TYPE 4

This is the instrumental mix of our brand-new remix for "Don't Panic!", which originally appeared on our 2001 album "For Sale". Vocal version here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/dont-panic-infinite-improbability-remix-single/1861929691

Instrumental version for "Mine Benda" by The Blitz. Vocal version here: https://youtu.be/6w68NYYygzs

Instrumental version of "Who I Am" by The Blitz. Vocal version here: https://youtu.be/Qyc-fIwq_u0

Instrumental version of "No Escape" by The Blitz. Vocal version here: https://youtu.be/B8MmwQS8LH0

Instrumental version of "Hard Rock" by The Blitz. Vocal version here: https://youtu.be/rRjDzukhHQ8

This is my entry for Round Two of The Producers Corner "Head2Head" sample challenge for 2022, where sixteen producers are given the same source from which to sample, and they send their results in to be randomly matched up against another producer in an elimination round with possible cash prize rewards. The source for this second week was the song "My World Is Empty Without You" by The Smith Connection (https://youtu.be/rjttzxG3hZw). Competitors were allowed to sample from this source, and add ONLY their own drums, NO additional outside bassline, loops, keyboards, vocal samples, etc. I ended up using about sixteen heavily-edited loops and snippets, applying copious amounts of filtering to isolate instrumental parts I wanted to use, then time-stretching and pitch-shifting to get everything working the way I wanted with my drum programming. I began working on it Monday morning and finished around midnight, so all in all I got it done in about twelve hours. I like the flow, from somber downward-progressing bass notes to bright upbeat reggae keys after the break. It's very "me". Wish me luck in this second round round. If I'm lucky enough to advance, I'll see you back here next week. Enjoy the music, and I hope that you're all staying safe and healthy! *Nope!

THIS version of my beat is comprised wholly of samples taken from the source material. NO extra drums or bass or any other sounds have been added. Everything you hear here is from the sample source. The judge of the competition gave me a fairly low score for "sample usage", which is an agreed-upon matter of opinion, a subjective determination made by listening to a finished stereo mixdown. Obviously no one else is going to completely comprehend the work put into a piece of production if they weren't there with you looking over your shoulder the whole time. No hard feelings, toward the judge or the worthy opponent who defeated me. I just wanted to post this for my own personal edification, because for years - okay decades - I've suspected that my style of sample production, where I strive to achieve a final product which sounds smooth and songy, can obscure the breakdown and reconstruction going on. I feel that people tend to listen to my stuff and just nod appreciatively, accepting the flow and arrangement as something I must've just found that way. Which is rarely the case. Anyway, in THIS particular case, I used about sixteen loops and snippets from the source, edited and re-arranged in many different ways to play well together in the final mix. The bassline is one separate isolated track. I then have a harmony bassline track which comes in over it. The rimshot drum track is its own isolated track. The piano, the flutes, the vocal snippets, all on their own isolated tracks. The "cymbals" are actually an open hihat from the rimshot track that I isolated, extended and EQed. The ending section with an upbeat reggae arrangement of bassline and piano is a completely new construction by me. So that's what I did. Obviously whether or not anyone likes the final product is up to them, a matter of opinion and taste and preference. I just wanted to clarify what my actual "sample usage" was. (Here is the actual submitted version including my drum programming: https://soundcloud.com/type4/less-is-more-head2head-2022-round-two) Thanks for your time!

