New hip-hop beat: feedback on work in progress?

[triviul]

Hello all,Following the really helpful responses I had to my last attempt ('Widow'), I'd be interested in any feedback people can give me on this new hip-hop backing track I'm working on at the moment -- it's only once through the verse and hook at the moment, but I figured I'd try to get some opinions before I pressed on with spinning it out to its full length. The track's provisionally called 'Instrumental: Ant Hill Mob v1' and it's on my Taxi page. Anything you want to take a potshot at is fair game -- I've been working on it too much to have much perspective at the moment!

[unastronaut]

No doubt, man. You've got a fan in me.

[dgolding]

Nice work. It's really not my genre, but I like some of the production touches, like adding dry sounds where most peeps would add reverb.It reminded me a bit of "Madness' in their heyday.

[triviul]

Quote:No doubt, man. You've got a fan in me.Glad you liked it. Also, if celib8ho is still lurking, thanks for your reply to this thread. I saw it earlier but didn't have time to reply then and there, and now the post seems to have disappeared. Wierd.Quote:triviul, this is creative work. The production was solid. I was expecting something different and had images of radio-ready hip hop, but instead I heard a film sound track lurking in this song. It was a bit hard to lock onto the tones in the groove. They were interesting, and put this song on the edge in a way I liked.Thanks for the encouragement. The production turned out better than I'd thought it would (for convoluted reasons I had to put this track together entirely on a Roland MPC clone which doesn't have particularly good mixing facilities), although I've not had a chance to check on a full-range system yet for the sub. It's interesting what you say about it being hard to lock onto the tones in the groove, because that's something I deliberately went for -- I'm normally well into my functional harmony, but I was after that slightly off-kilter ambiguous feel that some hip-hop tracks have. That said, I'm thinking of maybe pushing this track further and making a hard urban RnB track of it, so I'd put in some more tonal information with the vocals then. I'm also glad that you felt I had a bit of an edge going here, because I was getting a bit worried that I might have been playing things too safe with some of my sounds -- that's what comes of listening to the same thing for too long!Quote:Nice work. It's really not my genre, but I like some of the production touches, like adding dry sounds where most peeps would add reverb. It reminded me a bit of "Madness' in their heyday. I'm normally pretty careful with my reverbs. Even when I use them I don't leave them the same for long -- I find it just blands out a mix when the reverb's consistent all the way through. The funny thing is, I hadn't really mixed this track properly yet (it's all straight out of the groovebox), so I'm not sure I can take credit for the wetness/dryness, seeing than it's all just in the samples. That said, I'd not have been looking to do much in the way of reverb with a track like this anyway for fear of smoothing off the edges.I am a big fan of Madness, as it happens, but I wasn't thinking of them while I was doing this track. I had more a kind of 'keystone cops' feel in mind (I started with just the verse groove), but that ended up becoming a bit more 'retro gameshow' when I added in the hook section later.

[apjc10]

The track is hot man BUT...I still think you are too musical. And when I say that I hope that I am wrong because I love musicality. If you were a rap artist I would love it but since you are trying to write for other people, I just think that you may be more succesful with simpler grooves. In the beginning there is a bass line that I grabbed onto and was loving, but then you dropped it and switched things up and you lost me (as I was playing the typical hiphop listener). Find ways to accent around one main groove to keep it interesting, use your skill and variations to do that, keep the main groove and add elements to it. Just my thoughts...don't get me wrong...it's hotness.God bless

[prez]

Hmmm. Quite frankly, this is a dope track. The little chipmunk action is a nice touch. And, quite frankly, we need musicality in hip hop. All this other garbage that's coming out today is just that: garbage. Nice work.God bless.

[davewalton]

Quote:Quite frankly, this is a dope track. Translation requested for the out-of-circuit "old guy". In addition to my reqest on Casey's behalf, I guess I could use a slang refresher here too.

[anne]

Nice track, triviulDave,dope = really cool, excellent, very good, + Anne

[davewalton]

Quote:Dave,dope = really cool, excellent, very good, + Ah yes, ahem, of course... well I knew that but I, um, was asking for Casey... yes, that's it. Got to get that guy into the 21st century somehow. Casey, um... says "thanks".

[triviul]

Thanks for all the new comments guys! Checked out the 4Six3 site PREZ -- that's some gritty stuff you've got going on there! That's meant to be a compliment, by the way, because I really like the rawness, and the production values are still top notch by the sounds of things. Your sound seemed to me to work particularly well with the silky vocals over it too (on 'Feel Him' for example), as that gave a great kind of contrast.