Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.
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By Dr.Foo Fri Aug 29, 2003 7:49 pm
hmm this has all got me intrigued! I love madlibs stuff (mainly as quasimodo tho, hahah he makes no mention of the chicken suit he used to wear too, that was awesome!)
so Ima grab da 303 and see if I can freak some new stuff a la madlib just 4 fun, who knows maybe it will fit into my rig and Ill use it.

hmmmmmm..........

Ima try just this, going right from the 303 to my old skool tascam tape tracker. Ima holla back, it could be that I am just overly suspicious...

By elmacaco Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:00 pm
yeah, I like quas the best too. but he is always on the next shit, dudley perkins stuff is great!

funny, it is not the gear. I think you ought to get deeper in your own setup. but hell if you are going to try it, just use the 303 and nothing else for a month, you might get there.
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By Dr.Foo Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:13 pm
I really dont think its the gear either, but I am going to give it a try so i can speak on it with some more factual basis, given the limited time I have on the 303 ,sure I may not have tapped it to its full, I just dismissed it as inferior to the mpc and moved on, but I dont wanna be narrow minded, I wanna try and expand out whenver I can and grow and ish like that, yadda, yadda, yadda 8)

Ill post my results from doing it that way, I was just thinking some of the beats I made with my tape deck and a record player were pretty cool and that is about as minimal as you can go. (no multitracking, just a 2 tape decks, record drum kick then move to the other tape deck, play back add snares, move to tape deck 2 play back, add hats, etc.)

so maybe I jumped to a conclusion on madlib (but I dont think so) I still thing there is a "secret" to his style that makes it phat he dont share, after all, there is to my style..... hahahahahahahaha :twisted:


movement #4 dragon seeks path.....

By oceanstatekillah Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:43 pm
i was torturing myself last night waching the mtv video awards , and they had a commercial for the sp 303. it was a kid who had just a 303 on a table with a bunch of stuff around the room , but only the sp303 on a big desk by itself. and he was rocking out , i was like yeah right. but u never know what u can do.

By stupidkid Sat Aug 30, 2003 12:00 am
I was just WAY more intertested in his abilities to track and mix more than what gear he uses to create sounds.

Beat making is just the tip of the ice cream...producing is a whole nother iceberg.
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By egokilla Sat Aug 30, 2003 12:00 am
I used to use my 303 allot. I considered selling that and my DR202 together on ebay because I wasn't using it, but I worked it back into my rig last week and decided not to sell it.

It's the best budget phrase sampler available for under 200.00 (IMO) Considering you get the classic Roland FX, and One button processing.
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By Prah_860_ Sat Aug 30, 2003 12:21 am
oceanstatekillah wrote:i was torturing myself last night waching the mtv video awards , and they had a commercial for the sp 303. it was a kid who had just a 303 on a table with a bunch of stuff around the room , but only the sp303 on a big desk by itself. and he was rocking out , i was like yeah right. but u never know what u can do.


i seen the commerical last night and it was a sp-202.......i thought about madlib when i seen it......that is a really cool piece of gear....

By elmacaco Sat Aug 30, 2003 2:20 am
Cool Foo, let us know how you like it.

I don't think there is a secret, there is nothing especially spectacular in his stuff, the whole package is just so dope, arragement and a great ear for music.

He tells us his secret on the unseen..

"I got a gold mine in my soul supply" ;)


damn, I missed that commercial.
By en2 Sat Aug 30, 2003 6:46 pm
check out the video interview link on the same page.....def presents his vibe more cleanly...there is also a link for a cut chemist interview right there under related links..


paz

By elmacaco Sun Aug 31, 2003 7:41 pm
check that irish photographer one too.

