The pressure to make arty-farty BS.

Nym wrote:guise madlib is pushing sampling past its limits if you need an example you automatically lose and must be a stupid albino because it is self evident even if you haven't ever heard madlib TROLOLOL

madlib: short but dope offbeat jingles using minimally processed phrase samples and a lot of side chaining spatial manipulation.

i disagree with the guy who said that to be good at sample collage you have to have been a good dj
this is typical dj-centrism. look, being a good dj is a great skill and yes we all love the Scratch documentary, but it is not the only way toward being a good hip hop composer OR sample collage artist.

I'll just say that being a good dj really helps if you're into collage type production but in Hip Hop production, no, its not nescesary. Hip Hop was always about pushing the limits with limited resources. Like some McGuyver shit. Put me in a room with just a 4track, a record player and 3 Sinatra records and I'll make an album of bangers.

I really do dislike people who think, just cause they used autochop, instead of looping a sample, feel they are now "artists". Sorry thats just something that always bugged me.

Also, to push the limits of sampling, people really need to look back at what sampling was initially created for, and thats making your own instruments. Im a DIEHARD boombap fan, and many of use are super creative/selective with our samples, but I don't consider to many of us hip hop producers as "pushing sampling past its limits", and that includes Madlib (who I think is super dope btw)

Unfolding Machines wrote:
Back on topic:

sensei wrote:Music shouldn't be sport.

I see your point but I disagree. Hip hop is competitive by its own nature & that's why I love getting involved in beat comps. By hearing how everyone else flips samples I reckon I can get better than them next time. Doesn't matter if I get it wrong & lose a battle (beat battles are all based on votes, therefore the winner is based on subjective decisions & isn't measurable), plus there's always next round. Now, to make the distinction between being honorable or a douchebag- you gotta do that in sport. Otherwise there's no point to it. Even old jazz tunes used solos to effectively try & outshine the last soloist. People are going to be competitive no matter what.

Yeah, that's definitely valid! I guess I wasn't thinking about that side of things when I made the comment.

I see a lot of people get caught up in what they don't like and spend time focused on it. Not saying that this is case with the OP, but it happens a lot.

Personally I don't have time to listen to too much these days. When I do have the time, I listen intently and try and figure everything out about the music I like. I guess parallels with sport can be drawn there too.

A chef doesn't become a better chef eating sh_t food and saying "this is awful. why do people eat this". They get better by being inspired and going out, looking for and trying better food.

Personally I like to improve and be the best I can without using negative motivation, this isn't in reference to battling either, cause I see people like Dibiase come from a battle path (he's more than just that I'm sure) and his stuff has gone from strength to strength. But having said that, I think being battle focused can limit you as a beat maker.

Not all the best beats are gonna win a beat battle either. It has a particular paradigm of what will work. Same with your best beats might not work in a club setting. They might be more suited to someone kicking back with a beer and some buds. So to have that as your sole focus can limit you as well, i.e. taking a sport philosophy to the N'th level with regards to music.

At the moment most people are just fashion clones and music is part of that. Personally I think the situation is pretty dire. Musicianship is dying to an extent, composition is getting tragic and live performances are just push play type dudes much of the time. However, I don't focus on it cause it will make me bitter, and from what I've experienced in life, bitter people don't get far. People don't wanna work with them. So my philosophy is to do me, to the best of my abilities and focus on positive things.

@Nym, yeah I kinda overstated myself back there. I'm not much of a fan of DJ culture either, so I wasn't intentionally going down the turntablism vs club DJ angle. Ill Green was on the money with this one:

Ill-Green wrote:I'll just say that being a good dj really helps if you're into collage type production but in Hip Hop production, no, its not nescesary.

TreCipher617 wrote:madlib shows the advancement of sampling in every track he makes, if u can't hear it grow ears.

Oi Tre, did you mean that comparitive to modern productions (as in now not last year) or in the context of the advances in music production of the past hundred years? If you meant the latter, then yep- Madlib's about as good an example as any when it comes to sampling creatively.

sensei wrote:Personally I like to improve and be the best I can without using negative motivation, this isn't in reference to battling either, cause I see people like Dibiase come from a battle path (he's more than just that I'm sure) and his stuff has gone from strength to strength. But having said that, I think being battle focused can limit you as a beat maker.

Not all the best beats are gonna win a beat battle either. It has a particular paradigm of what will work. Same with your best beats might not work in a club setting. They might be more suited to someone kicking back with a beer and some buds. So to have that as your sole focus can limit you as well, i.e. taking a sport philosophy to the N'th level with regards to music.

All true! Not all my beats are battle beats (just most of 'em at the moment ), this is what motivates me the most at the moment. If I get a bit of pressure to make a tune for a battle, then I'll do it better than if I were doing it for myself. Which is some dangerous territory for sure. Its because I don't have much time to produce like its a craft now & battle beats are about showing off technique & creatively quickly. Although you've just made me realise I almost became a snob about it there, Jnorth would not be pleased.

As I said, a winning beat isn't quantifiably/measurably better than any other beat submitted. You can't have a beat that was 12 seconds better or 3.4 metres more banging. Gotta pick your audience too, nobody's gonna submit a 5 minute IDM or ambient tune to a beat battle simply because that's not what the audience wants to hear, even though that's the kind of stuff I made for years before battling.

Sport is a cultural disease.. along with alot of other things.
'Look who ran the fastest'.. give them a medal.. they made loosers out of the rest... - wow, world changing stuff..

I've entered beat battles for the fun... same reason to do music at any other time.
Competitivity is just another side effect of other capitalistic brainwashing.. 'I'm better than you because more people like something I have just done'

Anyway... the only bad music is the music that isn't true,.

