Swing = groove not waltz

In the store today playing around with an mv8000 and an mpc1000. the mv is all good except that no matter what i tried i couldn't get the swing quantize to have any soul or groove ... it always sounded like a f***ing waltz. Play the same beat into the mpc1000, add swing and aaaah there it is the groove i was hoping for.

The quantize on the mv felt a lolt like logic audio - either you choose to quantize straight to the grid or it sounds terrible ... but only certain kinds of music can be quantized straight to the grid.

I know the mpc's are legendary for their groove, but is there any way of getting that same sort of feeling on mv8k? Is there anyone out there who uses both an mpc and an mv and can shed some light on this? Any tips or tricks? Have you been able to get a good feel out of the mv?

/s1

good question

You know, I still don't fully grasp this whole groove thing....does it like shift your notes around of something? I mean, my MPC is set to 50% by default I suppose, and everything I do still sounds right on time to me. What gives?

hey knox I dont mess around with my swing settings either and everything sounds just fine to me too dog.

no matter what i tried i couldn't get the swing quantize to have any soul or groove

thats funny. quantize is a computer that fixes human error and swing retimes the note other then how you played it, both are super mechanical. and your lookin for soul in that?? you might as well build a robot to make your beats and then ask, why aint there no soul in my music??

Some of the best music hip hop or otherwise has been quantized to all hell. It's the totality of the song that makes it dope/good/soulful etc. not whether you use quantize or not.

yo honestly, the beats madlib makes can be done on a 303 no prob. I have one and if your thing is looping then it works perfect. The 303 has all the shit needed to make beats like his. Timestretch, effects, etc... I read in an interview that dude sometimes takes a beat and just adds some 808s to it and then moves on. So its not rocket science. Cats think dude is revloutionary, but he just got a good ear and good techniqe. Im not saying everyone can do this shit, but his style you dont need fancy shit. Just loops and an ear for tonality and shit.

nah your right. most of everything in hip hop is quantized. but i am from the jazz background where everything is supposed to free and errors are ok. it is a subconscious thing that i think quantizing is evil. it takes out the human element and replaces it with mathematically precise corrections. how can you feel that? how can you as an artist want that in your music? even if classics were made with it, thats besides the point .others may do it and make classics but i choose to keep a human element in my tracks. because its a personal thing, with a method behind the madness that involves using my own SOUL and GROOVE to make a track. not a mechanical preset

and the method has nothing to do with madlib or 'swinging on his nuts', its much more then that, even saying that it has to do with madlib is ridiculous. why does it have to do with madlib? because he said it in an interview somewhere? i listened to sun ra and jazz music way before i heard the madvillain LP

its strokes for folks though, for real. im not trying to preach man, i shouldnt have even posted that first comment, do what you do. my bad

binger0 wrote:yo honestly, the beats madlib makes can be done on a 303 no prob. I have one and if your thing is looping then it works perfect. The 303 has all the **** needed to make beats like his. Timestretch, effects, etc... I read in an interview that dude sometimes takes a beat and just adds some 808s to it and then moves on. So its not rocket science. Cats think dude is revloutionary, but he just got a good ear and good techniqe. Im not saying everyone can do this ****, but his style you dont need fancy ****. Just loops and an ear for tonality and ****.

That is very true. You can put together chops in a sequence on the 303 and it is perfect for sequencing loops, but to think all madlib uses is the 303 is completely ridiculous, especially when he has a studio like that. Judging tracks on whether it's quantized or not is even more ridiculous. Some of the most classic shit is madd quantized. It's just funny that you never had cats goin off on using no quantize until madlib came around, and 90 out of every 100 beatmaker decided they wanted to be a clone.

yo honestly, the beats madlib makes can be done on a 303 no prob. I have one and if your thing is looping then it works perfect. The 303 has all the **** needed to make beats like his. Timestretch, effects, etc... I read in an interview that dude sometimes takes a beat and just adds some 808s to it and then moves on. So its not rocket science. Cats think dude is revloutionary, but he just got a good ear and good techniqe. Im not saying everyone can do this ****, but his style you dont need fancy ****. Just loops and an ear for tonality and ****.

word

Honestly, I could care less whether there is a computerized element or not. I enjoy both. I love jazz, mostly fusion jazz, even though I haven't really been listening to it lately. I love ish that's madd quantized too. It depends on the song and style really.

I was listening to a lot of old school jams that had crazy quantized old school beat boxes and the jams were dope as hell. I've even been listening to a lot of Primo's works lately and a lot of his drums have like zero swing and are very quantized. Then there's Dilla and his joints have the most swing I ever heard I think. I mean it all depends you know?

It's just funny that you never had cats goin off on using no quantize until madlib came around, and 90 out of every 100 beatmaker decided they wanted to be a clone.

you keep thinking that , when others have decided long ago they chose to keep the human element in there music. your crediting madlib with 'inventing' an idea that has been around forever. hes just a face for a 'free spirit' like sun ra was to jazz heads in the 60s. and like coleman hawkins was before him. you cant play me lou

and no one is judging tracks by quantizing, though sometimes they sound mad robotic if you dont shift notes etc. like i said its a personal choice, i do it for a reason, which is not to feel soulless. and thats all im gonna say about it. ask a funky drummer if he would appreciate being quantized

FLUENT wrote:

no matter what i tried i couldn't get the swing quantize to have any soul or groove

thats funny. quantize is a computer that fixes human error and swing retimes the note other then how you played it, both are super mechanical. and your lookin for soul in that?? you might as well build a robot to make your beats and then ask, why aint there no soul in my music??

Why would you assume that you are any different from this robot?

FLUENT wrote:and no one is judging tracks by quantizing, though sometimes they sound mad robotic if you dont shift notes etc. like i said its a personal choice, i do it for a reason, which is not to feel soulless. and thats all im gonna say about it

That's cool. I understand exactly where you are coming from though Fluent. I am not trying to opose your viewpoint on a whole...you dig?

I didn't bring up Madlib as someone who invented the idea of not using a computer element in music. Actually that notion is absurd since music and it's creation has been around since before the computer was even an idea.

However, this notion of free form jazz and not using quantize in Hip Hop tracks has been popularized very heavily by Madlib and in many ways has really been introduced by him. This free form esthetic has not been championed in Hip Hop at all since Madlib started doing it, and all those who want to pattern themselves after him started doing it as well (others include MF DOOM not just nobody bedroom producers). Not like I see it as a bad thing. I often really like the results this viewpoint and technique has on tracks. But it is not the be all and end all to good music. That is the point I was trying to make. A computer or robotic element can be highly desireable. Especially in an instance that most real drummers can never produce a tighter groove or pattern than a drum machine. Some musical styles require that exact precision and "robotic" timing whether it's Hip Hop, Pop, Jungle, Trance etc.

edit: And there will always be a human element in any kind of music. It takes a human to make and program a computer. It also takes a human to take a record and loop it. I doubt most funky drummers would like their drums taken outta context and looped as a base for another track either, but that's how many people do this son...it's Hip Hop. haha Whatever is dope.