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". 😀
