Fruity Loops Studio Tutorial (**New** John Legend remake!)

Got Damn ITI you're a god...
fat_rob

*kneels down to ITI*

Got Damn ITI you're a god...
fat_rob

haha, it's nothing, guys ... I still can't play even half of the songs I wish I could.  I've spent at least a month now trying to figure out T.I.'s "Why You Wanna" and Rick Ross's "Hustlin'".

Also, here are a couple more songs that I either forgot to add to my list of songs I'll be including in the music theory series, or are new to my arsenal:

Xzibit, "X" (maybe ... if I can get all the sounds I need for it)
Sean Paul, "Temperature" (ditto)
Wu-Tang Clan, "Gravel Pit"
Wu-Tang Clan, "C.R.E.A.M."
Chris Brown, "Gimme Dat" (finally got all the notes to this down)
Terror Squad, "Lean Back"
Young Jeezy, "Trap or Die"
Chamillionaire, "Ridin' Dirty"

Alright, now, finally, I need some feedback on a couple of remakes I just whipped up ...

Fort Minor, "Where'd You Go"

I'm especially proud of this one, since I dont' even have the song handy to listen to; I just did it off of studying it everytime it comes on MTV.  However, I do realize that the strings are kinda wierd; I originally used a choir pad, and you could tell I had the notes perfect, but it sounded too abrupt jumping from one note to the next, so I have to use these strings in the meantime, even though they sound like they're almost playing a different song.  I also know that there's more than just that shaker going on in the rhythm section ... but damn it's hard to figure it out.  And while I was really proud of it when I first did it, I'm now realizing that the piano flourish at the end of the song does sound a bit jumbled ... it still sounds purdy, though :oops:.

Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz, "Lovers and Friends"

This one didn't turn out so hot (and I'm not sure how many of you have even heard the song; apparently it was a single, but I never heard it on tv/radio), but I thought I'd post it anyways.  It's mainly a problem of me not having any good piano sounds (which is a real shame since, as you can tell, I love using piano), since you can hear it muddies the sound when chords are played, and the notes die off waaaaaaaaaaay too soon.  But I thought I'd post it anyways ...

not half bad, you've got the melodies right on.

Do you have a tutorial for........Supa Freak,, she's supa freaky yyyyoaaaa esb617

Stop with the supafreak already, damn.

lol

What is Sinc depth in Sampler interpolation? It says best quality but I don't notice a difference
TheTruth2500XL

When you export mp3 files?

I'm not too sure, but I think the better it is, the longer it takes, so only do the best when you have the final cut done.

Got a couple questions for you guys ...

First off, does anyone happen to have any good trumpet sounds?  I was working on recreating Jay-Z's "Can I Live" (which you probably know is one of my all-time faves), and I was surprised how easy it was to figure out the notes ... but none of the horns I have sound remotely like the amazing horns used in that song.

Second, I'm wondering where I should host my beat-making videos as I start finishing them up ... at first I thought Youtube, but, although I've never been to the site (I'm on 56k, remember? :P), I'm pretty sure they only allow streaming video, right?  I guess I'd kinda like my videos to be downloadable so you can watch them whenever you need, instead of having to stream them again and again.  It's convinient timing that Gamespot started video uploads, but I'm guessing it's the same deal, you can only stream Gamespot videos, not save them, right?  Well, at least it beats Youtube in that you don't have to travel to an outside site to see them.

So ultimately I think I'll just go with something like Megaupload to host my videos for download, and maybe when DaDukies gets his storage space running, he'll let me use it as a permanent place to host the files.

But one other question ... I realize these files are going to be pretty big, so they'll probably need to be compressed ... but I don't know anything about compression; is .RAR the only way you can compress video files?  The couple video files I've downloaded have all been in that format, and I've used the free program 7-Zip to open them, but it doesn't seem any free program lets you package files in the .RAR format.  WGE, how did you package your beat mix (which I'm currently downloading) as a .RAR file; did you just buy WinRAR?  Or could I simply package the videos as a ZIP file?

But one other question ... I realize these files are going to be pretty big, so they'll probably need to be compressed ... but I don't know anything about compression; is .RAR the only way you can compress video files? The couple video files I've downloaded have all been in that format, and I've used the free program 7-Zip to open them, but it doesn't seem any free program lets you package files in the .RAR format. WGE, how did you package your beat mix (which I'm currently downloading) as a .RAR file; did you just buy WinRAR? Or could I simply package the videos as a ZIP file?

