I was wondering if anyone else here on the forum writes "Hip Hop"? I ask this because it's a style of music I haven't heard on the Zone. I myself write Hip Hop along with other different styles. I've had people say to me that Hip Hop is very easy to create... I'd like to say HECK NO it's not by any means easy to create. Hip Hop takes a great deal of work. This is a style of music that changes by the hour. It's not easy to come up with new tracks for this type of music. I honestly think that's part of the reason why so many Hip Hop artists are doing remakes of old songs. There's so much competition to have that new fresh beat, that artists are turning to older music and royalty free loops to create their music.. Personally I create all my Hip Hop from scratch. That's the problem with that style of music todayl.... No body wants to get behind an instrument and play. Most of the keyboardist I've seen in this style really aren't that great. A few chords here, and there, and trigger samples from the keys. To write a Hip Hop composition from scratch takes a great deal of effort.. You really have to know how to program drums to do this style. Is there anyone else here who writes this type of music too...??????

Squeak

One other aspect to hip hop I have found when making beats is that the sounds use are very important. That's not to say the sound is not important in other music, but with hip hop today in addition to coming with a fresh musical concept, the sounds used must be different. There must be some new type of bass or snare drum in every beat.
Sounds Sounds and more Sounds.

Just my thaughts.

Exactly Hip Hop is about the sounds. They're changing everyday. That's why I have always said that PSR's don't work well for Hip Hop, Rap,and R&B... They lack the deep synth sounds you find on something like a Trtion or Motif. Plus the sequencers on arrangers are not capable of recording in a way that is essential to Hip Hop and that's using pattern chaining.

Squeak

You should start saving up for a new 61 note Triton Extreme or Roland X Squeak_D.

There probably your best ticket to making great Hip Hop sounds.

Best regards,
Mike

I agree with you that arrangers generally don’t have the deep synth sounds that hip hop require. That’s why any keyboard I get or use must have the capability and memory to edit and or load new sounds ( i.e genesys and maybe in the future mediastation).

I have found that arrangers make good pattern creators. When creating a new style and using the variations and fills and intros I use them for different parts of the song. Then I would record it real-time to the keyboard’s sequencer using the styles.

Stylus is a software library of thousands of hip hop break beats from Eric Persing of Spectrasonics (he's the guy who made the Roland patches in the 80s and 90s) Each loop can be quickly edited with filters, envelopes and transposers to make it sound totaly different. Stylus has its own control pannel and you can play it like an instrument. There is a video on their website of Eric demoing it.
Each key on your keyboard can trigger a different loop and you can mute and combine any elemts form any of them. There is also Groove Control, which means the loops can be steched ti any tempo. They were carefuly recorded from vinyl to impart warmth. Sting and Brian Culberston w/Marcus Miller have used Stylus exstensivly on their latest albums. I programmed beats for years and hate all that work. Stylus has thousands of great loops and each has a unique and incredible sound.

[This message has been edited by rintincop (edited 02-21-2004).]

I've been making rap/hip-hop beats for about 2 years now. I wouldn't say its easy and I wouldn't say its hard. It just depends on the person, for some people it maybe easy and for others it maybe hard. Some days I could make a solid beat in about 25 mins and other days It takes me days. Can some of you rap/hip-hop beat makers post some of you're work. I'm really interested and I want to hear you're guys stuff. I am about to order a technics kn2600...do you guys think its a good move for making rap/hip-hop beats? I used to use my old 92' technics kn1200 for beats, they came out good, but the sounds we're just outdated.

I don't make hip hop but I do occasionally like to mess with electronica and techno and related genres. Playing the actual notes isn't the most complicated part of the puzzle for me. A lot of the challenge is in creating the right sound to fit into the right place.

For some aspects, the arranger can help, ( the arranger function itself can simulate looping ) but because painting in the right unique sounds is a big part of it too, an arranger would be low on the list of choices for me. The PA80 ( and maybe the PA1x ) is probably the choice I would make if I had to use an arranger because it allows for deeper patch editing than most of the other arrangers, but it still pales in comparison to working with a dedicated synth or program.

Better for me in this area is a dedicated synth / workstation ( Tritons, Motifs, analog emulators like V synth.. etc ) or a program like Fruity Loops, a loop based program that comes with a few soft synths and can use any midi sound module, any Vsti and DXi softsynth, as well as Buzz machines, and samples.

There are other good programs out there as well that work well for hip hop or for the electronica that I like to work with. Examples are cakewalk Project 5, Reason, Reaktor, Storm, to name a few. I chose Fruity Loops because I liked the interface and because it opens up and works flawlessly from within the SQ01 and Sonar sequencing programs that I have.

AJ

I agree with Bluezplayer.. If you want to compose hip hop you're better off with something like a Triton, Motif, Fantom, ect. Arrangers are good, but you'll need full control over voice editing, a dihard sequencer that allow you to pattern chain, and a indepth voice soundset like you'd find on the upper end synths/workstations. One thing you might consider is something that is truly dedicated to rap, hip hop, and R&B.. An awsome machine for this would be the E-Mu MP-7. That little beast is nice, and the price is really good.. It will give youa soundset that is designed for that type of music. Plus it has 128 poly, 16 tracks for recording, voice editing.. A CRAP LOAD of real time control. It's not a keyboard, but a production station.. However you can midi a keyboard up to it to control the sounds.. It does have a full octave of velocity sensitive pads that even respond to aftertouch. It's a great machine, and if I was still writing hip hop 90% of the time like I used to when I was living on campus at school I would have bought one for myself by now.

Squeak

Yep softsynths, software sequencers and the triton and the motif are definitely the ideal things to have when making hip-hop music.

But like with making music in general, regardless of the sophistication of the equipment, the person behind the machine is what really matters in putting out a good product (good quality music).