I just got really sad because I realized the greatest beat of all time was probably deleted forever by some producer who just wasn’t feeling it at the time.
The 3 old friends of mine and my cousin saved all of their old beats, and some absolutely horribly mixed songs. My cousin has a song from a group of people he rapped with in high school (2013 maybe) he had a song called “Victorious.” I tell him it’s still one of my favorite songs by the group. He won’t let me listen to it again, and I’m salty. I have memories to that song.
It's crazy sometimes that the beats producers don't like are the one's that artists end up jumping on. At the end of the day all beats matter whether🔥 or 💩
The way Kanye chopped that sample for Gold digger made it what it is today. If he had chopped it like most producers it would have never been anything.
Another note, Keybeats who were a production duo who were working under Timbaland, they made “Rock The Boat” by Aaliyah, they were about to delete that as well and she stopped them too.
That self-conscious reaction to simplicity is real. I started making beats with a songwriting perspective as before I wrote rock songs, once I ditched that mentality and stripped down the musicality of my beats, they instantly got way better. Less is more! 🙏
I think the problem with complex beats is that we struggle to find the places we should lay our voices on, whereas if you start simple and then make it complex with time but AFTER the vocals have been laid, then there probably would be no such struggle
What I meant to say is that complex beats have their space, it's just that for us to sit better with it, we have to start simple and build it over time, you know?
I feel that, I started off in rock and struggled to get away from the songwriting/complexity issue. Working on an R&B project now and it’s been a struggle keep it in mind.
That's why I been so into the acoustic guitar the last few years. No twiddling with knobs. No picking sounds. It only sounds as good as my playing. It's just pure notes.
@@swagmund_freud6669 that's such a good mentality, I write my progressions and leads on acoustic cause I've found if it doesn't sound good unplugged then it won't sound good plugged in
Man, born in 79 growing up with Cypress Hill, Wu Tang, Snoop Dogg, Funkdoobiest, Lords of the Underground and House of Pain (to name a few) I love your detailed "how they produced it" videos from this era. Please keep em coming.
This is so true. About 20 years ago (During the height of Lil Jon) I made a beat as tongue-in-cheek parody of his, because I hated how simplistic all his melodies were. It only took me about 10 minutes and I was literally laughing the whole time. I even named it PARODY. So a few days later I'm playing my latest beats for my brother, cousin and their friend who all rapped. I tell them I made this parody beat of Lil Jon and play it for them expected us all to get a good chuckle, they go silent and start head nodding furiously like "Yo, that one cold!". They loved it, and I was flabbergasted, lol!
the thing is, that i've had to learn over the years.. is simplicity works really well for the artist. it gives them lots of room to put their own flavor and creativity into it. to us producers it seems like it isn't enough or is just too basic, but that is exactly what a great artist needs sometimes. it gives them room to do their magic.
This is the exact reason I never use samples. It's too easy to make fire beats with samples, so I just play everything I use. Guess I should start using samples? 😅 (Nope) Also, they should have added Laffy Taffy to this list. As a producer, I always hated how easy that beat was, and how big the song got from that simple note sequence. Less is more apparently. 👍🏽
I remember watching that Alchemist DEHH interview YEARS ago and that particular segment stuck with me. As soon as I saw the title and thumbnail I knew you had it here 😂 brilliant video idea
Your videos are great! Here’s something I’ve always wondered about Deep Cover: The Piano stab might be from the Isaac Hayes song Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic (that’s actually the title lol). There’s a piano breakdown near the end of the song and I think that’s where the piano is from.
A big thank you for this video! I just started making beats a couple of days ago and unfortunately, I have very high standards, thanks for giving us a new perspective!
Honestly, you should make videos just showing how famous beats were made, these really give insight in how those legendary producers work and which rythms/sounds they use.
Discovered your channel yesterday been on a rabbit hole since. Music be trash lately so instead I listen to shorts or videos while I workout, Love your stuff 💪🏼
I'm new to your content. On this alone, I'm watching all your content for sure: Thank you for including clips of the hypothetical options that producers avoided! When didactic videos of any kind just throw out hypothetical things to avoid without proof of it, they're asking way too much of an intended audience of novices.
Man, I read a book about Illmatic and I think Premier and Large Pro switched beats at the last minute, so maybe that could be why, but I agree Illmatic wouldn't be the same without Memory Lane. And One Love and Life's a Bitch were chill songs, but I'm not going to argue with Dj Premeir
Your attention to detail is amazing. I am glad you found music beat production and teaching others to use that gift instead of like crocheting complicated things or some other shit. :-/
GTA Online got me into listening to Dr. Dre very recently. No lie, the entire Dr. Dre missions(heists?) were all amazing to me! Best “story” I’ve seen. And hearing Dre, Rick Ross and Anderson .Paak on “The Scenic Route,” and I love it when .Paak sings on the chorus. His voice blends so well with the chorus section of the beat! I heard it for the first time on mushrooms and I put that song on repeat the entire trip.
I’m guessing the Alchemist beat was the Kool G Joint off Murda Muzik. He said that shit was supposed to be an album intro. You could do a whole episode on Havoc, it seems like there’s a direct inverse relationship between his liking of his beats and the public reception of the end song.
