Elektronauts Hiphop Beat Battle #8 - Back to 92 edition

This was probably the most difficult battle for me so far… I normally pick samples which have no (or very little) drums and can easily be chopped or made into something else. This one was challenging! Props to everyone because I’m really impressed by the range of different track you guys made out of these samples.

Since my goal for this year is to become a ninja master on the ARmk2, this is again made entirely on that machine, including the (fake) sidechain ducking and fx. I also used the dual vco as my external instrument. No mixing was done after recording into my daw.

The track has 2 pieces: The first piece is built around chopped up part of the Chante Moore track, with some reversed guitar and vocals from Sade. The second part is built from different loops from the Chante Moore track, more or less left intact. Hope you guys like it!

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My main goal for this Battle was to actually submit something for the first time :slight_smile:

I don’t have a lot of time on my hands these days, but I loved to experiment a bit and I learned a lot. For a change, I did this one completely ITB (Ableton) which added an extra challenge as I normally use it only for recording my hardware.

Feels like it’s only a “verse” part of the beat,

Some details (can’t remember everything I did):

Drums: chopped up from Sade with some granular percussion elements from waves against the shore

Melodic: chops from all three tracks

Bass: comes from Vital, a heavily tweaked version of a preset called Moog pluck.

Everything went through several audio-effects, don’t remember exactly what I did here.

Simply doing this made me appreciate all the stuff I heard before even more. Very inspiring to hear what you guys were able to do with this!

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First time submitter…and quite new with sampling and music production.

How it was made
I sampled some parts from every songs. All the sounds (drums included) are from the tracks, I haven’t used any other samples.
The track was created using the Digitakt and played live while recording. I used an iPhone to record the video/audio. No DAW was used.
You can see the video here: Elektron Digitakt Jam #39 - YouTube

I don’t pretend to be classified, but I would like to receive some feedback :slight_smile:

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Big ups to all that have submitted so far. Great to see new people involved and some before my time returners too! :facepunch: And as ever with these super interesting to hear how people approach the source material.

Just under a week to go for those that want to submit and haven’t yet. I’m going to try and get something in before the 11th hour for once…

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ignore this in context of the battle, it’s for ghostface purposes only.

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It was so hard to scroll past everyone’s submissions and not start listening yet! I have my digitakt loaded up with the samples and just playing around at the moment.

I’m listening to pharcyde bizarre ride, showbiz and ag runaway slave and Mecca and soul brother (Pete rock and cl) for inspiration on this one.

I soooo appreciate how they put their tracks together. I am even more in love with how Pete Rock composed tracks. Good god.

Also how many producers paid tribute to public enemy everywhere!

What are you guys listening to from 92 ?

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I was gonna ask about tack separation - have you guys tried Lalal.ai for extracting stems? It’s incredibly good!

Bass
Drums
Vocals

No mess no bother.

What say y’all?

Are we going for recreating constraints from 92 or are we free to use 2022 technology?

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Anything goes as long as you follow the rules at the top. Winner sets the rules for the next battle. :+1:t2:

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That said, your track for the Tribe one was ridiculously awesome. I’m scared not to give you constraints. :laughing:

We may have to give you a handicap like in golf.
:wink: :sweat_smile: :golf:

Looking forward to your entry.

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Massive Attack vibes

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Nice, thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

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Those are all solid classics that I have on repeat, but I think I probably replay Diamond D Stunts Blunts & Hip Hop the most from that year, and even though it came out late 91, I was listening to Organized konfusions first album a lot in 92

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A lot of great submissions so far and cool to see some new entrants. Here is my beat, feels weird to be submitting it before the last day!

Percussion taken from Mr Fingers. Strings and vocals from Chanté. Vocals from Sade. Also layered some of the kicks and snares from Sade onto the drums I used. All done on the MPC One.

To record, I tracked it out to my Fostex X-77 four track, as I just got it recently and any excuse to use it (was honestly planning to use it even before @DimensionsTomorrow posted :grinning:) . The MPC One only has 2 outs so had to put the strings on a separate file on my sp404 and recorded that into inputs 3 and 4 of the Fostex. After some advice on the Cassette Thread, I just recorded the final mix into my H5. When I say “mix”… :man_shrugging:

Anyway looking forward to hearing the rest of the entries :peace_symbol:

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This was a tough one! It’s not my favorite work… but it’s all I could come up with!

Main Groove taken from Sade
Stabs/effect sound taken from Mr. Fingers and Chante. Vocal samples from Sade then i layered up a little extra drum groove… kept it simple. by simple i mean rough and probly bit sloppy haha love the learning process either way!

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no groove boxes were harmed in the making of this jam lol

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haha… i still have that old mc-303!

for context, matt and i went to college together way back. my goovebox was an object of ridicule.

haha no ridicule here! only pure desire!! I woulda killed for one of those back then!

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I used the Chante More track and the Sade track. It’s all pretty straightforward. The Digitakt is controlling the Uno synth. That’s about it.

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Damn this sounds good. This is probably one of my favorite beats of yours so far, I love how well the samples and synth fit together and match your overall style. Drums also knocking as always.

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really great

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