It's been a while. This is my entry for Round One of The Producers Corner "Head2Head" sample challenge for 2022, where thirty-two producers are given the same source from which to sample, and they send their results in to be randomly matched up against another producer in an elimination round with possible cash prize rewards. The source for the first week was a soundtrack snippet entitled "Les Marchancres" by François de Roubaix (https://youtu.be/GseX9akFpoA?t=702). Competitors were allowed to sample from this source, add their own bassline, drums, and "extra sounds", which encompasses just about everything including infinite other sample sources; but I decided to limit all music samples to the source material. I ended up using about thirteen heavily-edited loops and snippets, applying copious amounts of time-stretching and pitch-adjustment to get them all in line over my drum programming and bassline. Once I was done with the music, I added a few little a cappella vocal samples on top for seasoning. I began working on it Wednesday afternoon and finished at 4AM on Thursday. I probably would've preferred coming up with something a bit harder-edged, but the sample source is a bunch of atonal piano and synth phrases, so there wasn't a lot of rhythm or variation to be worked with. I ended up with my usual musical songy trip-hoppy arrangement; here's hoping the judge happens to be a fan of RJD2 and Banco de Gaia! Wish me luck in the first round. If I'm lucky enough to advance, I'll see you back here next week. Enjoy the music, and I hope that you're all staying safe and healthy! * This did indeed prove to be good enough to advance to Round 2 (watch the video here: https://youtu.be/9_HYiNgRL4g), so stay tuned!

Brand-new remix of CZARFACE's song "Bizarro", from their 2019 vinyl release "The Odd Czar Against Us". Vocals by Esoteric & Inspectah Deck. feat. 7L, Tom Segura & Christina P. Production by Matt Reyes of TYPE 4. Original version here: https://youtu.be/DmKY9mg6Fl8 https://czarface.com https://www.type4music.com Make sure to hit your local record shop on Saturday April 23rd 2022 for Record Store Day and pick up your copy of the brand-new CZARFACE vinyl LP "CZARMAGEDDON!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADkCXsP8C_Q

This is my remix of Arrested Development's 2021 single "Vibe (feat. Big Daddy Kane"). I took their acappella track, edited it here and there, and set it to my own music. And yes, the vocal time shift is purposeful; it's just something that occurred to me while listening to the original; similar to what Jay Dee / Dilla did for his "Runnin'" remix. The eagle-eared among you will notice that I actually shifted it a few times. I do not own the rights to this song, I'm just putting it out there because I had fun making it and hope you have fun listening to it! Instrumental version: https://soundcloud.com/type4/vibe-the-quickening-art-instrumental Original version here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/vibe-single/1590938038 https://www.arresteddevelopmentmusic.com https://www.type4music.com

This is my forty-fifth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the song "Preludio in Do Minore" by Angelo Ariente & Alberto Baldan Bembo, a slice of spaghetti-western jazz funk prog rock instrumental. One particular phrase jumped out at me as the makings of a mellow chord progression, so I looped it from two different spots in the song, panned those left and right, added four or five other edited and filtered snippets, and tied it all together with my own drum programming, bassline, piano, organ, chorus sounds, and vocal samples. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my forty-fourth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was a playlist of four songs: "New Religion" by Trifle, "Life, Dreams, Death" by Brothers Unlimited, "Revenge" by Kirth Morrison, and something entitled simply "和田アキ子 初秋". Honestly I didn't have a lot of time or energy to devote to this one, but since it's the 200th challenge, and considering the sad news last night, I decided to whip this up at the last minute. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!! * This came in 2nd place.

R.I.P. Van Bates (Black Hesher / Shemrock Christ / DRC / Cooler Than Smack).

This is my forty-third entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the album "Soho Hipsters" by Dennis Farnon et al; a remastered compilation of jazz funk from the 60s and 70s. I made the mistake of buying the album and listening to it too much at first, falling in love with the tracks as is, and almost not wanting to ruin it by chopping it all up. I put it off for a few days until time and inspiration came through once I filtered the main loop as a RZAesque bassline and then went in to add more accompaniment. I added my own drum programing utilizing drum loops from J-Zone, but all the rest of the music is comprised of about sixteen edited and layered and combined loops and snippets from the source. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my forty-second entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the 1977 jazz album "Morning Glory" by Takeshi Inomata & The Third. I added my own drum programming utilizing a bunch of edited drum loops from J-Zone, but all the rest of the music and bassline is comprised of about fourteen edited and layered and combined loops and snippets from the source. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!! * This came in 2nd place.