Somehow, the story always comes back to the feeling, what a certain beat triggers in you. On one occasion, Lord Finesse spoke in one of his interviews about a song he did with Biggie, where he was not clear why he chose such a beat for his song (Suicidal Thoughts). It talks about your emotional status, what you hide from the eyes of others around you. Yes, certain artists have the power to refine your beat and make it bigger and stronger, it doesn't turn out that way planned. Tastes differ, people differ. Everyone is looking for that one beat that will satisfy all groups of listeners. There is no such beat. It is also dangerous to experiment with a proven recipe that you have accustomed your listeners to. I also sometimes wonder how some songs resonated so well with the audience, while some other songs, on which more energy was invested to create, passed under the radar. It is difficult for an artist who spends hours and days making beats, to understand how some of their beats are not celebrated beats, but that matters only to the creator. In the end, only the beat that you managed to sell counts, the beat that elevated you as an artist. It's surprising how much a simple idea can resonate. That's why I think it's okay to make more songs and ideas, and then make a selection at the end. Also, a song today does not have to be recorded in the same mood the next day. Everything depends on the moment, on the feeling, on the current mood as a result of many factors. Also, I've never understood people who write their songs without a beat to inspire them, but I've experienced artists write their song on one beat and sound much better with the same song on a different beat. 🤔
Reminds me of why Dr Dre never likes listening or performing a lot of the stuff from the chronic. Cuz he made a large part of that album in a wheelchair after getting shot, and Snoop was going through all the trial bullshit that was stressing everyone out. Legit Dre thought that album was gonna be his last.
Memory Lane is a great example of give and take between producer and artist. And how Nas does have good taste in beats, wanted to use the Juicy sample before Biggie did and premier said no. When Nas performs memory lane live you can tell he loves that shit
great video, had no idea Primo hated Memory lane, one of my favs off of Illmatic, But it's worth to add how Dre's Deep cover gave birth to Big Pun and Fat joes Twins, a far superior song in my opinion. Btw , great job with the recreations :)
Great vid and I like how you shift the direction of your content. Interesting fact, Big Pun & Fat Joe also used Dre's beat for Twinz. Talk about trash to treasure.
Nice to see The Realest make an appearance. One of my favorite Kool G Rap verses of all time (out of many), and I like the beat. From the way Mobb and G Rap spit on it, it’s hard to tell which bar of the beat is 1234 and which is 5678, which is a kinda weird thing about it.
@@stevesamplingmusic Underground means no TV play. This was the golden era of hip hop. It may not have been in the forefront of popular music but it definitely wasn’t underground.
This was a great video. I have to be reminded often by friends and artists that only other producers care how you made the beat. You can loop something with no drums added and if the rapper likes it, it’s a go. You can also chop a sample to a 1000 piece puzzle and nobody will care. 🤦🏾♂️. Just make a tight beat and move on. Ohh and you “from scratch” producers who don’t sample, people don’t care if you played a vi-ii-iii-v-I chord progression with a synth that you designed from a sine wave layered with a wavetable oscillator 😑. At the end of the day, just make something you like 🤷🏾♂️
It's funny that you posted this video, cuz for the first time since I started making beats last year, I finally made one which I don't like. I'll still put it out there tho. One man's trash is another's treasure, you never know.
I remember grabbing Public Enemy’s Greatest Misses when it first came out. I’d had this one beat in my head since about ‘87 and it was 90% Hazy Shade of Criminal. Talk about a deja vu all those years later and was on kind of a cast off album. Love PE
that's probably because rappers look for different things than producers, it's easier to get a placement with an 8 bar loop copied and pasted than with a 3 section beat. And that's because it's easier to flow over a beat that doesn't change that much as well as when you make more sections or put more sounds it's more likely that some of them the rapper won't like
Wait, does the Serato Sample standalone for FL have the Studio features? My Serato plugin for Logic is still the same basic ass version from when I bought it a couple years ago. Ive been waiting for the update with the Studio features for a while now, damn
See that’s how u make old school beats. The way u recreated the beats. Sounds legit and that’s what I respect. As Most of the drums, bass etc were samples. Idk but for me I dislike when producers on the internet say “how to make a 90s style beat” but they using trap style drum packs instead of samples.
I was wondering why most of my earlier beats sounded like early 90s production…it’s mainly cause if I couldn’t get a sound I’d sample it on a phone speaker 😂…still do actually
I have so much music I haven't put out because of my weirdly specific standards. But even with what i have released, the music that I don't like anymore as much much tends to be my most popular. My most streamed song is a song I made during a mental breakdown and spent like 10 minutes mixing and mastering lol.
Funny thing is... I used to HATE that Realest beat by Alchemist too lol. I got older and I appreciated the simplicity of it because it gave a lot of space to them especially Kool G Rap to spit a first verse
I'm glad you came around to realizing that the fireness of this beat. Cuz you and Al were buggin out not liking that beat! Not gonna lie. 😄 Always said that Kool G spit one of his illest versus, if not the ill is verse when it came to just straight raw spittin on that beat.
@NavieD Genuinely is. When I feel like each part is near completion or if I'm adding stuff just to hear something different, then I take a break. Once they're finished, definitely need a good break.
@@Phosphor_Sco good lord do I feel that. Whenever my projects go live I make my social media posts about them, tag whoeever the feature is if it's a collab and then other than sharing it again every once in a while don't go near it for a good week or two so my brain can go back to liking it. I typically do like my songs, I just always need the break to appreciate what I've made
How do you know at 10:12 for example, when you recreate the beat, what note should be the piano not to sound off and match the sample? Same question could be asked also for the other instruments, but answer should be the same.
This is real af it's always the easy stuff that gets attention I jus find that stuff boring like if it's easy to make there isn't enough there to make me say "oh shi that was nuts" I've noticed that a simple approach to music appeals to normal people way more (there's a real difference in someone that lives in new sound vs someone that isnt look for that at all)
I can understand cuz I'm an artist myself and I can understand how a beat might be weird or might sound trash to the producer but that what makes it a challenge for the artist to see what he or she can create with that sound that the typical artist might of passed on that really create separation from the artist that can create something dope with any production than an artist who is just so one dimensional with there signature sound and preference
