Anybody got any tips on making some grungy/punky hip hop type of music? I guess the closest thing to it that I can think of is the Beastie Boys.

I love the sound of dusty drums and the "simplicity" of making looped backbeats with slight variances for a rap/rhyme over it. I know a couple of decent rappers and it might be good to try and do something with them. I've tried in the past, but what I make tends to sound too 'clean' without that grit to it. Granted that is partly the composition as well as the sound, but I think this type of music does lend itself a lot to needing that 'dusty' New York sheen over it.

Based on this video Adrock claims they used to use SP1200 samplers and 808s before they discovered Reason and been using Reason since. I'm not wholly convinced, but could be interesting if they genuinely do.

Anyway, anyone got any good pointers or know of any good resource for this type of stuff?

 

yes...

Play your beats with only ONE FINGER....
then start layering...

ONE FINGER use to be the only way to do it...

all this new fingerdrumming live playing hype is simply too "busy" for what you are after.

Get back to the basics and just think like a ferrenghi with a new toy... it can do a lot... but YOU dont know that... so use it simple...

FACT: Modern "busy" Finger drumming was 100% IMPOSSIBLE on machines like SP1200 and the Roland TR808. They were clunky and the buttons worked well with 1 finger at a time and layering...

Try finger drumming on one... YOU will die..

good memories - tnx

 

Sound is important for that style indeed, composition is pretty simple, you need nice grooves though.
Illmind, Goldbaby or VIP soundlab have some good dusty crunchy drums and samples, usually gone through some good old samplers (in Goldbaby check the MPC60 serie, the SP1200 serie and the Urban Cookbook serie, they used to be on the sister site). Rawcutz have some nice one shot samples (think sax, flute or stuffs like this taken out of vynils, just one shots), Illmind also has some nice instruments sampled (even some elec guitar licks if I remember correctly), or MSXII (the soulfoul thing). Any of those will get you a sound reminiscent of those days. Love the beastie boys (RIP A.Yauch) too.
Rememberance time :

 

Last edited: Jun 7, 2017

probably not exactly what you are looking for but might spark an idea

 

For grimey hip-hop inspiration, anything by RZA the producer for Wu Tang. If I was going down this road I would probably print all my synths and beats with the waves vinyl plug on them.

Also one of the best at this style was J-Dilla
RIP JD

 

Last edited: Jun 7, 2017

Oh, If you need good scratch samples I got scratch anthology. Its an oldie but the best there is for scratches. Worth every penny if your "table-tarded" like me. Cant do these tricks with gross beat and it has ALL the classic sounds plus more. Should be on the sister site, I leaked it years ago, but if its dead just hit me up....

 

Last edited: Jun 7, 2017

There was a slight groove that SP1200's did on a sequence, and a different one on MPC's. ie in the way snares were a tiny bit off and grooved with each other in a loop, or how instrument chops would snap back around, there are midi groove templates that kind of emulate this. I'd look for any SP1200 or MPC 60 saturation (or I think its a bit crusher?) type plugin for that vintage fat gritty 12 bit sound, and possibly throw some tape saturation on top of that as well.

 

Yep you're right.
For a nice bitcrusher check decimort2 by D16 group. It has like 10 presets of vintage samplers, with of course the MPC60 and the SP 1200. Well decimort 1 is fine too.
Also both Geist2 and the MPC software offers some vintage mode implemented in different ways for each (the MPC offers three modes that are supposed to be famous samplers emu, for geist2 it's at sample level there is a vintage mode). For both it's kind of a bit crusher/vintage sampler flavor.

 

All good stuff so far! I own Reason but have never really delved into it as my sequencer and tended to just use it in rewire to utilise it's synths in Ableton sometimes and when I used to be in a duo the other guy used it loads. Now Reason have VSTs, would it be plausible to try and do everything within Reason for this style of music? I know anything can be achieved in any DAW in theory, but just wondering seeing as I own it whether I should use it more

 

Honestly when I first took things idb way back then, I turned to reason, first because it was one of the nice prod tools cracked, but also, and I thought about that while watching the video you posted, because yeah as far as the drum sequencning is concerned, or the choping part, it was what was the closest itb to mpc workflow, at least in my eyes. Didn't know anything about synth back then, thor and all that seemed damn impressive to me. But the CV aspect of things, the hooking up, it made it both fun, and hardware like. I learned a lot with this daw.
I also liked fruity for its sequencer.
Anyway yeah you definitely have enought in there to make a good beat, might even help for some parts.

 

I have the MPC and 1200 groove and swing templates for ableton somewhere lemme look for them. You can just drag and drop the grooves on to your midi or audio and it nudges it around for you automatically to match the way the machines did it. The swing patterns are unique to each sampler

 

Last edited: Jun 7, 2017

I need to look for these. Actually have a Country(ish) pop song I'm thinking could use this in some of the open holes that need plugging. Either that or a Country/Slide type lead in there.

 

All the grooves youll need
https://www.f9-audio.com/products/f9-swing-grooves
Just use the lightest ones and dial em back some. That is unless you're going for a heavy swing feel.

 

@digitaldragon and @Bunford Coming right up....

 

Its been a while since I had good local MCs to work with but I used to make a lot of beats. Tons of them. This isnt really grimey and sample based, its all midi and vstis, but this is the last one I did before I jumped on to other genres. Just backing up what Im taking.....

 

your afformentioned beasties seem to think so ;)

 

Superb tune,one of the best flute samples in history