This is my forty-first entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was Shinichi Tanabe's whimsical and ethereal soundtrack for the 1977 film "Gokumon-tō". I edited and layered and combined about twenty different loops and snippets from the source, and added my own drum programming, bassline, and just a hint of piano. I didn't really spend a lot of time "chopping" the source, preferring to use what was there as layers and instruments to conduct into a brand-new confection. I figure there's no way this is going to win anything, so I decided to have fun and open it up to four minutes. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my fortieth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the 1980 disco/soul album "Guilty" by none other than Barbra Streisand herself. I edited and layered and combined about thirteen different loops and snippets from the source, added my own drum programming, and a couple of movie dialogue samples to finish the package. I haven't done one of these in a while, as this past year hasn't left me much in the way of creative time or space. But I'm glad to be back, I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

Brand-new remix for our 1998 song, released on our 2001 album "For Sale".

Someone said something about a Nautilus Beat Battle or something? I added drums, but the music and bassline are comprised entirely of about sixteen heavily-edited loops and snippets from the original Bob James song. I wasn't really that inspired by this, as "Nautilus" is one of those songs I sampled along with everyone else back at the end of the 80s, and then moved on. But since everyone seemed to be having a go, I figured I'd embrace the challenge of finding a new way to use these old sounds, toss something together quickly, and throw my hihat into the ring.

Brand-new remix for our 1998 song "Flow 2000".

Just something I built in my head overnight and tossed together this morning. It's been a while since I've worked on any music, here's hoping 2021 provides inspiration for us all!

This is my thirty-ninth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was Roy Budd's spooky jazz/funk score for the 1974 film "The Internecine Project". I was lucky enough to win the sample challenge from last week, which means I have to judge this week, AND might still have the Head2Head competition to worry about, so I wanted to get this out of the way quickly in order to focus on everything else. I edited and layered and combined about sixteen different loops and snippets from the source, augmented the bassline, added my own drum programming, a hint of piano and chorus, and some Stephen Hawking voice clips to finish the package. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my thirty-eighth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was Ennio Morricone's 1971 soundtrack for the Sergio Leone spaghetti western "Giù La Testa" (a.k.a. "Duck, You Sucker!" or "A Fistful Of Dynamite"). As the Head2Head sample challenge is still running, I didn't turn my mind to this until I was sure I was satisfied with the H2H entry; and then looking through this I decided to keep things simple and build off of one main filtered loop. ...I then absolutely did NOT keep it simple; using about ten different samples and snippets from the source, layering in a couple of additional loops and vocal samples, then adding my own drum programming and vinyl filters to produce a smooth swingy bit of melancholy morriconia. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!! * This won first place!!! Wow, thanks to António Megård Piteira and the rest of the TPC family!

This is my entry for Round Two of The Producers Corner "Head2Head" sample challenge, where twenty producers are given the same source from which to sample, and send their results in to be randomly matched up against another producer in an elimination round with possible cash prize rewards. The source for this second week was Jun Fukamachi's 1982 album "Space Cruiser Yamato Synthesizer Fantasy" (https://youtu.be/lj9CARDiBj8), a new wave synth adaptation of Hiroshi Miyagawa's score for the Star Blazers anime series. The rules this week were to add only drums and bass and "one extra sound", which I initially interpreted to mean one other looped sample, but in seeking clarification I received a vague enough response that it seemed using one extra musical instrument would be within the contest parameters, so I picked piano. This being a brand-new challenge with new ears judging my work, I returned to a well-dipped well with an arrangement of a bassline riddim and reggae piano chords which has served me well in other past productions. I edited and layered and combined about twenty samples, snippets, and loops from the source, added my own drum programming, bassline and piano, and ended up with a kind of swingy peppy electro-dub reggae feel. We'll see if it's good enough to advance to the next round; I'm up against some very talented and consistent producers. The judge's advice last week was to try to keep within the realm of "less is more". I don't think I did that. I don't think I CAN do that! :-) But I did follow one piece of advice, to not rush and work longer on my beat; I spent 25 hours on my last one, and this one took 33.

