A New Beat For Download/Production Workshop

rappers round the world!

Got a new beat for ya'll to play with. We also got some great mp3's submitted using the Goliath beat. I'm gonna share the new songs you all have done, and then give a few production tips.

So let's hip-hop to it then!

Here's the new beat for everyone. The beat is at 148 bmp, it's got a dark vibe and a lot of soul.

Luv @ 60Hz

Download

Download it, sing over it, lay down a dope rhyme, cut it up, sample it, put visuals behind it, burry it in the back yard and take a picture of it. Whatever you decide to do just remember, it means nothing unless you share it with the world. So when your done creating, post what you've done back online. Link to me, and I'll link to you, so that we can all enjoy the work we do. If you have no way of getting it back online, you can send it to me at beats@millenniumblonde.com I will post it back up on this blog.

Let's here what you've done!

Goliath

Original Beat

Download

By The World at These Four Fives Be The Full House

By D-Boy

Both these guys put something really interesting together. Alan (a.k.a the world) I can't wait to hear the next verse, that flow is ill. I'd be happy to produce it up once it's finished. Dave (a.k.a D-Boy) I liked the reverb you put on the track, it really filled the beat out.

production tips for reverb

Reverb can do a lot of good but it can also really mess up a track. Reverb can make the bass and low end really muddy, and can lead to phase issues if your not careful. A good thing to do when using any reverb is to put a high-pass filter on it. Most reverb plug-ins feature some type of high-pass or EQ option. You want to filter out anything below 200hz-600hz. A trick for even more accurate reverb shaping is to put your reverb on a bus track. Bus the audio you wish to put reverb on out to a separate track. On the bussed track you want to put your favorite reverb with the dry signal brought all the way down to 0%. Now you can put any effect you want on the reverb track(e.g. Distortion, EQ, phaser, modulation, tremolo) without effecting the original audio track. (note Make sure you assign your bus track and audio track to the same output)

Another cool production trick Dave used was the "Demon Voice." You can accomplish this by using some combination of pitch shifters and vocal transformers.

production tips for transforming vocals

When done properly pitch shifting is a very cool effect and tool. It can also be over used, and when not done well can sound very ugly. When using a vocal transformer there are two main elements, a pitch shifter and the formant shifter (called "sound" in garage band). In a vocal transformer the pitch shifter works by shifting the tracks fundamental pitch. The formant shifter works by shifting or stretching the harmonics of the sound around leaving the fundamental pitch alone. The larger the discrepancy between the pitch and the formant the stranger and more inhuman the voice will sound. Keep the pitch and the formant shift close to each other to keep the sound more natural (some pitch shifters move the fundamental and the formant together using one of these in a chain with a formant shifter can create interesting results).

Whenever you use a vocal transformer you always get a lot of extra noise especially on the sibilance (the "sss" sounds), this can lead to problems with diction, and can just sound bad. There are to ways to combat this. You can go and by an expensive pitch and vocal transformer (Antare makes good ones) or you can try my hacked together method. First take the vocals you are planning on effecting and create a duplicate track of them (either by bussing or just copy/pasting). On track one put a hard high-pass filter on at around 3000-5000 Hz, this is your sibilance track. On track two put a hard low-pass filter on at around 3000-5000hz. Now you can put your vocal transformer on track two and effect the sound leaving the sibilance alone. With fiddling you can use this method to greatly transform your vocals without them becoming a complete incomprehensible mess.