Swing = groove not waltz

in my opinion, once you stop using your gear as an instrument (and yes you can approach the sampler as an instrument) and start messing with correction tools, quantizing and all that, it muffles the human element. i try to keep the approach in its rawest most human form. this is why I (personally so it may not apply to you) had to give up using fruity loops and go back to how i started. i felt like an android after a year, because i had no midi controller or anythin, and had to basically just 'punch in' beats. this is similar to quantizing and me not being able to get groovy with it. over a year this made me cold without even realizing it.

but this conversation will go on forever. do your thing , im not gonna come off all preaching and shit. i do it for personal reasons, and thats all. i dont want to feel like a robot when making my beats. i call that approach 'robotic' but for others its what they are striving for, they call me sloppy, so..apples, oranges, and all that. and, once in a while, we actually appreciate each others music for what it is . with that said i shouldn't have worded my original post like i did and came off like not quantizing was the only way. for me it is, but for everyone else it could be different. do you

FLUENT wrote: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

This is the problem right here. To imply directly or indirectly that someone is not using their soul and their music does not have a human element in their track because they quantize is ridiculous.

Something like this completely irks me especially coming from someone..anyone... who is basically doing "Electronic" music by looping other people's work and really looping THEIR soul and groove... I suppose.

The nature of taking a loop might as well be a mechanical preset. It's purely mathematical. You are taking something out of context and having it on repeat, or using techniques with your electronic equipment to chop it up and do some variations here and there or re-arrange it. That is very mechanical to me too and has even less of the artists soul who is creating the "new" track, but I couldn't care less as long as it's dope.

If it's a dope pattern/beat/song/etc. what does it matter really? Even on an intellectual level? I don't think anyone sits there and listens to beats an counts out the hits to see how much timing and swing is there...notices it might have been done with a preset configuration in a sequencer such as a particular swing setting and goes...damn..."you know I just can't feel feel 65% quantize this track is garbage."

Actually, I will say this last thing, take it how you want it. Often times I get really bored of tracks by madlib and producers like him and jazz music too because I feel it is lacking in precisely one aspect of humanity...and that is emotion. Sometimes a really quantized Mobb Deep, ALC, Primo or even Kanye or whatever producers track I will actually feel a lot more because of the song as a whole. It has a human element that I'm feeling a lot more than the so-called "free form" stuff. Sometimes the free-form stuff is just too intellectual sounding to really hit home. Some of it's made more from the head rather than the heart, and trust me something that's made from the head versus the heart has NOTHING to do with quantize vs. free form...."computer" VS. "human" elements in the track.

FLUENT wrote:in my opinion, once you stop using your gear as an instrument (and yes you can approach the sampler as an instrument) and start messing with correction tools, quantizing and all that, it muffles the human element. i try to keep the approach in its rawest most human form. this is why I (personally so it may not apply to you) had to give up using fruity loops and go back to how i started. i felt like an android after a year, because i had no midi controller or anythin, and had to basically just 'punch in' beats. this is similar to quantizing and me not being able to get groovy with it. over a year this made me cold without even realizing it.

but this conversation will go on forever. do your thing , im not gonna come off all preaching and ****. i do it for personal reasons, and thats all. i dont want to feel like a robot when making my beats. i call that approach 'robotic' but for others its what they are striving for, they call me sloppy, so..apples, oranges, and all that. and, once in a while, we actually appreciate each others music for what it is . with that said i shouldn't have worded my original post like i did and came off like not quantizing was the only way. for me it is, but for everyone else it could be different. do you

Word...I completely understand this here. I mean I wouldn't have bought an mpc if I didn't like to actually hit the pads and get more involved in the music. That's precisely why I use One Shots rather than looping drum breaks. Believe me. I got madd drum breaks now from a lot of different sources, I just don't care to use them cause it's not how I like to make my tracks. But it's not to say I don't like beats that use breaks. I mean beats with breaks is what I grew up on and was listening to since I was in 2nd or 3rd grade when I got my first Def Jam tapes.

Also, programming beats with no quantize is really cool. I really respect the cats that make their beats that way. I personally, want to use whatever technique I feel like messing with at the time. haha for real. If I want to make something madd quantized I'm going to do it. If I want to make something with no quantize or use a break...I'mma do that to. Whatever is clever. Know what I'm sayin?

my style and beats evolved so much when i stopped using quantize

my method is to program the kick first and then play hats and snares, percusiion & toms, keys and strings & bass.. Sometimes I quantize the bassline but not that often (if it fits the kick, its aight)
If I want a more complex sequence, I program everything and shift notes manualy a few ticks. Works very well with the mpc4000 But its more fun to play everything yourself of course

But whatever you do, dont quantize the hats, its awful. (doesnt count for 4/4 dance producers )

Man, I'm always using swing on my beats... I usually find 50% too ridged and I will swing each track and sound differently to give the track a nice groove.

I also make tracks with out quantise when I want a wu-tang or Primo feel - I just find straight quantise a bit robotic.

People please quantize. I mean really. If you're doing hiphop then quantize your drums at least. Think of the dj's. Ever try to mix a live track that hasn't been quantized? It's not pretty, let me tell you. Unles you're doing some Jazz, Rock or some other music that's not supposed to be mix friendly then please quantize.

Will someone please think of the djs??

Mantis Beats wrote:Man, I'm always using swing on my beats... I usually find 50% too ridged and I will swing each track and sound differently to give the track a nice groove..

Mantis Beats do find the swing on the MPC has a different feel than other sequencers? Am i imagining this?

systemone wrote:

Mantis Beats wrote:Man, I'm always using swing on my beats... I usually find 50% too ridged and I will swing each track and sound differently to give the track a nice groove..

Mantis Beats do find the swing on the MPC has a different feel than other sequencers? Am i imagining this?

Hell Yeah ! Most sequencers i know use some computerised unsoulful fomular to shift notes ( I've used Logic Audio mainly ).

The MPC has a groove a swing a bounce that is musical ! I could never program that type of beat in Logic via quantise.

the only thing I quantise in logic is my keyboard stuff but drum proramming is straight MPC

another way around it along with using swing, is not havint your drum sample trimmed to tightly, give a little air them, when u trim them leave a sec in the beginning to play with and also the end. this way u can adjust when ever u want to create ya own groove, and for 1000 users u also get to make your drums kick in later or eariler this way.