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Back in the old days, when I was paying my dues as one of the engineers/instructors/bookassemblers  for the Recording Institute of Detroit, we spent a lot of time slaving over a broken drum machine, trying to find the perfect sound for the perfect song for the not so perfect vocalist.  Fortunately for us, it wasn't all that hard, as the Roland 808/909 sounds are sure to please even the angriest hip-hop/dance artist.  But what to do with those sounds once you get them?  Open your books to page 5, and place your tongue firmly in your cheek -- this is where lesson one begins:

Step One:  Turn on your Drum Machine.  You do have a drum machine, right?  If not, I highly recommend  the various Akai MPC (M.IDI P.roduction C.enter $1000 - $4000 MSRP) boxes as the finest instruments available to producers today.  Of course, this is the machine I learned on, so I have may a special love for it..  Still, for the money, the MPC offers sampling/sequencing in one easy to use, great sounding box.  

Can't afford that MPC?  Look no further than Dr. Rhythm.  Sure...it looks cheesy as hell, and you might break it if you get too carried away with your finger drumming, but it has all the 808 and 909 sounds you'll be needing in its PROM, so you'll never have to wait for those annoying floppys to finish loading before you trigger that 60 Hz ecstacy.

Everything all hooked up?  Good.  Before we go to step two, you must decide the feel of your track.  Let's assume we're making an uptempo jam and using our much adored 808/909 samples.  Step Two, then would be:  Set your BPM to 130 and your quantization to 8th notes.  Press record and then bang on the hi-hat key as fast as humanly possible.  After 4 beats have passed, hit stop, then play.  The resulting sound should be something like this:  

<<<---Click to play sound

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:  tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik 

Yay!  You've looped the initial hi-hat part!  The backbone of your entire beat is complete.  Turn off quantizing now!  Now hit the overdub key and record open hi-hats according to feel.  Here, like this:

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:  tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tiSH tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tik 

And now....the moment you've all been waiting for....it's time to unleash the 60Hz beast...Ladies and gentlemen -- The 808 Kick Drum!  Sprinkling gratuitous 808 throughout all your songs is what you should live for.  I never get tired of hearing these.  Let me repeat -- I NEVER get tired of hearing these.  Just like my love for artificial harmonics in a metal song, if I hear 808's, I'll keep listening.  Don't get me wrong, I've heard a lot of real garbage that's just LOADED with 808 AND artificial harmonics, but the point is, I listened to it.  Step Three's Example:

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:   8  8                      8   8   8   8                     8  8   8        8                  

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:   tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tiSH tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tik 

We're almost there -- Step three:  The snare!  Uptempo snares in the late '90's evolved into spectacular epileptic displays of rhythm.  For example:

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:  8  8     S    S        S8  8   S8   8      S     S  8S8SS8S8                  

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:   tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tiSH tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tik 

Now all you need is a funky ass bass line, and your rapper's ready to start spillin' 40's!  For this I recommend something deep and fuzzy, like a Moog or a Oberheim patch.  Monophonic (single note, not single speaker...) bass is always nice if you want to get funked up.  Try not to play more than 4 different notes, and not more than 6 notes total.  Here's a well balanced example:

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:   8  8               S     8   8   8     S            S     S     8S   8S                  

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:   tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tiSH tik tik tik tik tiSH tik tik tik 

Subtitle for the soundcard impaired:   do do  do  do                                 dooodooo      do do

Throw in some strings or low piano and your first job is complete!  Wasn't that easy?  Next time we'll get into loops:  what they are, why you need 'em, how you make 'em, etc.  The Looping Primer, so to speak.  Be sure and bring your digital audio editing software to class next week.  Don't have digital audio editing software?  Good!  That's what keeps me in business!  If you're dead set on giving it a try (for fun, leaving the hard jobs to the pros, of course) I'd recommend Sound Forge by Sonic Foundry for the PC.  If you're using a Mac, I'd recommend you get a PC.  But seriously, folks...Macs were the first to offer kickass digital audio solutions, and continue to be THE platform for running Digidesign Pro Tools.  It also costs around $5000 more to get a Pro Tools/Mac system configured with all the same capabilities as my current P3/1GHz PC box....  Sound Forge costs around $800, but a scaled down version, (it's missing a bunch of things you don't know exist...do you think you'll miss them?) is available at places like Best Buy for around $50.  Give it a try!  It'll give you a chance to catch up on all those backwards messages you missed on your 80's metal albums.  Not to mention you'll finally be able to find out who killed Paul!  Until next time kiddies...

LINK BACK TO MPC LINK OF THE WEEK

*Note:  This differs from the "Fattness" which we may discuss in the future.

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