IsThisIt_basic

I used to have WinRAR; I downloaded a beat-making video a long time ago, and found it was in the .RAR format, which, at the time, I didn't have a clue what that was, and eventually I found that I needed WinRAR to open it.  But the thing is, unless I just wasn't understanding it right, the WinRAR program is just a 30 day demo; you need to buy it after that (since, after 30 days, that's what it was telling me; it wasn't letting me do anything).  So I just deleted it off of my computer and downloaded the completely free (no demo) 7Zip, which does a great job of opening .RAR files, but it can't package them.

On the other hand, now that I'm thinking about it, I'll probably only be uploading one video at a time, so I wonder if it really pays to compress them with something like .RAR?

Do some producer get drum loops already made and use them in there beats? I take out the snare and kick as seperate and make my own loop. But do some not touch it at all? Do you knw what I'm sayin?esb617

there are alot of producers who loop and chop break beats and some use live drums, just depends on who.

[QUOTE="esb617"]Do some producer get drum loops already made and use them in there beats? I take out the snare and kick as seperate and make my own loop. But do some not touch it at all? Do you knw what I'm sayin?WorstGameEver

there are alot of producers who loop and chop break beats and some use live drums, just depends on who.

[QUOTE="WorstGameEver"]

[QUOTE="esb617"]Do some producer get drum loops already made and use them in there beats? I take out the snare and kick as seperate and make my own loop. But do some not touch it at all? Do you knw what I'm sayin?esb617

there are alot of producers who loop and chop break beats and some use live drums, just depends on who.

when I say live drums, I actually mean playing a set of drums yourself.

[QUOTE="esb617"] [QUOTE="WorstGameEver"]

[QUOTE="esb617"]Do some producer get drum loops already made and use them in there beats? I take out the snare and kick as seperate and make my own loop. But do some not touch it at all? Do you knw what I'm sayin?WorstGameEver

there are alot of producers who loop and chop break beats and some use live drums, just depends on who.

when I say live drums, I actually mean playing a set of drums yourself.

[QUOTE="esb617"] [QUOTE="WorstGameEver"]

[QUOTE="esb617"]Do some producer get drum loops already made and use them in there beats? I take out the snare and kick as seperate and make my own loop. But do some not touch it at all? Do you knw what I'm sayin?WorstGameEver

there are alot of producers who loop and chop break beats and some use live drums, just depends on who.

when I say live drums, I actually mean playing a set of drums yourself.

[QUOTE="esb617"] [QUOTE="WorstGameEver"][QUOTE="esb617"] [QUOTE="WorstGameEver"]

[QUOTE="esb617"]Do some producer get drum loops already made and use them in there beats? I take out the snare and kick as seperate and make my own loop. But do some not touch it at all? Do you knw what I'm sayin?Orlando_Magic

there are alot of producers who loop and chop break beats and some use live drums, just depends on who.

when I say live drums, I actually mean playing a set of drums yourself.

Timbaland and Dilla have been known to use live drums, hell Dilla has used ?uestlove to recreate some of Hip Hop's most used breaks..

hmmm ... yeah, that guy looks like he's off to a good start.  But it seems like all of his stuff is on sampling; remember, all my tutorials are going to be on recreating songs without samples (and, after looking at that page, I can only imagine how many hundreds of views I'll get if I host these things on Youtube).  However, I do want to do a video tutorial of that last sampling tutorial I did ... I think I didn't really do it justice with words, so I want to put it on video instead.  However, I still need to decide what song I'll recreate ... anyone have any requests (stick to simple songs, though ... songs with just a chop or two; no Premo songs or anything :P ).  I'm thinking of doing Jay-Z's "What More Can I Say" ...

Oh, and I have already done a couple tutorials ... I just need to type up that music theory tutorial first, and then I'll start posting some videos ...

Hey ESB, I haven't messed with "Hate It or Love It" for a long time, but does that song actually have a bassline played on it?  I know Cool & Dre play quite a bit, so I wouldn't doubt it, but last time I heard the song (which, admitedly, was ages ago), I thought it sounded like they just brought out the bassline from the sample alot through EQ.