This is my thirty-seventh entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the 1970 album "Afro-Classic" by flautist Hubert Laws, a very light and airy instrumental funky jazz album. As this is the first week for the HEAD2HEAD sample challenge with a cash reward, I didn't turn my mind to this until I was sure I was satisfied with the H2H entry; and then looking through this I wasn't too inspired and ended up just using huge chunks of loops in a new arrangement. I used about nine different samples and snippets from the source, and added my own drum programming and sax & vocal samples, to produce a spooky jumpy DJ-Shadow-esque instrumental. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my entry for Round One of The Producers Corner "Head2Head" sample challenge, where forty producers are given the same source from which to sample, and send their results in to be randomly matched up against another producer in an elimination round with possible cash prize rewards. The source for this first week was a YouTube medley of Ennio Morricone's soundtrack work for Sergio Leone's films, entitled "The Spaghetti Western Trio" (https://youtu.be/mfRFET2UZok). The rules were to use ONLY samples from this source, NO additional musical samples or instrumentation, apart from drums and bassline. No piano, no synth, no organ, no chorus, no movie dialogue, no scratching; none of the extra seasoning I usually use to finish off the stew. But hey, that's why they call it a challenge! When I first saw that the source would be Morricone I wasn't that inspired, as that music has been sampled to death by artists over the years, including me starting back in 1988. But I decided to wade in anyway and see what I could come up with. Twenty-five hours later, and twenty-five samples later, I was done. I didn't even add any additional bassline; everything you hear is a sample from the YouTube source, with my own drum programming supporting and complementing the loops. With twenty-five samples used, there are often four or five different snippets interacting with each other at any given time, but I hope I arranged and mixed it well enough where everything meshes well while still remaining audible. I was most pleasantly surprised by how well the chopped and re-assembled whistles came out at the end; I wouldn't be surprised if no one even notices that's not what the whistles do at all in the original song. I'm not sure what the next challenge will be, but if this is good enough to move on to round two, I might (?) spend more than a day on my next beat. I hope you enjoy what you hear, and that you're all staying safe and healthy! * This was, in fact, good enough to advance to the next round. Apollo Brown, in expressing his opinion about my beat, wondered if perhaps I could have taken an approach of "less is more", especially since he liked my opening sample that no one else really utilized. To be fair, the sample he liked doesn't really exist on the source album in the state he heard it; I took a loop, re-timed it from a swing time signature, separated out the guitar plucks at the snares, doubled the bass notes and shifted one down an octave, and combined it with low piano notes and some slowed-down strings from elsewhere on the album. But absolutely I take his point; less IS often more, especially when it comes to hip-hop. But I have this incessant irrepressible instinct to fill up empty space in my production, especially when it is an instrumental. If it's designed to be a beat that will end up with vocals all over it, then there is far less need for me to keep the listener entertained. But if I know it's going to hit a listener with nothing but music, my natural reaction is to build that instrumental up into a little mini-symphony to hopefully hold the interest and imbue enjoyment in listeners for whom often a song simply is not an actual song unless there's a human voice saying something on top of it. But still, I should take into account my target audience, and remember that these will be fellow producers listening and judging, and tailor my beats accordingly. I guess overall I misinterpreted the judging criteria "does it work for a song" (meaning is it good for a rapper to write and record on) as "does it work AS a song" (meaning it's a completed presentable instrumental). Thanks to Apollo Brown and all my fellow producers for competing and participating, and props to Blox Beats who seriously came close to kicking my ass. I'll see all of you next time... most likely with another slice of "more is less". 😀

This is my thirty-sixth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the classic 1959 album "Kind Of Blue" by Miles Davis. I used about ten different loops and snippets from the source, and added my own drum programming, some subtle piano, organ, chorus, and vocal samples, to produce a slow smooth swingy jazz/reggae hybrid. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my thirty-fifth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the 1975 album "Kyou No Wagami Wa" by Meiko Kaji, a cool slice of Kill Bill / Lady Snowblood smooth funky soul ballads. I used fourteen different loops and snippets from the source, and added my own drum programming, bassline, piano, chorus, and vocal samples. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!! * This received an honorable mention.

