Hip-hop production is the creation of hip-hop in a recording studio. While the term encompasses all aspects of hip-hop music creation, including recording the rapping of an MC, a turntablist or DJ providing a beat, using samples and "scratching" using record players and the creation of a rhythmic backing track, and using a drum machine or sequencer, it is most commonly used to refer to recording the instrumental, non-lyrical and non-vocal aspects of hip-hop.
Music production Hip-hop producers may be credited as the record producer or songwriter; they may also supervise recording sessions.
History
1980s The Roland TR-808 drum machine was introduced in 1980, which was an analog machine with a step-programming method. The 808 was heavily used by Afrika Bambaataa, who released "Planet Rock" in 1982, in addition to the electro hip hip groundbreaking classic "Nunk" by Warp 9, produced by Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, giving rise to the fledgling Electro genre. An especially notable artist is the genre's own pioneer Juan Atkins who released what is generally accepted as the first American techno record, "Clear" in 1984 (later sampled by Missy Elliott). These early electro records laid down the foundations that later Detroit techno artists such as Derrick May built upon. In 1983, Run-DMC recorded "It's Like That" and "Sucker M.C.'s," two songs which relied completely on synthetic sounds, in this case via an Oberheim DMX drum machine, ignoring samples entirely.
Kurtis Blow was the first hip-hop artist to use a digital sampler, when he used the Fairlight CMI on his 1984 album Ego Trip, specially on the track "AJ Scratch". The E-mu SP-12 came out in 1985, capable of 2.5 seconds of recording time. The E-mu SP-1200 promptly followed (1987) with an expanded recording time of 10 seconds, divided on 4 banks. One of the earliest songs to contain a drum loop or break was "Rhymin' and Stealin'" by the Beastie Boys, produced by Rick Rubin. Marley Marl also popularized a style of restructuring drum loops by sampling individual drum hits in the mid-1980s, a technique that was popularized by the MC Shan's 1986 single "The Bridge," which used chops of "Impeach the President" on two Korg Delay/sampling triggered by a Roland TR-808. The Akai MPC60 came out in 1988, capable of 12 seconds of sampling time. The Beastie Boys released Paul's Boutique in 1989, an entire album created completely from an eclectic mix of samples, produced by the Dust Brothers using an Emax sampler.
1990s–present Public Enemy's Bomb Squad revolutionized the sound of hip-hop with dense production styles, combining tens of samples per song, often combining percussion breaks with a drum machine. Their beats were much more structured than the early more minimal and repetitive beats. The MPC3000 was released in 1994, the AKAI MPC2000 in 1997, followed by the MPC2000XL in 1999 and the MPC2500 in 2006. These machines combined a sampling drum machine with an onboard MIDI sequencer and became the centerpiece of many hip-hop producers' studios. Wu Tang Clan's producer RZA is often credited for getting hip-hop attention away from Dr. Dre's more polished sound in 1993. RZA's more gritty sound with low rumbling bass, sharp snare drum sounds and unique sampling style based on Ensoniq sampler. With the 1994 release of The Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die, Sean Combs and his assistant producers pioneered a new style where entire sections of records were sampled, instead of short snippets, à la MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This".
Starting in the 2010s, amateur producers began releasing "type beats", instrumentals imitating the style of particular rappers or producers, on platforms such as YouTube, SoundCloud, and Audiomack. "Type beat" producers will often lease non-exclusive rights to instrumentals for lower prices more accessible to smaller artists.
Elements Drum beat
The drum beat is a core element of hip-hop production. While some beats are sampled, others are created by drum machines. The most widely used drum machine is the analog Roland TR-808, which has remained a mainstay for decades. Digital samplers, such as the E-mu SP-12 and SP-1200, and the Akai MPC series, have also been used to sample drum beats. Others yet are a hybrid of the two techniques, sampled parts of drum machine beats that are arranged in original patterns altogether.
Sampling
Sampling is using a segment of another's musical recording as part of one's own recording. It has been integral to hip-hop production since its inception. In hip-hop, the term describes a technique of splicing out or copying sections of other songs and rearranging or reworking these sections into cohesive musical patterns, or "loops." This technique was first fully explored in 1982 by Afrika Bambaata, on the Soulsonic Force tape Planet Rock, which sampled parts of dance act Kraftwerk and experienced vast public acclaim.Marisa Brown. [ "Planet Rock: The Album"], AllMusic. R 27616. This was followed up on in 1986: then-Def Jam producer Rick Rubin used Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin loops in creating the Beastie Boys' debut Licensed to Ill,Stephen Thomas Erlewine. [ "Licensed to Ill"], AllMusic. and the following year rap duo Eric B. & Rakim popularized James Brown samples with their album Paid in Full.Steve Huey. [ "Paid in Full"], AllMusic.