By Dynamis Sun Aug 31, 2003 8:10 pm
Dr.Foo wrote:I really dont think its the gear either, but I am going to give it a try so i can speak on it with some more factual basis, given the limited time I have on the 303 ,sure I may not have tapped it to its full, I just dismissed it as inferior to the mpc and moved on, but I dont wanna be narrow minded, I wanna try and expand out whenver I can and grow and ish like that, yadda, yadda, yadda 8)

Ill post my results from doing it that way, I was just thinking some of the beats I made with my tape deck and a record player were pretty cool and that is about as minimal as you can go. (no multitracking, just a 2 tape decks, record drum kick then move to the other tape deck, play back add snares, move to tape deck 2 play back, add hats, etc.)

so maybe I jumped to a conclusion on madlib (but I dont think so) I still thing there is a "secret" to his style that makes it phat he dont share, after all, there is to my style..... hahahahahahahaha :twisted:


movement #4 dragon seeks path.....


why cant you just take his word for it?.... I know people that have made ill beats on very basic equipment....also bear in mind that it does get sent off for mastering......
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By Dr.Foo Tue Sep 02, 2003 4:24 pm
Dynamis wrote:
why cant you just take his word for it?.... I know people that have made ill beats on very basic equipment....also bear in mind that it does get sent off for mastering......


Because the article is written to imply that the Sp303 goes right to the 8 trak "dry"(as in all off the 303) and then into mastering. BS BS BS BS.
That eliminates about 1 bajillion steps that madlib uses to freak his sounds. Basicallly he is telling us a small piece of what he uses to flip his sounds, but not telling us the whole picture (understandably, he dont want his signature sound to get jacked), thus making it look like he's "a 14 year old kid in his bedroom" style, an image he and his label cultivate.

Basically its not true. I got into it and spent the long weekend messing with a 303. What I did was simply try to replicate some madlib tracks, spent about a 1/2 day or so doing that. then I just tried to do all my chopping and stuff on it. OK. you can edit samples and re sample and stuff and it takes a while and is confusing, BUT this stuff would go away with xperience (remeber how long it took you to edit your frist mpc sounds for a program?).
My main beef is the sound comes out "tinny" which I blame on RCA plugs. This alone leads me to belive that there is some serious outboard effects processing and MAJOR multiband compression being done on something to his beats (not just "into the 8 trak" like he suggests/claims.)
I spent a good part of the rest of the 1st day and most of the second, using the effects in the unit to try and and remove the "tinny" sound from the samples. I even loaded samples I use in the mpc that I KNOW have been edited, and equed already, and they still come out "tinny".
I guess if that is the sound you are looking for (a metallic lofi sound) its cool, it was not what I was looking for.

I also noticed that the sequencing DOES go out of whack if you are triggering more then a couple of sounds via midi or with the internal. It took about a minute and a half for it to go out of sync by about a tenth of a second, not much but noticeable. I guess madlib must use this bad boy like he says, for playing it all out live. cuz the seq. is a POS. To whoever posted that it has been solid for them, set up your recorder and tempo sync it and set up a grid so it marks every bar, scroll down to 1-2 minutes in and watch, it will waver up and down. use the grid as a guide to note the areas where the new bars should be starting.

I guess madlib could use it like he says, with a buttload of effects and some major processing to get it to come out sounding good. I dunno, I still think I need more time on it (like 2 weeks or so) to be able to 100% speak on it, but I just dont want to devote the time. I got beats to make.`

All in all, I am impressed that its a tiny 200 dollar box, and for the price it is a good entry level sampler (although I would take the Akai S20 over it, just my opinion though, I would give up the efx for a better sampler. (the s20).
Like I said I dont call madlib a liar, cuz I can see how he would use this, and how it fits with his style, BUT I still insist that there is a LOT of steps missing, he dont just go "into the multitracker" as he says. IF he does, then there is a BUTTLOAD of mixing, eqing and stuff to make up for the fact that the sampler used isnt that powerful and doesnt have the effects that madlib is looking for (xample, I played quasimodo's album, and tried to use the effects to get a similar sound out of it, didnt even come close., leading me to believe there is external efx (a lot of them) and a lot of mixing and compression (as in more so then you would have to do using a more powerful sampler.)
Anyone else out there got access to a 303 wanna try it and holla back, maybe I'm just missing a step or some ish, with 2-3 peeps working it we could arrive at an answer pretty fast.

PS- Madlibs "yesterdays new quintet" is friggin' tight.

