The Transition from Hardware to Software (A Love Story)
From my personal blog @ "The Beat Goes On" - tonybenjaminz.blogspot.com
I admit it. Once upon a time I was a purist. When I first started seriously making beats, I scraped up enough cash to buy an Ensoniq ASR-10. My friend DJ Stress and I were at another producer's crib (man, I am TERRIBLE at remembering names!), and it was the first time we laid eyes on one. He showed us what it could do, we had that wide eyed look like "wow, yo I gotta get one of these!" Stress got his first. Off we went.... he made my beats for a good portion of time, but I still had that hunger for more. Finally, I bought mine right before surgery to repair a broken foot. Five months in a cast in a third-floor apartment, I needed something to do, right??? I freaked that sampler like my life depended on it. I LOVED that machine. We did our first records off the ASR. Nuff said.
Fast forward a couple years, my dudes Maci and Dez turned me on to the MPC. I was living in a new spot, and didn't have the space to set up the ASR, so it sat in a closet. It was a heartbreaking decision, but I decided to sell the ASR and cop an MPC. Only thing, they didn't make the 2000 any more, there was the new (at the time) 2000XL. I knew a dude named Chief with an SP-1200, but they were discontinued, and I didn't like the limitations of only 8 seconds of sample time (l0l). I took the chance on the 2000XL. After about 2 weeks of messing with it to get a feel for it, I wondered how I ever got along in life without it.
Needless to say, I made TONS of beats on the MPC, and became a professed Akai aficionado. I sold the 2000XL to my ace Jack Nickelz, he wanted it since it was the machine I showed him how to make beats on. I went ahead and copped the MPC 1000, since it was portable. I could bring it from studio to studio, no problem. We weren't about to go around carrying that humongous 4000 ANYWHERE. (Yeah, I tried it and hated that machine, more on that later.) I liked the 1000 especially for the fact that it came standard with a few basic onboard effects, and it's difficult at best to get your hands on a pristine MPC 3000. People who have them tend not to let them go. I also dug the mute group function.
Decision time again... (I know, I'm hopeless, right?) I need to step it up with more horsepower and a hard drive. My boy Baff and I look at the MPC 4000. We give it a test drive, he loved it, I hated it. We did maybe 2 or 3 records on his album with it, before it got the axe. Then I saw a few YouTube videos of RZA and Jermaine Dupri rocking a new piece of gear.. the Roland MV-8000. I'm curious already. Went down to Sam Ash, the salesman gave me a quick tutorial, because an MPC user is gonna be a little confused at first trying to get around the MV. I took it home, got the hang of it... BANG! I'm in love. You can construct your whole song, even drop the vocals, scratches, plug in your guitar and bang out a riff.... mix it down and burn it to disk... all ON THE MV. Wow. I won maybe 5 battles and got a few placements working with it.
Crunch time, getting ready to move out. The roommate thing was cool, but the transition to family man is approaching fast. No room for a home studio until a house is built or bought. Gotta think compact without sacrificing function or power. For the longest I kept hearing about this "Fruity Loops". Like any other hardware head, I dismissed it without a second thought. I wondered, how can you chop samples and make beats like THIS, using software? Eventually more heads kept talking about it, and my man DJ Stress put me on to what is now one of my favorite groups, Little Brother. I did a little research, and found that 9th Wonder and Khrysis (Justus League, Away Team) did their beats almost exclusively in what??? "Fruity Loops", which in its later versions has been renamed to FL Studio.
THAT got my attention. 9th and Khrysis are definitely beasts with the beats, so that made me take a second look at the software platform. I have a vast library of samples, drums, etc. that I saved in wav format from the majority of my samplers, on an external hard drive. Within a month, I was making beats in FL Studio that were so close to what I did with the MPC or the MV-8000, that nobody knew the difference. I was turned. But I'm primarily a Mac guy, and FL isn't for Mac. And I HATE keeping a PC. Thanks to VM Ware, I can run Windows and fire it up if I need to, but I needed a Mac based solution similar to this. along comes my good friend DJ E.L.
He pointed me to a YouTube video (notice a trend here??) of DJ Babu from Dilated Peoples, chopping a sample in a program called Recycle, and inserting the file into a program called Reason. Both Recycle and Reason are by Propellerhead Software. The way Babu manipulated the samples with his midi keyboard brought back memories of my old ASR-10. I'm in research mode now. Hardware purists are calling me insane, I'm trying to tell them that while I'm embracing technology I always apply what I've learned coming up on hardware in various studios. Again, I took the leap of faith. I started with version 3, now using version 4. There is a bit of a learning curve with Reason, but once you've got it, you've GOT it.
My production continues to evolve, and I don't lack for horsepower or functionality. I now use Recycle, Reason 4, GarageBand, and my always - trusty Pro Tools. With an M-Audio Axiom 25 midi keyboard, I now have my ASR-10, MPC 2000XL, and Roland MV-8000 all over again.
With 4GB of RAM, 15 inch widescreen, 32 tracks of 24 bit /96 kHz recording, bluetooth and wireless internet access. And regularly scheduled backups. Not to mention a MUCH nicer utility bill.
I admit it. Once upon a time I was a purist. When I first started seriously making beats, I scraped up enough cash to buy an Ensoniq ASR-10. My friend DJ Stress and I were at another producer's crib (man, I am TERRIBLE at remembering names!), and it was the first time we laid eyes on one. He showed us what it could do, we had that wide eyed look like "wow, yo I gotta get one of these!" Stress got his first. Off we went.... he made my beats for a good portion of time, but I still had that hunger for more. Finally, I bought mine right before surgery to repair a broken foot. Five months in a cast in a third-floor apartment, I needed something to do, right??? I freaked that sampler like my life depended on it. I LOVED that machine. We did our first records off the ASR. Nuff said.