The technique took a bi-coastal turn when discovered by a young Dr. Dre, whose first gig was the DJ of Afrika Bambaata-esque electrofunk group, the World Class Wreckin' Cru. Dre began his use of sampling in hip-hop when he produced the N.W.A album Straight Outta Compton (1989), a landmark in the genre of gangsta rap.Steve Huey. [ "Straight Outta Compton [Clean]"], AllMusic. Also in 1989, Jazz-sampling pioneers Gang Starr followed in 1991 by Pete Rock & CL Smooth and A Tribe Called Quest both appeared on the scene, popularizing their brand,Stanton Swihart. [ "All Souled Out"], AllMusic.John Bush. [ "The Low End Theory"], AllMusic. and sampling took on a full role in hip-hop, spreading to prominence in high-profile projects like the Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers,Steven Leckart, 10.23.07. "Wu-Tang Clan's RZA Breaks Down His Kung Fu Samples by Film and Song", WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.11. Dr. Dre's The Chronic,[Ethan Brown, (2005). Straight Outta Hollis, Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and the Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler. Anchor. . "[Unlike] popular hip-hop producers like the Bomb Squad, Dre instead utilized a single sample to drive a song."] Nas' IllmaticDan Love, February 11, 2008. "Deconstructing Illmatic" , Oh Word Collection. and Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die.XXL staff, Thursday March 9, 10:28 am CST. "The Making of Ready to Die:Family Business", XXL MAGAZINE.
In the 2000s, sampling began to reach an all-time high; Jay-Z's album The Blueprint helped put producers Kanye West and Just Blaze on the map for their sampling of soul records.Gale: Black History Month. Kanye West himself scored early hits with "Through the Wire" and "Jesus Walks", often considered by West as "chipmunk soul", due to its sped up vocals on both songs. His 2004 album, The College Dropout, included two sampled hits featuring Twista which led to the Chicago rapper's Kamikaze selling platinum. On September 7, 2004, however, a U.S. Court of Appeals in Nashville changed the nature of musical copyright infringement by ruling that a license is needed in every case of sampling, where previously a small portion of the song could be copied without repercussion.9/10/2004 8:57:27 pm, foxxylady. "CAN HIP HOP LIVE WITHOUT SAMPLING?" , SixShot.com. The law immediately began rarefying samples in hip-hop; in a 2005 interview with Scratch magazine, Dr. Dre announced he was moving more toward instrumentation,December 5, 2005, 05:04 pm. "DR. DRE INTERVIEW FROM SCRATCH MAGAZINE", Music Industry Online. and in 2006 The Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 debut album Ready to Die was temporarily pulled from shelves for a retroactive sample clearance issue.Dave, March 19, 2006 9:10:26 am. "Hip-Hop News: Late Rapper Has Album Pulled Over Copyright Infringement" , Rap News Network. As a result, more major producers and artists have moved further away from sampling and toward live instrumentation, such as Wu-Tang's RZAMorgan Steiker, July 29, 2008. "RZA: Interview", Prefixmag.com. and Mos Def.Hillary Crosley N.Y., May 30, 2008. "Mos Def Hits The Studio With Mr. DJ ", Billboard.
Samplers
Because hip-hop production revolves around sampling, a sampler/sequencer combination device such as Akai's MPC line of grooveboxes usually forms the centerpiece of a hip-hop production studio. Although mostly replaced by Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) today, classic samplers like the E-mu Systems SP-1200, Akai MPC60, Akai MPC3000 or Ensoniq ASR-10 still see use today due to their workflow and sound characteristics.
Turntables
The most widely used turntables in hip-hop are Panasonic's Technics series. They were the first direct-drive turntables, which eliminated belts, and instead employed a motor to directly drive the platter on which a vinyl record rests.Trevor Pinch, Karin Bijsterveld, The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, page 515, Oxford University Press The Technics SL-1100 was adopted by early hip-hop artists in the 1970s, due to its strong motor, durability and fidelity. A forefather of turntablism was DJ Kool Herc, an immigrant from Jamaica to New York City. He introduced turntable techniques from Jamaican dub music,Nicholas Collins, Margaret Schedel, Scott Wilson (2013), Electronic Music: Cambridge Introductions to Music, page 105, Cambridge University Press while developing new techniques made possible by the direct-drive turntable technology of the Technics SL-1100, which he used for the first sound system he set up after emigrating to New York in the 1970s. The signature technique he developed was playing two copies of the same record on two turntables in alternation to extend the b-dancers' favorite section, switching back and forth between the two to loop the breaks to a rhythmic beat.
The most influential turntable was the Technics SL-1200.Six Machines That Changed The Music World, Wired, May 2002 It was adopted by New York City hip-hop DJs such as Grand Wizard Theodore and Afrika Bambaataa in the 1970s. As they experimented with the SL-1200 decks, they developed scratching techniques when they found that the motor would continue to spin at the correct RPM even if the DJ wiggled the record back and forth on the platter. Since then, turntablism spread widely in hip-hop culture, and the SL-1200 remained the most widely used turntable in DJ culture for the next several decades.
Recording In hip-hop, a multi-track recorder is standard for recording. The Portastudio cassette recorder was the law in the in-house recording studios in the 1980s. Digital ADAT tape recorders became standard during the 1990s, but have been largely replaced by Digital Audio Workstations or DAWs such as Apple's Logic, Avid's Pro Tools and Steinberg's Nuendo and Cubase. DAWs allow for more intricate editing and unlimited track counts, as well as built-in effects. This allows songwriters and composers to create music without the expense of a large commercial studio.
Vocal recording Generally, professional producers opt for a condenser microphone for studio recording, mostly due to their wide-range response and high quality. A primary alternative to the expensive condenser microphone is the dynamic microphone, used more often in live performances due to its durability. The major disadvantages of condenser microphones are their expense and fragility. Also, most condenser microphones require phantom power, unlike dynamic microphones. Conversely, the disadvantages of dynamic microphones are they do not generally possess the wide spectrum of condenser microphones and their frequency response is not as uniform.
Mixing