By elmacaco Wed Sep 03, 2003 3:01 am
Quasimoto is all sp-1200 and shit. No 303 on his shit back then.

if you want to hear the 303, check Dudley Perkins.

He also has Arps and shit, you can hear him use the ring mod and stuff on Quas.

I had the 303 synced up tight. I'll have to run that test next time, but we had the 303 and the 60 running different things and both were still together after 15 20 minutes. Maybe you have a defective unit, or some midi issues? How much slop are we talking about?

I can run the 303 through my midi to cv converter and watch the bpm readout, but it will be a few steps removes as it is a roland cr 8000 displaying the tempo.
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By Prah_860_ Wed Sep 03, 2003 4:13 am
Dr.Foo wrote:
Dynamis wrote:
why cant you just take his word for it?.... I know people that have made ill beats on very basic equipment....also bear in mind that it does get sent off for mastering......


Because the article is written to imply that the Sp303 goes right to the 8 trak "dry"(as in all off the 303) and then into mastering. BS BS BS BS.
That eliminates about 1 bajillion steps that madlib uses to freak his sounds. Basicallly he is telling us a small piece of what he uses to flip his sounds, but not telling us the whole picture (understandably, he dont want his signature sound to get jacked), thus making it look like he's "a 14 year old kid in his bedroom" style, an image he and his label cultivate.

Basically its not true. I got into it and spent the long weekend messing with a 303. What I did was simply try to replicate some madlib tracks, spent about a 1/2 day or so doing that. then I just tried to do all my chopping and stuff on it. OK. you can edit samples and re sample and stuff and it takes a while and is confusing, BUT this stuff would go away with xperience (remeber how long it took you to edit your frist mpc sounds for a program?).
My main beef is the sound comes out "tinny" which I blame on RCA plugs. This alone leads me to belive that there is some serious outboard effects processing and MAJOR multiband compression being done on something to his beats (not just "into the 8 trak" like he suggests/claims.)
I spent a good part of the rest of the 1st day and most of the second, using the effects in the unit to try and and remove the "tinny" sound from the samples. I even loaded samples I use in the mpc that I KNOW have been edited, and equed already, and they still come out "tinny".
I guess if that is the sound you are looking for (a metallic lofi sound) its cool, it was not what I was looking for.

I also noticed that the sequencing DOES go out of whack if you are triggering more then a couple of sounds via midi or with the internal. It took about a minute and a half for it to go out of sync by about a tenth of a second, not much but noticeable. I guess madlib must use this bad boy like he says, for playing it all out live. cuz the seq. is a POS. To whoever posted that it has been solid for them, set up your recorder and tempo sync it and set up a grid so it marks every bar, scroll down to 1-2 minutes in and watch, it will waver up and down. use the grid as a guide to note the areas where the new bars should be starting.

I guess madlib could use it like he says, with a buttload of effects and some major processing to get it to come out sounding good. I dunno, I still think I need more time on it (like 2 weeks or so) to be able to 100% speak on it, but I just dont want to devote the time. I got beats to make.`

All in all, I am impressed that its a tiny 200 dollar box, and for the price it is a good entry level sampler (although I would take the Akai S20 over it, just my opinion though, I would give up the efx for a better sampler. (the s20).
Like I said I dont call madlib a liar, cuz I can see how he would use this, and how it fits with his style, BUT I still insist that there is a LOT of steps missing, he dont just go "into the multitracker" as he says. IF he does, then there is a BUTTLOAD of mixing, eqing and stuff to make up for the fact that the sampler used isnt that powerful and doesnt have the effects that madlib is looking for (xample, I played quasimodo's album, and tried to use the effects to get a similar sound out of it, didnt even come close., leading me to believe there is external efx (a lot of them) and a lot of mixing and compression (as in more so then you would have to do using a more powerful sampler.)
Anyone else out there got access to a 303 wanna try it and holla back, maybe I'm just missing a step or some ish, with 2-3 peeps working it we could arrive at an answer pretty fast.

PS- Madlibs "yesterdays new quintet" is friggin' tight.


wow....i love most of this guys post.....be checking out the equipment for us and ****......thanx cuz!