Day 1: Beats

I spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about beats.

(To be honest, I spend a lot of time thinking about pretty much everything. It's kind of what I do.)

Nevertheless, I particularly obsess over beats. I'm fascinated by every single aspect of their construction. On my computer, you'll find approximately ten thousand separate drum kits. I literally have more than I know what to do with lodged on my hard drive.

To this end, I figured beats were the obvious place for me to start. If nothing else, I've made them before. I decided I'd make ten beats for ten songs and then move on to the next part. Ten songs seemed like a good number. Even if 80% of what I make is total shit, I'll still have two decent songs left over at the end, right? Right. Glad you agree.

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In today's half hour, I managed to make three beats:

1. Lazy Ghetto
Lazy Ghetto MP3 by M. O'Neill

When I first started working out rhythms for this hip hop caper, I was obsessed with making out-there, ridiculously complicated shit. I've decided to rein in my ambitions temporarily, though. I want to get the fundamentals right before I start traipsing off into the experimental ether. If you listen to the rhythm of Kanye West's Heartless, it's little more than a kick and a snare/clap but it works fantastically well.

This is one of the most simple and straightforward beats I've ever made. It's a one-bar loop in 4/4 at 90BPM with only three component parts to it - a timbale pattern, a kick-snare pattern and a hi-hat pattern. The timbales comes courtesy of Native Instruments' Battery 3's Timbale Kit, the kick-snare is from the same plug-ins sublime Turntable Rocker Kit (which I will guarantee you'll be hearing a lot of - I fucking love that kit) and the hi-hats come courtesy of Native Instruments' Kontakt 4's Abbey Road drum kits (specifically, their Early 60s Big Business Kit). All programming was done in Ableton Live (version 8.2).

2. More Cowbell
More Cowbell MP3 by M. O'Neill

With this one, I tried to implement some of my more experimental impulses (albeit in very small doses). It's still in 4/4 and, for the most part, one bar (a pitched percussion pattern extends over two) but it's at 100BPM instead of the archetypal hip hop pace of 90 and it has a few more layers. There's the aforementioned percussion phrase (Battery 3's Small Percussion Kit), an irritatingly simple kick pattern (Battery 3's Hip Hop B1 Kit), a snare/hi-hat/handclap/tambourine pattern (Battery 3's Turntable Rocker Kit - as promised) and a weird little glitchy pattern (Battery 3's Simple Waveform Kit).

One of the things I love about hip hop is its ability to take what is essentially electronic music production and transform it into something live and spontaneous. By blending the glitchy Simple Waveform percussion with Turntable Rocker and Small Percussion's organic samples, I was hoping to touch on a similar midway point. The 100BPM (and the kick pattern) is something of a tribute to nu-skool breaks/glitch hop producers like Tipper or my good friends Blunt Instrument (even if it should probably be 110).

3. Wiley Coyote
Wiley Coyote MP3 by M. O'Neill

This is probably my favourite of the day (and closest to my typical programming). One of my favourite hip hop producer/MCs is Wiley. Often referred to as the 'Grandfather of Grime', Wiley differs from a lot of US and Australian hip hop artists in that his productions tend to occupy the higher end of the BPM spectrum (130/140) and this, combined with Wiley's de facto allegiance to club/dance music, is actually something I'm really keen to try and introduce to Australian hip hop.

(I actually have a whole list of things I want to bring to Australian hip hop with this project but I figure I'll reveal them slowly as opposed to write a manifesto I can't actually support.)

With that taken in mind, this beat is paced at 130BPM (with a handclap driven pattern at 65BPM). The only obvious cues to Wiley beyond that, though, are the kick drum and tambourine patterns (both Battery 3's Turntable Rocker Kit - again). The rest of the beat is busied up by the little weird percussive flourishes you'll increasingly recognise as my hallmark - a series of glitches (Kontakt 4's sweet New Rave Kit) and some weird bassy/tom percussive sounds courtesy of Battery 3's surprisingly ghetto Marching Band Kit. The aforementioned handclap pattern comes courtesy of Kontakt 4's Chocolate City Kit.

It's still all pretty normal - 4/4 (again, one pattern exempted) - but it reminds me of Amon Tobin's Two Fingers project.

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So there you have it. The first day. I'm not hugely fond of any of the beats anymore (except for maybe the last one and that's only because of my silly "more drums=more awesome" fetish) but that's typical with me - particularly given their simplicity. They'll do for now, though. My belief is that it's better for me to actually push through and finish a track than worry over the details at this point - and I still have seven more tracks to get the really weird shit out of the way.

Thoughts and feedback welcome. It's actually interesting reflecting on the process and re-examining how I go about this.

I am aware I rely too much on Kontakt 4 and Battery 3. I'll change it up.