This is my thirty-fourth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the classic 1964 album "Crescent" by the John Coltrane Quartet. It being Coltrane, it's a bit manic and devoid of obvious hooks, but I managed to dig out eight different horn & piano loops and snippets from the source, augmented the bassline with my own, then added my own drum programming, piano, organ, chorus sounds, and some vocal samples. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!! * This came in 3rd place.

This is my thirty-third entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was Shirley Brown's 1977 self-titled album, a smooth mix of R&B soul love songs. I didn't have a lot of time this week to work on this, but I managed to dig out seven different loops and snippets from the source, augmented the bassline with my own, then added my own drum programming, trumpet, organ, and chorus sounds. (After I was done, I decided I liked the reggae elements so much that I went back and extended the beat slightly to spotlight them.) I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my thirty-second entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. (Just kidding, it's a lot longer than thirty seconds.) The source this week was the 2019 album "It Rains Love" by Lee Fields & The Expressions, a collection of funky soul songs evocative of James Brown and Otis Redding. I purposefully tried to stay away from my normal approach of finding and looping long chunks of music, and instead went for more of a mosaic of small pieces (or "chops"). This was not only to give it the jumpy percussive tone I wanted, but also because these kinds of recent neo-soul records are essentially bands playing loops as if they were breakbeats and samples anyway, and I was trying to stay away from just sounding redundant. I used twelve different snippets from the source, edited and rearranged and layered together, then I added my own drum programming, bassline, and some vocal samples. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!! * This came in 5th place

This is my thirty-first entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the 1972 album "Round 2" by The Stylistics, a collection of smooth soulful strings, horns, and vocals. I used fifteen different loops and snippets from the source, edited and rearranged and layered together, then I added my own drum programming, bassline, and scratching. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my thirtieth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was Willie Hutch's 1973 soundtrack album for "The Mack", a fun upbeat mix of disco funk. I used ten different loops and snippets from the source, edited and rearranged and layered together, then I added my own drum programming, bassline, piano, organ, scratching, and some Maya Angelou voice samples. I hope you enjoy the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my twenty-ninth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was Alessandro Alessandroni's 1974 album "Prisma Sonoro", a mélange of Hugo-Montenegro-esque moody jazz funk. I used a total of thirteen different loops and snippets from the source, edited and rearranged and layered together, then I added my own drum programming, bassline, and some voice samples from a James Baldwin record. Happy Birthday to me! I hope you find something to enjoy about the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my twenty-eighth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was twofold; a few songs from Tadashi Yamauchi's score for "Gamera", AND Dominique Guiot's 1978 new age guitar/synth album "L'Univers De La Mer". I went in and chopped and re-arranged four guitar loops from the Gamera score, then found and edited and combined and layered eight more loops from the Guiot album. I wanted to keep things fairly simple and background, because my main focus would be a long vocal sample from Martin Luther King's "The Other America" speech, which he delivered at Stanford University on April 4th, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated by a white supremacist. So I dunno, other that putting MLK in there, I wasn't feeling this too much; it's all too droney, too one-note. But that's just kind of what the source material was like. If I had more than two minutes to play with, I'd break out all the different loops into their own spotlight parts, but instead I have four or five layered and playing over each other all at once. Then I added my own drum programming, bassline, keyboards, and called it a day. I feel like there's too much on my mind to get this to be anything other than what it is. I did actually leave it longer than two minutes, as there's no way I was going to either speed my beat up to 98 BPM or cut Dr. King short. I hope you find something to enjoy about the final product, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!! * This came in 3rd place.

