For some reason this music reminds me big city cafeteria around the corner, brown leather and green fabric, around year early 2000.





How this genre is called? How should I call it? "Lounge" or "Soul" or "Acid Jazz" or "Jazz Fusion"?

What elements do I need? Any nice VST equivalent?
Hammond Organ?
Rhodes Piano?
Leslie Rotary Speaker?
Saxophone?
Flute?
What else?

Maybe someone here was produced music like this in early 00s or still producing?


Here are some examples:

Second question: Where I can find this bass and strings from the track "50 Foot Strides"?
Korg M1? Something like it? If it's not a rompler sound then How to make it?
How to make this "acid flute" "lu lu lu lu" sound at 0:08 & 0:21?
It is similar sound like in the Taxi Pinball game soundtrack.
Is it Hammond Organ at 1:14?

How I can make this "wah wah" sound like in this Blue Six track at 0:54 using vst? Just guitar pedal give this effect?
What is basic instrument in this?

What instrument makes this plucky sound at 2:40? Which VST rompler have those strings?

This track is different genre but those strings at the beginning are nice. I heard them before many times.
Where I can find them? Which rompler or something? Any VST?

 

Last edited: Jan 21, 2024

Those are more Chillout.
But also similar and very nice.

 

Whoa, infodump overload! I need time to process all that

 

Fender Rhodes, the spirit of Blue Note. Dub effects,

 

If you're tlalking about the 50 foot strides track, the lu lu lu lu thing is a synth with delay, there seems to be a flute thing in the center but it's just a static note. THe whole thing could be a sample though.

Not a real one, probably a rompler trying to do some "organ" sound.

It's a guitar with a wha-wha, but alternatively you can use a bandpass or lowpass filter, experiment with it a little bit, or just use a wah pedal vst, depending on where you're getting your guitar sound from, one might be more convenient than the other (i.e. if it's from a rompler, you probably have a filter right there)

Electric guitar.

Try Roland JV-1080, XV-5080, Korg Triton, Korg M1, Sounfonts maybe.

I think any of the above will have most of that stuff covered, but you might want to dig in some old sample libraries, using samples is pretty common on this type of music, specially for drums and sfx. Check out X-Static Goldmine series, i don't know a lot about sample libraries but this one has enough stuff to give you a jumpstart, and it's from that era so that makes it historically accurate.

Search for 90s ambient whatever (house, jungle, trance, etc) and you'll find a lot of stuff with similar vibes.

Edit: Just a tip, but check this out, it could be useful for pads and all that stuff:

 

Last edited: Jan 21, 2024

This stuff is dead simple. The cool comes from the playing, usually a tight group doing session work. But essentially you're looking at quite a niche bass guitar tone, cornerstones of Rhodes and foot pedalled guitar (filter, volume). Simple synths and woods/brass on the expensive side. It's still very funky and fine nuance coming from the performance on the instrument is key for getting an authentic feel.

 

It's not about sounds alone although a Rhodes jazz lick is gong to help, but the main thing to get a 00's sound is to aim for an early 70's sound. Here's a few I did years ago. No special sounds needed, just the vibe.

 

Can I ask from where you get the drums? I hear bongos there.
What VST's or samples you can recommend for drums?

 

Here's my confession for all to hear. I didn't play much at all on these tracks. Almost everything you hear are from loop packs on the sister site. If it needed some element to hold it all together I might play a bass line or Rhodes piano part, but it's mostly cut and paste. It's "producing" music, it's not "composing" music. This is the confession of former Pope Lenny. I have sinned.

 

The same guitar used throughout the track, sounds like at least a strat on neck pickup at most a jazzmaster (soapbar pickups), but I don't think so.

 

Yeah ”jazz fusion” this certainly is not It’s definitely ”chillout” or ”lounge”. But you’re right, this music was in the background everywhere in the early 00’s. It still is, in boutique hotel lobbys etc.

What was the name of the company and CD series that released numerous compilations of this stuff, with the illustrated women and very Y2K fonts on the covers? Hed Kandi?

There were also artists and bands who did this stuff. They were probably labeled ”jazz” back then, but didn’t play any solos so they really weren’t. Bands like: Incognito (especially!), Morcheeba, Brand New Heavies (less so)…and a lot of female singers.

Since this is pretty much glorified elevator music, I was never interested in creating any, but the Rhodes is definitely the backbone. Major 9th and Minor 9th, even Minor 11th chords.

You have to also remember the era: it was all about hardware. Samplers and ROMplers of the day. Sample libraries on CDs. People took loops and licks and presets and made this stuff. Motif, Fantom-X, Triton, E-MU Proteus 2000.

I’d say it would take some knowledge of (jazz) harmony to truly do any sophisticated stuff - but actually it’s much simpler. Pick a similar mid tempo (100-110?). Do a Major 9th chord going to a Minor 9th Rhodes chord. Loop those, add a slick electronic beat either programmed or a loop; add some mellow but funky electric bass, some wah-wah guitar. Top it all with some echo-delay flute doodling, some female singing, and percussion (congas and shakers), and you got your basic lounge track, haha.

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2024

Listen to these songs...
https://open.spotify.com/intl-it/track/1o48oHpeuIJHSgmKGGRyqk?si=a742643d1a5f47f5
https://open.spotify.com/intl-it/tr...56eb4b-85bd-4dc7-8c14-8d5e67909688:1705933823

 

Shout out to Thunderball... that Scorpio Rising album is one of my favorite albums of all time.

That whole album was the inspiration for this track I made a while back:

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2024

I thought this genre was called Trip Hop.

 

Trip Hop is different. It is around Chillout genre but has different characteristics.
No rhodes. Different bass. More breakbeat drums etc.

Here are some Trip Hop examples (I hope ):

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2024

There was definitely Rhodes in trip hop (not always, though). The bass might’ve been an acoustic one (upright). It was also called ”downtempo”, because it was literally those same breakbeat beats used in hip hop…but slowed down to a crawl on a sampler. It was also much darker and sometimes lo-fi.

Tricky, Massive Attack, Portishead, even Björk sometimes.

 

Ok. My bad. I never heard rhodes in Trip Hop. There is too much electronic genres. I'm feeling lost in them

You mean "Hotel Costes" series?
This track "L'amour" was in many tv commercials in early 00s.