Fast forward a couple years, my dudes Maci and Dez turned me on to the MPC. I was living in a new spot, and didn't have the space to set up the ASR, so it sat in a closet. It was a heartbreaking decision, but I decided to sell the ASR and cop an MPC. Only thing, they didn't make the 2000 any more, there was the new (at the time) 2000XL. I knew a dude named Chief with an SP-1200, but they were discontinued, and I didn't like the limitations of only 8 seconds of sample time (l0l). I took the chance on the 2000XL. After about 2 weeks of messing with it to get a feel for it, I wondered how I ever got along in life without it.
Needless to say, I made TONS of beats on the MPC, and became a professed Akai aficionado. I sold the 2000XL to my ace Jack Nickelz, he wanted it since it was the machine I showed him how to make beats on. I went ahead and copped the MPC 1000, since it was portable. I could bring it from studio to studio, no problem. We weren't about to go around carrying that humongous 4000 ANYWHERE. (Yeah, I tried it and hated that machine, more on that later.) I liked the 1000 especially for the fact that it came standard with a few basic onboard effects, and it's difficult at best to get your hands on a pristine MPC 3000. People who have them tend not to let them go. I also dug the mute group function.
Decision time again... (I know, I'm hopeless, right?) I need to step it up with more horsepower and a hard drive. My boy Baff and I look at the MPC 4000. We give it a test drive, he loved it, I hated it. We did maybe 2 or 3 records on his album with it, before it got the axe. Then I saw a few YouTube videos of RZA and Jermaine Dupri rocking a new piece of gear.. the Roland MV-8000. I'm curious already. Went down to Sam Ash, the salesman gave me a quick tutorial, because an MPC user is gonna be a little confused at first trying to get around the MV. I took it home, got the hang of it... BANG! I'm in love. You can construct your whole song, even drop the vocals, scratches, plug in your guitar and bang out a riff.... mix it down and burn it to disk... all ON THE MV. Wow. I won maybe 5 battles and got a few placements working with it.
Crunch time, getting ready to move out. The roommate thing was cool, but the transition to family man is approaching fast. No room for a home studio until a house is built or bought. Gotta think compact without sacrificing function or power. For the longest I kept hearing about this "Fruity Loops". Like any other hardware head, I dismissed it without a second thought. I wondered, how can you chop samples and make beats like THIS, using software? Eventually more heads kept talking about it, and my man DJ Stress put me on to what is now one of my favorite groups, Little Brother. I did a little research, and found that 9th Wonder and Khrysis (Justus League, Away Team) did their beats almost exclusively in what??? "Fruity Loops", which in its later versions has been renamed to FL Studio.
THAT got my attention. 9th and Khrysis are definitely beasts with the beats, so that made me take a second look at the software platform. I have a vast library of samples, drums, etc. that I saved in wav format from the majority of my samplers, on an external hard drive. Within a month, I was making beats in FL Studio that were so close to what I did with the MPC or the MV-8000, that nobody knew the difference. I was turned. But I'm primarily a Mac guy, and FL isn't for Mac. And I HATE keeping a PC. Thanks to VM Ware, I can run Windows and fire it up if I need to, but I needed a Mac based solution similar to this. along comes my good friend DJ E.L.
He pointed me to a YouTube video (notice a trend here??) of DJ Babu from Dilated Peoples, chopping a sample in a program called Recycle, and inserting the file into a program called Reason. Both Recycle and Reason are by Propellerhead Software. The way Babu manipulated the samples with his midi keyboard brought back memories of my old ASR-10. I'm in research mode now. Hardware purists are calling me insane, I'm trying to tell them that while I'm embracing technology I always apply what I've learned coming up on hardware in various studios. Again, I took the leap of faith. I started with version 3, now using version 4. There is a bit of a learning curve with Reason, but once you've got it, you've GOT it.
My production continues to evolve, and I don't lack for horsepower or functionality. I now use Recycle, Reason 4, GarageBand, and my always - trusty Pro Tools. With an M-Audio Axiom 25 midi keyboard, I now have my ASR-10, MPC 2000XL, and Roland MV-8000 all over again.
With 4GB of RAM, 15 inch widescreen, 32 tracks of 24 bit /96 kHz recording, bluetooth and wireless internet access. And regularly scheduled backups. Not to mention a MUCH nicer utility bill.
Comment
-
Comment by Maci-Mas on October 24, 2008 at 2:12am - I'mma have to look at using software, because seriously, it just doesn't seem like doing your own worn...............those goddamn FL fuckgoys get on my fucking nervers because they haven't worked for their shit, but OK
-
Comment by Magic Trax on September 28, 2008 at 3:05am - I started on the old dual pause break tapes and then starting really making beats in fl 3. Eventually got tired of the need to upgrade my pc to fit the new supply of software so I stayed on fl 4. Had always been curious about the mpc and wanted one. Always wanted the 3000, but it wasn't in the price range so I got the 2000(not xl). I mainly use the mpc and reason 4 together now, but still use fl on occasion. However I'm feeling at the time.
-
Comment by Tone Benjaminz on September 22, 2008 at 5:43am - ^^ I feel you man... it's all about what you're comfortable with. When I'm in the studio there's still hardware so I do use it from time to time. But I keep my personal setup software-based. As long as the end result is HOT music, there's really no "right" or "wrong" way to do it.
-
Comment by Kill My Head on September 22, 2008 at 3:53am - man i'm total opposite, i started with software and moved slowly to hardware and now i hate using software
-
Comment by cash&khaled on September 1, 2008 at 5:54am
- beautiful
About
Badge
Photos
© 2009 Created by Beat Club on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of Beat Club to add comments!
Join this Ning Network