DJ Shadow's drum programming

agreed^^^

DJ Shadow is the truth...but I have read in articles where he says it's more about the records he picked to begin with that made that album what it is.Don't get me wrong Shadow pushed the limits of the MPC 60 on Entroducing but I have heard most of the original samples used on that album and I can say that drum wise he really did alot of chopping.The instrument samples on the other hand were mostly taking as they came off the records.As far as how he did it I read an article where he says that the instrument sounds were overdubbed off the turntables onto ADAT.If you sync the MPC 60 up via smpte to a ADAT it holds time really well.Just like MTC or Midi Clock.He filled up the sampler with as much as it would hold layed a series of sequences onto ADAT then he erased the sampler and started all over adding more sounds.

yup ^ ^

collage work. cool stuff, for the time, very DJ esque. what can you expect?

point is, he can and does chop drums incredibly well. i learned my "sample silence" trick from reading an interview he does. i like his drumchopping better than his breaksampling, cuz it's basically indistinguishable.

Antonym wrote:my "sample silence" trick

I understand if the answer is no, but do tell.

ant had a whole thread on this, like 6 pages long, do a search. (or just sample some "air" or "silence" from the same sample as the drums and put the "air" in between the drum hits so it has a uniform feel or sound throughout).

all this talk of Shadow and no RJ?

maybe its my columbus/ohio mindset

you know, i still haven't heard much rjd2. i really want to but i just don't have the opportunity/too lazy to dl some stuff.
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i saw him at the metro in chicago a few months ago. Pretty dope show. He didnt do much MPC freestyling tho, just let his shit play and did some scratching. Hes good, but Pushing Buttons by numark cut chemst and shadow will probably be the best live MPC performance of all times unless someone pulls something crazy out. Also, i dont know how this is possible but i saw a pic of RJ with his MPC over his shoulders on a strap, playing it like a keytar or something.

RJ usually always brings out his mpc at live shows. LAtely he's been doing that ^he described and wearing it around his neck as his plays, but usually he'll sit it out and play alot of the beats right on it.

he also plays the gtr and sings during a show

SkwerlStyle wrote:i saw him at the metro in chicago a few months ago. Pretty dope show. He didnt do much MPC freestyling tho, just let his **** play and did some scratching. Hes good, but Pushing Buttons by numark cut chemst and shadow will probably be the best live MPC performance of all times unless someone pulls something crazy out. Also, i dont know how this is possible but i saw a pic of RJ with his MPC over his shoulders on a strap, playing it like a keytar or something.

mpc3 - Pushing buttons
I thought it was nice too.. untill.... I heared Mandrill - Just Outside Of Town... You got it, they sampled it.. the african rhythms in that show are straight loops.. Yet MPC3 is drumming the mpcs like mad men.. they play loops Dj SHadow On The Bass is real though

I saw RJD2 a couple of months ago and he was rockin a 3000 . he did a whole part of his set with it. He had a record going and he was palying along then half way through the song he flipped the song the other way playing back the drum track he just layed down and had the record all ready chopped in the mpc and played along with the drum seq. It was cool and plenty of room for era but he laid it down tight. He was useing the mpc to trigger some samples through the set but he mostly spun a sick set , beat juggling and a little scracthin. He is worth checkin out , get a good seat to watch cause this guy can really spin a set. I was really impressed after seeing him , looked like he spent a lot of time rehersing the set but then I talked to other people who saw him the next night and they said he did different stuff. pretty cool

in/flux is def chopped up drums
organ donor most def too!
... he uses a looot of loooooooops too though
i heared six days is almost a mashup
he has this single, im too lazy to go look for it in the crates, but its a loop from the nu people... straight up loop .. he only added the male voc saying "yeah" and the piano and bass too of course
now for his last album he invited a couple of musicians to do the work for him.. and "My Way" (the second track on the outsider) is coming from a tape he found in the archieve of an old retired record company. i wish i had access to tapes like that

ivincent wrote: I'm assuming he quantized the kicks during that drum break. Either that or he step editted it but I would think that would take forever.

there's nothing wrong with that. if more producers would take there time to do a better job at programming maybe we wouldnt have such shi+ music out today.

what happen to the days when it took about a month or months to put out an album, NOW it's every week or ever other month, i dont think there's that many talented artist out there.
shadow was a idol to many when that album came out as i can remeber hearing from that album there was some amazing things , whether he did it quatized or step edit he HAD something there that was different then the rest.

i'm not sure what your askin but if you dont use both those techniques then you'll never find out .
what you have to do is decate a hole day to just SWING/quantize and see what you come up with that little feature is crazy try using different time sig too.

ryssen wrote:There was a thread in the Off Topic section half a year ago or so. It contained a link to a guy who had hunted down a lot of Shadows samples, giving up records and track from which they were lifted. Some had audio examples and I was greatly dissapointed over the amount of straight lopping he had done, especially on "Building steam...".
The piano is looped, not sure if the really low keys of the piano is looped or not, but the mid / high notes are looped straight up, and the sad part is that the nice female "aahh" vocals that fit so nicely with the piano is a part of the same song. There are a few bars of open piano and then the "aahhh"´s kick in, so he sampled two bars from the same song and looped them.
Sad to find out after years of awe over that track.

Do you by chance have the link? If not, I'll start digging through old messages. That is kind of a bummer. I thought it was all programmed too. Sometimes digging for hip hop samples can really bum you out like that. I always thought that the Concrete Schoolyard track by J5 was so hot. When I finally heard the OG Ike Turner joint I was like, yeah the J5 joint is still hot, but the OG loop is what makes it so. I guess I just never gave any thought to the composition of that track until I heard the OG.