This is my twenty-sixth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the Soulparanos YouTube mix "JOURNEY - Odyssey Within Your Mind, Body & Soul", a collection of smooth jazzy instrumentals, some old and obscure, some noticeably recent. I really wasn't that motivated by anything I heard, as much of it was tracks which already featured sampling and looping (such as one by Mr. Chop). So I just set those aside, downloaded pristine versions of the other songs I liked, and edited and layered and arranged a bunch of loops from those. All in all, I ended up utilizing about fourteen different loops and snippets, with some other stuff tossed in to keep myself interested, a bunch of my own drum programming, and a reading of a poem by Amy Lowell. I'm satisfied with the result, it's listenable, but there's really not much THERE there; it's just kind of a collection of cool loops tuned and arranged to play well together. I often see producers post an instrumental and ask, "who could you see rapping over this?", and I gotta say in this case who I see is DJ Shadow, wrapping this up in the garbage and moving on. I called this one "Three Seashells", and if you get that reference you'll understand what exactly I think this beat might be good for. I look forward to hearing the far more interesting stews that all my fantastically talented fellow producers made from these same ingredients. But still, as always, I hope you find something to enjoy or inspire, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my twenty-seventh entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was Sven Grünberg's 1981 album "Hingus", an almost completely structureless wash of new wave synthesizers. Really there's not much there; it's an entire album of what sound like extended intros to much better Tomita or Vangelis songs. It truly was a "challenge" this week, to sift through and find anything of value. Finally I found ONE piece of music that could legitimately be described as a chord progression, looped just that one sample up, added some reggae accents, drum programming, piano, bassline, organ, and some audio recorded on the streets of Brooklyn yesterday. The end result is an upbeat bouncy reggae synth sound, which I would have thought impossible to pull off until finding that snippet at the end of the album. So for the first time in these challenges, I've got an instrumental that uses only one solitary sample from the source! I don't even know who I am anymore... The mix on this isn't great, but I'm going with it because I was up most of the night finishing this up so I could post it before everyone else finds that one lonely phrase of melody on an otherwise featureless sea of what sounds like a cat sleeping on the keys of a synthesizer. I hope you enjoy the result, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

This is my twenty-fifth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source music from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the 1977 album "Tranquility" by Dutch Treat, a mélange of smooth jazz fusion disco funk. I wasn't immediately motivated by anything I heard, but I like to get an instrumental in every week if I can, so come Friday I threw this together last-minute. I latched onto a kind of harpsichord phrase, re-timed it to 4/4 time, and built on that with about twelve other loops and snippets from elsewhere on the album. I added my own bassline, drum programming, and a couple of vocal samples; it probably could have used some scratching but I ran out of time and energy. I hope you enjoy the result, and please everyone stay safe and healthy out there!!!

Okay well it turns out that I had one more Imani Coppola remix up my sleeve, thanks to fellow TYPE 4 brain DayLate, who filtered out an acappella for "One Of These Days" and shared it with me. It doesn't sound perfect, as the process of separating out an acappella does all sorts of awful things to the sound quality of the voice, but hopefully you'll get what I was going for and enjoy it nonetheless. As with most of these remixes, I got the idea to just try out the vocals over my most recent instrumental created for The Producers Corner sample challenge, and once I retuned the music to her voice, it fit pretty well. Her harmony chorus did not work at all, so I substituted another vocal stem she'd left on her Soundcloud, combined with all the other stuff I'd already put into my instrumental. The end result is short and sweet and listenable even in its rough scratchy form. I hope you enjoy! Instrumental version here: https://soundcloud.com/type4/one-of-these-days-eufouria-instrumental Original sample challenge beat here: https://soundcloud.com/type4/the-french-confection-tpc-sample-challenge-139

