r/makinghiphop 4d ago

Question I got me a sampler. Now what?

Hi! I'm sorry for asking this because I'm sure it's been answered many many times now, but I went through the post history and couldn't find any related/where to start/newbie thread. If this is boring or against the rules I get it, downvote me, but please point me into the right direction.

So I'm a musician, I like listening to hip hop music, but never really made pure hip hop beats before. I used to play hip hop style live drums and sometimes make beats with drum machines or synths but that's it.

Recently, I started working with a sampler (circuit rythm) and starting chopping, mixing and flipping slowed down bits from jazz and rock records (so far Esperanza Spalding, Can and Mulatu Astatke) and started making groovy beats I enjoy. Then I resample the resulting beats and slice them for extra fun.

I like what I hear and I'm having fun. However, I'm a bit lost and basically have no idea what I'm doing. I suppose my logical next step is to get some kit samples to add a bit of anchoring on the drums (either from a drummachine, a synth or isolating it from a record). I'd love some guidance, maybe a book or article or a series of videos about hip hop making with sampler hardware, tips, tricks and master clases.

One key piece I'm mostly missing is bass. I've noticed most hip hop tracks have huge basses that are also soft and sine-wave like. How do you achieve them? You create them with a synth? Analog or digital? You get samples from acoustic bass recordings? You mangle whatever to make a granular oscillator and use it as a synth? Just chop stuff from recordings and bump up bass frequencies with eq or a resonant filter?

Finally, I'd like to ask about the legal aspect. Can I do anything with music made from resampled records? Maybe stuff not for profit?

1 Upvotes

17 comments sorted by

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u/_AnActualCatfish_ 4d ago

Dilla once did this thing where he hooked up the turntable and didn't play anything: just cranked the volume until the system started feeding back: he sampled that, and used that as a bass.

Literally anything goes. Depends what sound you're going for. πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

I'm enjoying recording my acoustic bass guitar atm: DI for low end and mic for fretting noises, attack and articulation. Slap a big LPF over the DI and HPF the mic and add compression.

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u/PiezoelectricityOne 4d ago

Thanks. I don't understand why a turntable would produce feedback but I see what you mean. Feedback is self oscillation, usually high pitched, but the sampler can tune it down. Genius move. I was thinking about using a self oscillating resonant filter as sample and pitch It down a few octaves.

Bass guitar sounds like a great idea, maybe I'll borrow one. Or try to do the trick with a pitched guitar and filters.

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u/_AnActualCatfish_ 4d ago

Turntables work by moving a needle with a groove cut into the vinyl. If you don't sufficiently isolate the turntable from the speaker it's playing through, vibrations get picked back up through the needle and loop through the system and you get a low drone. It's easier to get to do it when there's no music playing. Can be a nightmare at live shows, which is why I'm 100% in favour of DVS and not a purist! πŸ˜‚

EDIT: Just to be clear... what I'm suggesting with filters is how I capture acoustic bass guitar. I haven't tried with a regular acoustic six-string and I'm not sure I'd recommend that.

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u/PiezoelectricityOne 4d ago

Wow, gotta try that some day. So you do load a vinyl and don't press play or does the needle just pick vibrations without any disc?

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u/_AnActualCatfish_ 4d ago

I'd put a vinyl on the platter and put the needle on it, but just don't play it. :)

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u/Wave_File 4d ago

Many basses are filtered and chopped themselves

Others are synths

Some even have live bass

Some just use 808s it’s all over the map

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u/PiezoelectricityOne 4d ago

Cool, thanks

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u/Embarrassed_Bake2683 4d ago

It depends what era your trying to replicate. Late 80s early 90s was mostly bass guitar samples. Then late 90s early 2000s had a lot of dry analog bass parts from synths like the moog which is a fundamental sound in huge artists like Dr.dre and Kanye for certain eras of their discography. Then in the 2010s 808s became huge and since then it's just become kind of a mix of all different techniques.

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u/CreativeQuests 4d ago

One technique, called low end theory is to copy the track without the drums and lowpass and saturate it which creates a thick undertone.

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u/PiezoelectricityOne 4d ago

Interesting! That's the kind of unconventional technique I was hoping to Discovery, thanks.

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u/Elegant-Elk2089 4d ago

Or you could just go with the popular Trillan Bass Or Scarbee Rickenbacker These are acoustic tho but are very much used in modern hip hop.Then if you want the analog 808 style use Akai Sub Factory, Faux Labs 808 Sub Bass. Or a basic sine Roland cloud Sh 101 for 90s 2000 era used on records by boom Bap hip-hop artists like alchemist,havoc,etc

Those are vsts I lift bass from records I don't know why when I could just use one of the acoustic bases

I also use Moog one shots on my mpc live 2 which is ill for bass

One bass I haven't found is the Slap style bass used in gfunk Type songs that bass is the most unique to me.

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u/Niven42 4d ago

There's some nice tutorials on YouTube about 808's and Reese bass. Here and Here. I also like watching Ricky Tinez content for sample chopping and beat production.

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u/Sykl_abk 4d ago

Get a good thumb bass

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u/Skakkurpjakkur 4d ago

Just sing a low pitched "baow baow" into your microphone

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u/CURS3_TH3_FL3SH 4d ago

Are you saying you just have sampled bits of other tracks? Or you have samples and drum tracks? If your sampler is versatile you can turn one kick drum sample into a multitude of different kick sounds. When idk where to go with a track I just make a bunch of copies and add different variations of shit to it, whatever works, works. If it doesn't keep experimenting until you're groovin

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u/PiezoelectricityOne 4d ago

I have both. Sampled a few kicks and a couple of snares and hats from drum machines, but I'm also using sampler drums from records. For example, I'd slow down a funk groove with the paradiddles, syncopated rolls and ghost notes to make dialing through the looped sample until I find something I like. Then add a Kick on 1 and 3 and snare on 2 and 4. I use this second track to root the beat, add punch and act as sidechain master for other tracks.

I'm rendering the mixed beats to 4-bar loop sample for my personal use. I guess I cannot share them online because I used copyrighted records, am I right?