Constructing a beat in various sessions - nice or not?

ayo mofos

I bought recently an s950 to get that grit and punch for dem beats. I had no earlier experience with this sampler in question and I wanted to find out if there REALLY is a major difference in the sound of an s950 in comparison to other samplers. I have 3k and 2k and I can't say nothing else but this s950-box fires soul and fat out of it's outputs. My drums have never sounded so nice, the bass is right there. Naamsein? RIGHT there on the spot. This is what I've been lookin' for. It feels stupid now that I got the s950. Why didn't I purchase it earlier?

But yeah, let's get to the point. The speech bout s950 has very much to do with the heading. The sound that I was describing in the former paragraph was the sound of the first beat I made with the s950. I didn't do everything for the drums and bass I could've done in the params of the s950. So when I was pleased enough with the big picture of the beat I saved it and thought that I'ma finish it later - do the polishing for each of the sounds via params et cetera.

And here comes the tricky part. Basically, every time when I'm making a beat I edit it various times in numerous sessions. Most of the time I spend 3-6 sessions for just one beat and the results usually satisfy me. But sometimes, like with this one that I made with the s950, I just f'd up the beautiful entirety by editing the original beat, the corpus I would usually say.
This is very unusual I make things worse by trying to enhance the beat after the "construction work" is already made. If you haven't had a somewhat unique and certain feeling when you have made the beat, then it's very likely you will make some enhancement for an "ok" typa beat pattern. BUT if you have had a very unique and strong concentration and feel when making the beat in the first place, it's very hard or even impossible to dive in that vibe afterwards you previously had. I tried it and like I said, I ended up with a worse beat than the original.

Most of the times when I construct the beat in various sessions, I do the "corpus" first - of course. Then in sessions after that I usually work with the params of each and every individual sound, trying to make the pieces of the beat shake hands and talk with each other, nahmean. This time I did the same thing - and I should've definitely not done it! I was very excited and eager to find out what all is possible to do for the params in the s950 but it was a stupid mistake to do that. The settings I made in the first place in the s950 for individual sounds were unique as a whole and in relation to each other - even though I didn't even know everything that could be done on an s950. Yeah, still.

But yeah, if something came to your mind about when it's better to not to touch the beat after the 1st beatmaking session and when it is, please share!
I have thought about this before only with mixing outside the mpc/s950. What I've previously thought has been an unsolved question and still is - how to make the original vibe remain as same as possible compared to the vibe of the straight-out-the-box mpc-beat but still making it better and stronger via mixing process. The only thing I've come up with this dilemma is a mantra to follow during the mixing session "be as focused as you can". That goes well but at the same time you can't make a good mixdown with a Quasimoto type of track with just rationally focusing your brain. It aint just reason that you need to make the vibe come through with a piece of music.
So thoughts are welcome about, when making a mix/enhancing the already existing beat, how to enhance your artistic vibe and not to overthink the process but still remain conscious about what you are doing.

Yea, I would smoke all day every day to stay in the creative zone if it was possible, of course! Unfortunately I'm waiting to hear other type of habits Get philosophical, please!

Got a bit lost reading all of that, but I'd say on the S950 back up your work and stock up on those floppies. Format them before you need them also. Load your (good) work, remove the floppy, and continue working. If you dont like your changes, dont save them, if you do, decide whether to overwrite your previously saved work or save to another floppy. Don't know what else to say, the back-up is your undo button.

On a DAW its a home run, do what ever you like and use the undo function or 'save as' to get it done or save multiple variations of the same thing. Perhaps try narrowing your thesis down to specific questions lol..

Mos def. Forgot to mention that fortunately I had a save from the original programs and sequences I made.

Also very true with the DAW - save constantly so you can go back.

To focus the point I was trying to say with the previous post: do you think it's a better way to leave the beat untouched after the first session and dump it straight after that to daw and continue from there? Or to "enhance" the sound in the sampler and after that also in DAW?

All in all - do you think it is better to do or even try to do the beat in one session or do you prefer multiple sessions?

The mood and energy you had a certain day, is the mood and energy that should get recorded that day is what I always say. Multiple sessions is cool too because you get to twist and tweak the arrangements and make alternative takes, but how many remixes do you really need? you know. So don't get caught up trying to put superman's cape on a track by staying with it for hours and days, because in the end, it'll be shit. Kill that **** noise is what I also say.

some beat the programming and the vibe of the samples is just so in the pocket u dont need to touch the og pattern

so the follow up session u might just do alternative patterns for chorus bridge or change up


but some beat u come back next day and notice one of the samples is off so u might do sublte tweaks to clean up


and others might just sound wack th enext session so u end up scrapping or redoing certain elements in the beat

As others have alluded to, trying to perfect a beat can render it useless, especially if you force yourself to complete in one session. Take a break, rest your ears and right side of the brain, and revisit your work with a fresh perspective another day, week, month...

Like many people I distinguish between a beat and a song/track likewise a beatmaker and a producer. You can do the beat in one session, but crafting it into a song will take longer.

^very well put!

I found when working with my MPC 500 that I sold, it was best for me to work a beat in a single session in order for me to remember the line of thought that made the entire reasoning of me doing a new project happen. It's really hit or miss sometimes when you try to go back and perfect a beat, so to me it's always about new project every time I enter the mindstate that I want to make a beat. I mean, I've successfully edited old beats with different mastering techniques, but the main reasoning behind the whole of it all really is to get what's in your mind and put it into "computer" form, or perhaps a song if you will, into what you're working with.