Instrumental version of my remix for Imani Coppola's "One Of These Days", built around my entry for the most recent sample challenge from The Producers Corner. Vocal version here: https://soundcloud.com/type4/imani-coppola-one-of-these-days-eufouria-remix Original sample challenge version here: https://soundcloud.com/type4/the-french-confection-tpc-sample-challenge-139

This is my twenty-fourth entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source song from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was a YouTube track called "Orchestral Groove (French Connection)", a mix of cool French instrumental songs compiled by The Soulparanos Show. It runs the gamut from smoky lounge to film soundtrack to disco pop, and at first nothing was jumping out at me. I think my problem was the way the whole thing was mixed together as if it's one long song, making it more difficult to pick out beginnings or endings where there might be some cool samples. It didn't help matters that Soulparanos peppered the mix with their own voiceover namedrops, so finally I just ended up Shazaming some of the tracks I was curious about, and downloaded those individual songs to work with. I kept things fairly simple this time, building around one loop with a nice descending bassline, layering in a few other heavily-edited samples from the source material and elsewhere, and then finishing it with lots of my own drum programming. I chose not to add keyboards or scratching this week, as I thought it might just muddy the whole thing up. I hope you enjoy the result, and please everyone be careful and stay healthy!!! PS - after completing this instrumental, I used an altered version of the music on a remix for Imani Coppola's song, "One Of These Days": https://soundcloud.com/type4/imani-coppola-one-of-these-days-eufouria-remix * This came in 2nd place.

This is my twenty-third entry in The Producers Corner "sample challenge", where everyone is given the same source song from which to sample, and the results are diverse and entertaining. The source this week was the Miles Davis album "Sketches Of Spain", which I have on CD and I think on vinyl somewhere but I didn't dig it up. I went looking for something funky and catchy, but my attention was almost immediately consumed by this short motif at the end of the opening adagio; a beautifully modern and emotionally evocative chord progression on what sound like French horns, with a trumpet solo fading in over them. I looped that and just couldn't get away from it, it became the foundation and identity of the song. I really didn't need much else, but just for variety's sake I tossed in a few other snippets from the source material, including a completely restructured loop for my middle bridge section. I added my own breakbeats and drum programming, bassline, keyboards to emphasize the chord structure of the original sample, and some scratching on top. With "Miles" in mind, I filtered in a very subtle doppler-shifted loop of The Who singing "miles and miles" ad infinitum. I also found a recording of Robert Frost reading his poem "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening", which of course concludes with a famous line about miles, and panned every other line to try to keep the voice and music separate. Then I concluded the whole thing with a recording of Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the moon in 1971. I hope you enjoy the result, and please everyone be careful and stay healthy!!!

Instrumental version for a mashup remix I did with singing by Imani Coppola and rapping by Russ D of Poetic Soldiers, over brand-new reggae disco funk! Vocal version here: https://soundcloud.com/type4/imani-coppola-luv-is-a-three-letter-word-soul-kiss-remix-feat-poetic-soldiers

Well I guess this is it for now with the Imani Coppola remixes... I'm out of acappellas! For this one, I grabbed some partial song pieces she had made available for download, and combined them over a half-time / double-time reggae beat. There still just wasn't enough song there, so I had the idea to grab an old rap acappella from an artist I produced in the past. The first thing to come to mind was the song "Soul Kiss" by Poetic Soldiers, which I'd produced and recorded with rapper Russ D back in 1991. So I dug up the old 4-track cassette master, isolated his vocals, and ported it into the new music, stretching and shifting where necessary. It's not perfect sounding, not only because it's a track off a thirty-year-old cassette, but also because in order to preserve track space back then I often recorded to track with effects, so there's just too much burned-in reverb on his voice. I de-reverbed it a little, added some compression, some de-essing, and it still sounds a bit muddy AND tinny at the same time, if that's possible. But I think the idea is cool, and I've always loved his lyrics on this one. So there you go, a mashup of a couple of unreleased Imani songs, and a now-ancient rap song I recorded with a good friend and talented artist when we were both in our late teens, over some brand-new reggae disco funk! Y'know, all in a day's work around here... Instrumental version here: https://soundcloud.com/type4/luv-is-a-three-letter-word-soul-kiss-instrumental

