Want to understand mid 90's East Coast Production Techniques

You gotta go back to using tape decks....

the producers u named got their drums off of wax so u would need to also know the settings of the person that originally tracked it. once u develop a good ear u will then be able to recreate any sound it just takes time.

aight its not that serious fellas. The way to get punchy thick drums is by layering, eqing, maximizing and filters. Its just how u do it that takes a while to learns. U should learn about freq ranges to start and what lies where on the spectrum of things. This helps to understand how to make a kick deeper and puncher by setting the q on the eq and where to boost the gain. these things take a while to get an ear and understanding of. Learn about human freq range, and musical instruments freq ranges. Cause this will all help u to make a snare crack, a hat sizzle, and a kick thump. Layering is pretty improtant also. Layer a snare and eq them right, say use a snare with a more punch, and layer that on a snare with more body. See what would compliment what. And to make my drums punch i use a maximizer plugin in reason to make them hit harder but not louder. Somewhat like compression. I dont use compression cause i really dont know how to do it right, but i work around it. I get my drums sounding how i want them too without compression. some of my beats i used it on are here
www.myspace.com/thelowendtheory

Stop with the bs about this dude wanting to sound like so and so, cause i know it aint like that, he just needs to reference and get some ideas on how to go about making drums hit harder. I would rahter see a post finally about how to get better drums instead of the countless, your a biter cause lu want to be like so and so threads. we need a Little change of pace round here.

One technique you can try is sampling your drums to tape, and then sampling the tape into your sampler of choice. Try doing it different volumes and EQing it differently, and check the results you get.

This gives you thick, punchy drums, compressed naturally by the tape, and should lead you in the right direction.

Also, what Bing said is true, honesstly its about experimentation. Another thing I noticed is that most of the names you dropped (Premier, Pete Rock, and Large Pro) used 12 bit samplers. This is not necessarily the "sound" you might be looking for, but it could just be that you are hearing a 12-bit sound and didn't know how to put that into words, or what the terminology is.

If you can't get access to a 12-bit sampler, try the tape thing I mentioned, as well as what a lot of these gentlemen told you about experimentation. The 90s producers created their "sound" by experimenting with whatever tools they had available to them, so chances are if you follow the same logic, you will likely "experiment" in the same ways they did without even realizing it.

Try it. Let us know how it works out.

Yoshimi wrote:I love when people act like they don't want to know how someone gets a sound. He ain't on his d**k...he just like's that sound. What is wrong with asking questions? This ain't no exclusive club. You think primo never asked any questions? Please.

YEAH!!!!!!!!! Gimme a break

Thanks a lot for the info guys

Hey, when yall say to resample onto a tape, are you talking about an old audio cassette tape? I tried that one already, but I'm just wondering if you're talking about one of those big ass old reel-to-reel tapes.

Some of the "techniques" or settings are really nothing at all. Old school producers used a lot of loops in the beginning. Records sampled on 12bit technology. Niggums were not in a position to have a compressor..and settings? what? Even when I was growing up, NO-ONE had a studio.. we had to rent time at a big studio and learn while you paid. If you had a drum machine your were doing big things!! An MPC back in the day was $3000! Remember Naughty by natures, "O.P.P?" that was recorded in a bedroom. Raw, gully style, and the same was true for most east-coast hip-hop back in the days. Mobb deeps tracks (produced by P or alchemist) are produced at their homes on minimal equipment. So when I keep mentioning to stop spending $$$ on gear, it's because I have realized that if you buy a motiff es turbo deluxe /mpc9000, listen to other folks tell you to buy a sp-1200 to re-sample the drums, then buy a compressor that you don't know how to use, and buy pro-tools, a G6 mac to process, and the best speakers to monitor you mixes, will not get you low budget, good sounding music. There's nothing wrong with using what-ever drum machine you choose, but some of you do things ass backwards (not anyone in particular) and then don't realize why your ultra clean, state of the art bedroom studio ain't sounding right.
So to answer your question, do things in a low budget kind of way. Don't always expect the next paice of gear to magically transform your music. You don't NEED anything except creativity. Make what you have work. Even if it seems impossible, at least try to figure out a way. You will be surprised how much extra gear that you don't need.
An MPC and a cheap external sampler (any kind). Turntable, records, any keyboard and a recorder (even a 4 track cassette). There's no reason why a simple setup like that can't work.

max_planck735 wrote:Did they use more than one layer? Did they resample drums through/onto "dirty" media in order to add grime? If so, what type of "dirty" media did they use? What are the specifics of the layering techniques that they used to layer these "dirted" samples over the clean samples (i.e. 2 layers or more layers? Compression on which layer(s)? If so, what compression settings? How did they EQ each layer?)?

For the samples that they used off of records, what kind of filtering/processing did they use? I'm sure that it varied depending on what they were sampling, but can anyone give some specific examples, or point to an article or interview that gives a specific example? Again, "dirting," compression, EQ, etc.?


I know that I could just experiment and try to figure it out, but it makes a lot more sense to me to try to avoid reinventing the wheel here. Of course my intention is to build upon the techniques/styles that the originators invented, and not to just bite their techniques. Again, reinventing the wheel just makes for a longer road to have to travel before progress and further development of these techniques can begin.

i can't believe you expect to get serious answers to questions like that, they honed their skills for years to put a magic touch on their sound, how you think anyone on here is gonna know which layers of whatever sound they compressed and know the compressor settings of whatever track???

i can understand q's like "what drum machine did they use" but seriously

it's not about re-inventing the wheel, it's about experience and getting it through putting hard work, time and effort into the art just like anything else. Use your ears to get the sound you want, there could be a million different ways to do it

Thanks for the info, and stop hatin

Hey, when yall say to resample onto a tape, are you talking about an old audio cassette tape? I tried that one already, but I'm just wondering if you're talking about one of those big ass old reel-to-reel tapes.

Try both.

A lot of what yall are chasing is the sound of the final recording, which was often done on multitrack 2" which is the best quality you can get in tape, most of those classics were straight to tape with good engineers, and that makes a big difference.

elmacaco wrote:A lot of what yall are chasing is the sound of the final recording, which was often done on multitrack 2" which is the best quality you can get in tape, most of those classics were straight to tape with good engineers, and that makes a big difference.

not to mention consoles in the 6 figure range, outboard processing (not plugin gabage), and mics not found at your local banjo center

oh yeah....and real engineers that had more than a profools certification

Flipnile hit me up [email protected]. I cant PM anybody for some reason.

ONe

True Jaem.

people think hip hop was done all budget but the studios they worked in often had some amazing gear to run that 12 bit through.

I remember an interview with Jeru and he was saying that they would call ahead to the studio to book the really old neuman mics for their sessions, because they only had a few of them and you had to reserve them in advance or you were assed out.

yeah these weren't the days of the project studio. most major releases were tracked at major studios.