1″
• Double D & Steinski – “Lesson 2″
• Double D & Steinski – “Lesson 3″
• Everlast – “Syndicate”
• Faith Evans ft Black Rob – “Love Like This”
• Freddie Foxx – “Stop Look & Listen”
• Freestylers – “Breaker Beats Pt 2″
• Future Sound of London – “We Have Explosive”
• Geto Boys – “Do it Like a G.O.”
• Goldie – “Inner City Life”
• Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – “Freelance”
• Hammer – “Turn this Mutha Out”
• Insane Poetry – “The House That Dripped Blood”
• J. Majik – “Your Sound”
• Jive All Stars – “No Stoppin’”
• Jurassic 5 – “Jurass Finish First”
• Kool G Rap – “Men at Work”
• Kool Moe Dee – “Way Way Back”
• KRS-One – “Who are the Pimps?”
• Leaders of the New School – “My Ding a Ling”
• LL Cool J – “You Can’t Dance”
• MC Paul Barman – “Burping and Farting”
• Ministere Amer – “Le Droit Chemin”
• Missy Elliot – “We Run This”
• Moby – “Machete”
• Nas – “Made You Look”
• Roxy Breaks – “Apache Rock”
• Run-DMC – “What’s it All About?”
• Schoolly D – “Housing the Joint”
• Sir Mix A Lot – “Jump On It”
• Sugarhill Gang – “Apache Rap”
• Tone Loc – “Ace is in the House”
• Ultramagnetic MCs – “MC’s Ultra”
• Ultramagnetic MCs – “We’re Ultra III”
• West Street Mob – “Break Dance Electric Boogie”
• Young MC – “Know How”
• Young MC – “Watch the Hook”

The Kaoss Pad has been around for some time! In 1999 the KP1 first debuted and through years of development the KP3 came out in around 2006.

When thinking of Hip Hop Instrumentals where the KP3 was used, none come to mind immediately.  It is however wildly popular in the beat box and electronica worlds.   Ok, so enough with the background- lets talk about making beats with the KP3.

For live performances, this is now a must have.   When using the Kaoss Pad you are able to sample 4 different loops of up to 16 beats.  Once you have a recorded sample, its easy to apply effects and process the audio and then resample it back into the machine!  The resampling makes it easy to make live hip hop instrumentals and improvise on the spot.  The pad makes it fun to apply effects and also get some sounds that would normally be very hard to do.   A lot of those “how did they do that?” questions have been answered after getting the Korg Kaoss Pad 3.  After owning the Kaoss Pad 3 for about a month or so, its one of those pieces of gear you wish was purchased sooner.  For $299 – $399 it was worth every penny.

Combined with the MPC1000 and AbletonLive- you’ve got  an amazing production powerhouse for hip hop Instrumentals, electronica or any genre.

The ASR-10 is probably one of my favorite pieces of gear. Ensoniq has built so much good equipment in the past, ASRs included.

Everything about this keyboard is great.  From the sliders to the selection buttons and mod wheels, everything is smooth.

Popular hip hop producers like Alchemist and KanyeWest have used the ASR-10 for their production.  Where this keyboard reigns supreme is in the filters, effects and LFOs.  Its hard to find another piece of gear that can bend and morph a sample the same way this does.  Making hip hop instrumentals on the ASR-10 is awesome!  When comparing effects and processing to AKAI’s MPC samplers, the ASR-10 makes the AKAI seem like a toy to me.  Don’t get me wrong, the MPC is awesome and I do still own one, but Ensoniq really did a good job.

Sample quality coming from the ASR-10 is warm and full. It definitely has its own sound coming from it.  The sequencer lacks a little bit, this is where the MPC is a little better between the two.

Making drum breaks / sampling drums on the ASR is really fun! Because it automatically pitches samples and maps them across the keys, you’ll have a great time creating when it comes to drums.  The ASR-10 is also really useful when it comes to making your own patches. The shortest sound snippet can be made into a whole song. Other samplers chromatically pitch, but the way the Ensoniq does it is genius.

These keyboards tend to hold their value. You can probably find one from $500 up to $800; Not cheap, but everyone I know that has ever sold theirs wishes they hadn’t.  When making hip hop instrumentals and beats, my ASR is powered on more often than not. If you’ve got an ASR-10, hang on to it!