confused about hip hop critique

[jimlap]

hello - can somebody please help me decipher what my critique means for the daytime talk show hip hop return i got - hip hop is a relatively new style to me so while i did not really expect to get forwarded - i did expect to learn something from my submission so that i can improve my chops - here are my tracks:http://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_ ... am=truethe reviewer wrote:Piano on the track sounds great. The heavy synth sound seems to cloud over a lot of the other elements of the track. The breakdowns with just the keys and the drums/horns sounds the best.Track has a very digital feel to it. Key board heavy. Drums are ok, piano playing/keys sound great. I would try to maybe give the track some more samples/sounds that have a little more "real" feel to them.Track has some really funky patterns going on it. Keys are played strong once again. Digital sounds seem to be a little to noticeable. Loving the funk on the track. I think that you have some really solid keyboard/piano playing skills. The drums on the tracks seem a little stiff and almost too processed but we might be able to get away with that. The biggest thing right now is that the instrumentals are sounding a little too key board driven, and don't really give off that "realness" that you hear in most urban/hip hop tracks. I would suggest maybe trying to replace some of the digital sounding samples with some that feel/sound a little more authentic. Structurally the tracks are fine, and there is some really nice key/piano going on in the tracks. If we can build upon those strengths I think that the songs could become even stronger then they already are. Tracks sound a little too digital/keyboard driven. The could use some more authentic sounding samples/sounds. I guess I do not understand what he means by "realness". Does that mean real acoustic sounds or something i am to old to understand. He also seems to compliment my keyboard playing - but then tells me that the tracks are to keyboard driven. However my biggest confusion is when he says things sounded to stiff/processed. I listened to 105.1 (main hip hop station in new york city)to get a feel for hip hop and to my ear every instrumental backing track sounded looped and mechanical. In fact, since I did not loop at all and everything is played live (except for the drums) my main worry was that the tracks would come off as to jazzy.My main gripe is that i do not know how to proceed from here. Since I joined in January of this year I have had only one forward out of nine submissions. Anyway - thanks for reading -jim

[ibanez468]

jimlap,The screeners (and clients too I assume) are real high on authentic sounding instruments. Some of what you may hear on the radio (like synth acoustic guitars, or synth brass) usually won't get the nod here. They want as many instruments as possible, to sound as real as possible. The more real they sound, the better your chances of getting forwarded. Screener likes your keyboard playing, but the rest of the instruments sound like they're coming from the same keyboard or sound module etc.., so to her/him everything else sounds keyboard driven (I'm assuming). Stiff, I guess meaning sounding mechanical. This sounds like a 254 screening! Probably should listen to some Kanye West, timbaland, justin timberlake, or Jay-Z to get a better feel. Sound familiar? I-468PS -- After actually listening, I guess I'd have too agree with screener to some extent. The keyboard playing IS cool. Screener can sniff out a string synth like that! And IMHO these tunes do sound much more on the jazzy side than on the hip-hop side. Arrangements have to have more of a hip-hop edge to 'em. I'd suggest going thru the 'forwards' section of this board, and listening to some of the other members tunes that got forwarded for hip-hop/rap. That should really give you an idea of what's acceptable and what's not. HTH. Love ya' screener 254.

[geo]

1 outa 9.... I would kill for that ratio .... Ibanez covered it I think.... sounds like your a sample away... though I'm taking a listen and think you might be too jazzy as well, maybe a little more edge... definately not my genre .... keep at it ... good playing... Geo

[ibanez468]

jimlap,Just as a side note, you may even want to take a listen to some of the more orchestral pieces that others have posted, so you can hear the differences between the way those string sections sound and the way a synth string section sounds. You'll hear quite a bit of difference. An upgrade on all of your sounds may be in order to really get the forwards rollin'.I-468

[che]

jimlap,Not sure what equipment you're using so it's kind of hard to give specifics, but maybe some general info will help.To me maybe what was meant by the too keyboard driven part is that the sounds you chose sound like they could be keyboard generated, not authentic enough. We use several software plugins in our DAW (Sonar) We have an orchestra kit, guitars that sound almost so real only a real pro can tell, for drums we mainly use Reason... and so on. So I guess what I'm suggesting is that you look into finding sounds that sound more like the instrument you want to hear in your song. Not so synthetic or keyboard generated.Here are 2 songs that we had fowarded to the same listing, but as a Dispatch.http://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_ ... 5&stream=1* the guitar in this track is real http://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_ ... ream=1Hope that helps. Of course we are still trying to figure things out also and listening to what gets forwarded by others I think does help.

[slideboardouts]

Hey jimlap,There are a couple problems here. First, I noticed that in the first track you end with a fade. NEVER do fade outs. Even if the listing doesn't specifically ask for button endings, give them a button ending anyways.Next would be your sound choice, which is probably what the screener was referring to in his critique. Some of the sounds are a bit dated, and the sounds (like the horns) that should sound like the real thing sound a little synthetic. The tracks sound really synthetic as a whole. Its OK to use dated synths for hip-hop as that is kind of in style at the moment, but you have to do it JUST right or else the song just won't work. A dated sounding synth really needs to be used sparingly and as an accent on top of very current sounding synths, drum sounds, and drum patterns.The last thing I'll touch on is the way the song is arranged and written. These tracks really have more of a jazzy type of feel. They are much too melodically driven whereas hip hop is much more rhythmically driven. The piano is cool, but its much too busy. The bass lines are too busy as well. Hip hop is really driven by the percussion instruments. Everything else, for the most part, should be complementing the drum pattern and not hogging the spotlight. Instead of doing intricate keyboard riffs, think of doing hits and stabs with whatever sounds you choose. That will give you a song that more closely resembles a hip hop track.-Steve

[jimlap]

Thank you everybody for the advice - Now back to the drawing board!

[ciskokidd]

Steve nailed it on the head so I'll just agree and say DITTO.Cisko

[andreh]

Quote:Steve nailed it on the head so I'll just agree and say DITTO.CiskoTritto.André