What's true?

If the music portrarys the emotions you felt at the time of making said music... then it's true.. and you should be happy with yourself.... REGARDLESS... of what people say.

If the music portrarys your ability to mimic other peoples emotions/music... it's fake.

Ideally no one who makes true music should care if others like what they have done or not... actually it's more of a bad sign alot of times especially nowadays if the masses like your music/anything else you've done.

...That bring us to another cultural disease.... the masses never supporting people that are true.

its easier for people to get their hands on something nowadays that will allow them to "make music". even if its clicking in a bunch of bars in software and drag-and-dropping presets. i feel like people back in the day that had gear, were serious and had some sort of musical ability, or at least enough to buy the machines like the MPC's, which were probably wayyy more expensive.

if you were serious about making music back in the day, i suppose you would have happy with whatever you could get your hands on, in order to make music. thus the reason i think Madlib, etc. are so good with these "limited" machines.

EVERYBODY, nowadays have some sort of PC or smartphone software where they can download a program and in 5 minutes, have a 'beat'. a lot of people want to make 'music' FAST and EASY today.

some people prefer chopping breaks and making "oldschool" tracks, others could care one way or the other and just do what they want, nevermind where the source sample comes from or the same old 808 in every track.

szr wrote:Sport is a cultural disease.. along with alot of other things.
'Look who ran the fastest'.. give them a medal.. they made loosers out of the rest... - wow, world changing stuff..


...That bring us to another cultural disease.... the masses never supporting people that are true.

sport is a culutral disease? how so , then u could say that with anything that people do surely? but i agree it is basically bread and circuses to distract the masses

btw way peeps that dont sample have he same arrogance hence we see a beat (no samples) label all over the place

szr wrote:Sport is a cultural disease.. along with alot of other things.
'Look who ran the fastest'.. give them a medal.. they made loosers out of the rest... - wow, world changing stuff..

I've entered beat battles for the fun... same reason to do music at any other time.
Competitivity is just another side effect of other capitalistic brainwashing.. 'I'm better than you because more people like something I have just done'

Anyway... the only bad music is the music that isn't true,.

What's true?

If the music portrarys the emotions you felt at the time of making said music... then it's true.. and you should be happy with yourself.... REGARDLESS... of what people say.

If the music portrarys your ability to mimic other peoples emotions/music... it's fake.

Ideally no one who makes true music should care if others like what they have done or not... actually it's more of a bad sign alot of times especially nowadays if the masses like your music/anything else you've done.

...That bring us to another cultural disease.... the masses never supporting people that are true.

quoted for relevance......

DPM wrote:its easier for people to get their hands on something nowadays that will allow them to "make music". even if its clicking in a bunch of bars in software and drag-and-dropping presets. i feel like people back in the day that had gear, were serious and had some sort of musical ability, or at least enough to buy the machines like the MPC's, which were probably wayyy more expensive.

if you were serious about making music back in the day, i suppose you would have happy with whatever you could get your hands on, in order to make music. thus the reason i think Madlib, etc. are so good with these "limited" machines.

EVERYBODY, nowadays have some sort of PC or smartphone software where they can download a program and in 5 minutes, have a 'beat'. a lot of people want to make 'music' FAST and EASY today.

some people prefer chopping breaks and making "oldschool" tracks, others could care one way or the other and just do what they want, nevermind where the source sample comes from or the same old 808 in every track.

I was just talking about this with someone last night.

szr wrote:Sport is a cultural disease.. along with alot of other things.
'Look who ran the fastest'.. give them a medal.. they made loosers out of the rest... - wow, world changing stuff..

Personally I think this is a bit extreme/perhaps a little cynical.

Sure corporate sport you might say that. But grass roots level sports for kids can be a good thing. It's the WIN at all costs mentality that is the ugly thing.

I used to play cricket a bit when I was younger. Never minded if I lost of won, but always enjoyed playing the game, and being with my friends. I even enjoyed meeting kids from the other team.

Sport's been around a whole lot longer that capitalism too.

I do know what you mean when you say fake and true music. Though I gotta say I don't believe those two categories cover everything. Sometimes music can just be a craft. It doesn't have to be anything higher than that. It can just be a hobby, but I definitely get the point you are trying to make and agree with much of it, though probably not as vehemently it appears.

Imagine if all the energy and time used to compete against each other .... was put into uniting against the system that screws all of us...

Competition has been brainwashed into all of us, I was talking about the subject with a shrink yesterday, she not only agreed, but added... that society shoud have left sport behind years ago.... as we no longer need the fastest and strongest...

Another sickness is all the hero worshiping going on.... and it's always the worst people who are put on the throne... I think the masses aren't ready for anything but even more opression and wars against each other.. and it's sure as hell is on the way.

sensei wrote:
Personally I think this is a bit extreme/perhaps a little cynical.

Sure corporate sport you might say that. But grass roots level sports for kids can be a good thing. It's the WIN at all costs mentality that is the ugly thing.

I used to play cricket a bit when I was younger. Never minded if I lost of won, but always enjoyed playing the game, and being with my friends. I even enjoyed meeting kids from the other team.

Great post, he breaks it down very well.

My two cents a lot of artists either never understood or they forgotten that the point of making beats was for rocking the crowd and getting the breakers to dance.

Looking at the world, it appears to be the complete opposite of that... Pressure to fit into a template at any cost.. If you can't simply create what you feel, artsy or not, then something is wrong and it's not really a good way to base any creative work on that, as the result will in most cases sound/be less genuine if you work on something you aren't truly feeling yourself. Just let go... There will always be people that has different tastes that won't like it, and there's always people that it suits perfectly.... So, better to say **** it and simply be genuine rather than trying to please someone else's taste.