And WGE ... I still haven't entirely made up my mind on this, but I honestly think I like the first mix better ... but then again, even though I've been making beats for years now, I still cannot bring myself to appreciate instrumental rap as much as rap with vocals, so I guess the accapellas might give the first mix an edge.  But, either way, "Fast Life (Remix)" and "Kick, Push (Remix)" are my favorite (with "Try or Die" being my favorite off the second mix).  Then again, I'm sure these are newer works of yours, and probably would've been on the second mix if you didn't already have the acapella theme going on the first mix.  And, sorry if this has already been asked, but what did you sample for the "Kick, Push" remix?  haha, I'm not biting, but I just really really want to try my hand at that.

You understand that Toomp didn't actually make "What U Know" with samples of that song, right?  If you read the liner notes to an album, and it says "contains interpolations of (insert song)", that means the producer didn't actually use a sample of the song, but instead he used his synth and played the melody from that song, or got an orchestra and recreated that sample, or whatever.  You'll see that in alot of Neptunes credits, and I'd imagine alot of Dr Dre credits.  The advantage to this is, besides it being cheaper than clearing the sample the usual way, you can drop out and add in parts whenever you want ... and "What You Know" is essentially just a four bar loop for the entire song, but it doesn't get old since Toomp drops parts out and adds them back in throughout the song.

I'm almost positive "Can I Live" is sorta the same thing.  Trust me, it's one of my favorite songs of all-time, and I've worked on it a bunch.  Irv definetely samples the beginning of "The Look of Love" for the intro to "Can I Live", but the main beat ... he must have brought in a horn player to recreate that main line, because if you listen to "The Look of Love", the horns in that song are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too quite, and there's no way you could EQ out all of the rest of the song without wiping out the horns in the process.  If Irv Gotti somehow actuallly did that, congrats to him, but I'm almost positive he just recreated the horns live.  Anyways, I figured out all of the notes, and if I could just find some good trombone sounds, I'd have a really dope recreation of that song ...

But I'll look into the other ones ... I'm particularily interested in that Jay intro ... I know you and I both dig that one, and I wouldn't have ever thought of recreating that one.

Hey ESB, I haven't messed with "Hate It or Love It" for a long time, but does that song actually have a bassline played on it? I know Cool & Dre play quite a bit, so I wouldn't doubt it, but last time I heard the song (which, admitedly, was ages ago), I thought it sounded like they just brought out the bassline from the sample alot through EQ.

IsThisIt_basic

Yah the bassline is the same as the one in the sample, not sure if they did EQ. Thanks for given me that idea though. I'm pretty sure they both play, but Cool is the more technical one, has alot of the melodies and ish while Dre lays out the drumtracks, something like that. but they both play.

I already have that JB's track, and I bet Phat Drum Loops probably has a better quality rip of those drums.  However, my cassette tape with that Eric B & Rakim song on it is worn out; I'm not quite sure if I remember the song well enough to recreate it off memory.

Man, I really need to start rebuying alot of my old stuff on cd ... completely unrelated, but I rebought Run DMC's "Raising Hell" on cd recently so I could rip the "dumb" vocal from "Dumb Girl" for my remake of "Tell Me When To Go", and it's dope that they have a bonus acapella or two on there.  I can't believe they were even recording acapellas back at that point ...

haha, yeah, it's even stranger that it's Lil Jon sampling it, too ...

And it's weird, the more I read, the more I'm finding out that Rakim was really behind not only the rap (obviously) but also alot of the production.

But thanks for the link ... now I have something to go off of for the recreation.  The scratches shouldn't be a problem, however, I don't stand a chance at recreating them myself (right now, at least ... I've seen some tutorials on using FL for scratching lately, but haven't checked them out myself ... personally, if I was gonna add scratches to a beat, I'd get a turntable and do them myself).

Eric B & Rakim, "I Ain't No Joke" (remake)

Not as easy as I thought it would be, but I still think it turned out pretty well ... it really makes it clear how much the song benefitted from the scratching ... and I realize my kick sounds a little over the top as well (all my drums either sounded too much like a kick or too much like a bass drum ... their's seems to be somewhere in between).  Anyways, I'll probably come back to this later and try to improve upon it ... thanks for the suggestion, Orlando :).

LOL, talking about "Can I Live" and Irv Gotti kinda brought to my attention of something else. I always knew that Ashanti- "Rain on Me" sounded really close to Jay-Z- "Can I Live" because they flip the same sample (or are interpolated) in very similiar ways. I never realized that Irv Gotti produced both tracks:? Kinda lazy if you ask me...
Orlando_Magic

:lol:

woooowwww... biting his own material.