I tossed this together back in 2019 as an audio demonstration of a production style I hear in a lot of hip-hop music these days and it drives me nuts. It's just people grabbing some old soul or R&B song, feeding it into Serato Sample, chopping it into an atonal mess, looping five seconds of it for three minutes, and calling it a day. I completed this in just a few minutes, and actually it has too much complexity to really fit the criteria of what I'm talking about; this has an A and B part to the loop, and the drums should really be simple separated unquantized booms and baps, not a smooth breakbeat. But I guess I couldn't help myself. So yeah, this is just a small snippet of Curtis Mayfield's "Kung Fu", chopped and screwed and looped ad infinitum, set to some Glenn Yarborough drums. That's it. Took me a few minutes. And okay maybe it doesn't intrinsically suck, maybe this could be built upon with complementary samples, melodies, harmonies, choruses, bridges, you know an actual song arrangement. And hell, you toss a great rapper on top of even the most simple beat and you've got a great rap song. I understand that the music is the secondary part of "rap music". It just really bugs me when I hear producers stick with their first idea and only their first idea and stop there, adding nothing more. What this stuff reminds me of is what I was doing in the late 80s & early 90s, when I'd have a rap group come into my studio and we'd sit all day going through sampleables, vinyl, tapes, whatever, and loop up anything that sounded cool. I'd sample it, set it to the first breakbeat that came to mind, record five minutes of that onto a cassette for them to write to, and move on to the next idea. They'd take that "loop tape" away for a week or whatever, and come back with songs they'd written to those beats, whereupon I would actually begin production on it as a song, arranging my samples and drums around what they'd written, using the original idea as a base and building from there. If I ever just left the loop exactly the same for the length of the song, I'd want to punch myself in the face. Maybe I "overproduce" some of my stuff. I really can't tell. All I know is I work on it until it's a piece of music, until it does everything I would've been conducting a band playing those instruments to do. Maybe that's putting too much emphasis on the "music" part of "rap music". But it's obviously too late for me to change now. Anyway yeah, that's why I tossed this piece of crap together in a few minutes; to demonstrate just how easy and boring the whole thing can be, once the easy shortcuts become the new norm. I still always strive to be and create more, and I hope you will too. For a visual demonstration of this same point, watch: https://youtu.be/67Ckve3L8EA

If you're a sampling producer, this kind of thing happens inevitably, just hopefully not very often. Sometime back around 2010 I put together this basic musical outline for a song, for TYPE 4 vocalist Tommy O'Deed to write to. I even came up with a sing-song chorus about "nothing". The song never materialized, but thanks to one of my favorite rap groups Atmosphere, we can now all hear something like what that might have sounded like, in their song "Dotted Lines" (https://soundcloud.com/atmosphere-6/dotted-lines). Y'know, if we'd ever finished writing the song, or recorded the song, or for that matter if we were as good as Atmosphere, which is of course a matter of opinion. I have no idea whether they actually sampled the same source as I did, or merely replayed some live guitar in the same style, but I think even Ed Sheeran would recognize there's an undeniable similarity. As for what that possibly shared sample source is? Go fish.

Instrumental for "Blame It On Tom" from 2004. Vocal version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueGkTpdgunc

Instrumental version of "Don't Panic!"; completed in 1997 and released on our 2001 album "For Sale": https://music.apple.com/us/album/dont-panic/344224485?i=344225053 I put this music together in 1996, around the same time I looped everything together for "Formula 4". When 7L & Esoteric (as part of God Complex) came to my home studio in 1996 to record "Cortex Nematode", I showed them this beat but we went with something new from scratch, also using a half-time jazz sample idea.