greg wrote:We have had a sprinkling of Hip Hop over the years, but it is few and far between (mostly freelance guys). People are put off by how we book by the day, and don't have any "beats".

Count your blessings.

Oh man that was good.

what about somethin' like THE ROOTS their cool only cause their live music.

I've heard about studios that actually are wary of taking on rap/ hiphop clients, because some of them carry guns. I don't mean this to typecast, rather that people have said that some of those guys have asked, yo, is it aight to bring my gun?, or in other cases, they just bring it and then leave it lying around the studio. Another studio said that they'd occasionally book hiphop clients, and their posse was there and they started bossing the engineer around and he actually started fearing that had he disagreed with them, that there would be other consequences.When future clients call them in the genre, this has resulted in them either convieniently so booked up that they can't do it, and/ or pricing it so high that it's something that they'll balk at. Both avenues usually have the desired effect--they look elsewhere. Not only that, but one has to genuinely understand and be interested in the beats/ samples thing.

I'm sure Electrical would be really thrilled about the current requirement to auto-tune the crap out of every rapper who wants to be a ballad singer. Every time I hear this stuff my balls circle the wagons.Hip hop that actually gets heard is down the tubes. I'm fascinated by guys like Biggy Smalls, he's the definite Barry White of hip hop. Is anyone as smooth? some of Jay-Z's stuff..tons of early, so called, old school stuff. Beats...some of those beats on that older stuff are straight up grooves that can't be denied. Most of what I hear nowadays has zero groove. If there's no actual groove ina hip hop song then it's worthless. When I saw Jay-z's MTV unplugged performance I was blown away..serious vibe to some of that stuff and illuminated the potential of the form.Kanye West is absolutely unbearable...hard to believe he wrote or designed the rhythms on some of Jay z's best material, embarrassing to listen to him. Really bad.music's cool.

I don't see the problem with being up front with individuals that you don't work with programmed beats.I always ask hiphop groups if they have a band they're recording, i.e. drums, bass, etc. If they do, I'm likely to get aroused. If they tell me they're working with beats they did at home on their computer, I refer them elsewhere.

PeteJF wrote:I'm sure Electrical would be really thrilled about the current requirement to auto-tune the crap out of every rapper who wants to be a ballad singer. Every time I hear this stuff my balls circle the wagons.Hip hop that actually gets heard is down the tubes. I'm fascinated by guys like Biggy Smalls, he's the definite Barry White of hip hop. Is anyone as smooth? some of Jay-Z's stuff..tons of early, so called, old school stuff. Beats...some of those beats on that older stuff are straight up grooves that can't be denied. Most of what I hear nowadays has zero groove. If there's no actual groove ina hip hop song then it's worthless. When I saw Jay-z's MTV unplugged performance I was blown away..serious vibe to some of that stuff and illuminated the potential of the form.Kanye West is absolutely unbearable...hard to believe he wrote or designed the rhythms on some of Jay z's best material, embarrassing to listen to him. Really bad.music's cool.I actually quite enjoy Jay-Z myself, and was surprised when I saw Kanye West's name all over his shit. Amazing, the grooves that are on some of those tunes, and Kanye's shit is..... shit.

What if a Hip-Hop producer wanted to produce his beats at Electrical Audio? I mean, with more and more producers creating their samples and beats with live instrumentation. I could see how a specific studio could work in molding the sound to fit a certain characteristic. I mean, lets say we wanted to make hip-hop styled stuff with the Albini sound style. With live sounding drums that thump melded in with some keys and maybe a grinding bass tone. Some noisy guitar and even some improvised vocal samples created in the studio. I could completely see something like that happening. It's just a matter of figuring out what to do with it and being a bit adventurous.

Reaper-X wrote:What if a Hip-Hop producer wanted to produce his beats at Electrical Audio? I mean, with more and more producers creating their samples and beats with live instrumentation. I could see how a specific studio could work in molding the sound to fit a certain characteristic. I mean, lets say we wanted to make hip-hop styled stuff with the Albini sound style. With live sounding drums that thump melded in with some keys and maybe a grinding bass tone. Some noisy guitar and even some improvised vocal samples created in the studio. I could completely see something like that happening. It's just a matter of figuring out what to do with it and being a bit adventurous.Nothing's stopping you. Call and book some time.

Reaper-X wrote:What if a Hip-Hop producer wanted to produce his beats at Electrical Audio? I mean, with more and more producers creating their samples and beats with live instrumentation. I could see how a specific studio could work in molding the sound to fit a certain characteristic. I mean, lets say we wanted to make hip-hop styled stuff with the Albini sound style. With live sounding drums that thump melded in with some keys and maybe a grinding bass tone. Some noisy guitar and even some improvised vocal samples created in the studio. I could completely see something like that happening. It's just a matter of figuring out what to do with it and being a bit adventurous.Sounds an awful lot like Trip-Hop. Honestly speaking, I would not rule this happening someday in the near future. I think artsy hip-hop scene is begining to form, and its popping up here in the east, and I imagine in Chicago too.