my thoughts on dilla style kicks

"Dilla was also intimately familiar with Digidesign's Pro Tools and Digi 002 interfaces.......He was a master with Pro Tools. He learned all the plug-ins and had all kinds of secrets" Karriem Riggins in Remix Magazine

No one other than cats that worked in the studio with Dilla will know what techniques he used. I believe he used a combination of different techniques that included compression and eq'ing and i am sure his selection of samples helped creat his unique sound. And being familiar with protools im sure helped even more in tailoring his music. Dilla was a genius!!!! The G.O.A.T.

A bit OT but,

All this talk of Dilla got me thinking, I only really ever listend to Donuts, so can anyone point me inthe direction of some of this amazing Dilla stuff that everyone has a massive hard on for ?

Dilla was my favorite producer b4 I even knew who he was. (no lie) Back in 95 -96 ish i stopped listening to rap all together cuz i was tired of hearing the radio bs. Then I heard "beats, rhymes, and life" (a tribe called quest). J dillas production with the uhmma on that album is ridiculous. That album in my opinion brought forth a more jazzy/soulful sound to hip hop. I did not find out who he was until around the time d'angelo released vodoo. (oh and dillas got production credits on vodoo as well) He produced all of qtip's amplified, most of common's like water for chocolate. He produced all of slum villages early stuff so I would first check out slum villages fantastic voyage volume 2 (!!!!CLASSIC DILLA!!!!) These are just some to check out. Fantastic voyage v2 is the album that made me want to get into producing

Cheers

I've got a copy of water 4 chocolate some where, and I'll see I can get a copy of Fantastic voyage v2.

Going on what you said I've heard loads of him just not been aware.

Thanks once again

Toe

faze1 wrote:Dilla was my favorite producer b4 I even knew who he was.

Couldn't have said it better...

dilla dilla dilla dilla. dilla? dilla dilla! dilla dill dilla dill dilla dilla? dilla dilla? dilla dilla dilla! DILLA DILLA DILLA! dilla... dilla? DILLA? DILLA!?!?!?!

Malkovich. Malkovich?

Ben.H wrote:i've just been doing this in ableton with pretty good results:

1. start with a nice fat kick with body and punch already
2. split it into two seperate tracks, on one compress heavily to create a really smacking clicky sound, on the other filter heavily to leave a more resonant boomph, possibly tune down a bit for lower freqs.
3. Lightly to medium ratio sidechain compress to the main sample
4. Layer with a deep warm sub-bass

And there you go, a lovely compression pumping mix with those massive smacking kicks.

Hope this is helpful to someone out there!
Ben

Possibly a new discovery about this. I can believe Dilla did his kicks like this... but I am wondering if he did it on the SP404. I know he used one, and you can do all of these things on the SP404 including adding sub bass to a sample.

Hmmmmm..... I tried it and it sounds crazy dope making drums with a SP404.

objektivone wrote:

Possibly a new discovery about this. I can believe Dilla did his kicks like this... but I am wondering if he did it on the SP404. I know he used one, and you can do all of these things on the SP404 including adding sub bass to a sample.

Hmmmmm..... I tried it and it sounds crazy dope making drums with a SP404.

i'm almost certain you wouldn't be able to do sidechain compression on an sp404

Ben.H wrote:

objektivone wrote:

Possibly a new discovery about this. I can believe Dilla did his kicks like this... but I am wondering if he did it on the SP404. I know he used one, and you can do all of these things on the SP404 including adding sub bass to a sample.

Hmmmmm..... I tried it and it sounds crazy dope making drums with a SP404.

i'm almost certain you wouldn't be able to do sidechain compression on an sp404

No but you can take one kick, filter, eq, and compress to get the smacking. Take the same sample EQ it low and add sub bass, and layer. Not saying he def did it on the 404. It was just a thought because I know he used one, but it is possible to do it on the 404 and it sounds pretty grimey.

I remember reading somewhere that he knew pro tools very well and he ended up doing less and less stuff on the mp... although he always used it as the ''heart'' of his shit

Ldizzy wrote:I remember reading somewhere that he knew pro tools very well and he ended up doing less and less stuff on the mp... although he always used it as the ''heart'' of his ****

I believe it. I had heard that he never mixed, etc. I only heard that. It is believable to me, but at the same time Dilla seems like the kind of guy who wouldn't be limited by anything, and knowing everything about everything he touched seemed to be his style.

did sum1 call it " fantastic voyage vol.2 " ??
thats not even funny.................................................... GET UR NAMES RIGHT B4 YA OPEN UR MOUTHS...

objektivone wrote:

Ben.H wrote:

objektivone wrote:

Possibly a new discovery about this. I can believe Dilla did his kicks like this... but I am wondering if he did it on the SP404. I know he used one, and you can do all of these things on the SP404 including adding sub bass to a sample.

Hmmmmm..... I tried it and it sounds crazy dope making drums with a SP404.

i'm almost certain you wouldn't be able to do sidechain compression on an sp404

No but you can take one kick, filter, eq, and compress to get the smacking. Take the same sample EQ it low and add sub bass, and layer. Not saying he def did it on the 404. It was just a thought because I know he used one, but it is possible to do it on the 404 and it sounds pretty grimey.

I ain't never hear about Dilla using an SP-404. I know that Madlib "claims" that he uses one (I never truly believe anyone when they are a "paid" representative of said company), but, lord knows how true that is. I do know that 'lib does own an MPC 4000, both of the most recent Korg Electribes, MPC 2000, etc.. So, how I figure it, unless you're in the studio at the moment of the actual beat being made, you have no idea of what a producer "truly" used.

kebzer wrote:Also, it's called sub-bass and if you layer a 12 points long midi note in your MP alongside a thick filtered kick, you get a very nice HUGE kick back.

Haven't actually "made" a full beat on my MP in a grip (normally just use it to control Reason), but, care to expound on this tip? Sounds like it could be something great.

When you say 12 points, what do you mean? Also, would the midi note play all song long or would you filter it so that it only is heard when the kick hits?

Please let me know.