R Funksmith

for some reason this whole discussion has always irritated me. but carry on I guess. I think the whole thing is totally arbitrary no matter how you slice it

thanks bud!

thanks dude. #imnotverygoodatscratching #themorewordsyouhaveinahashtagtheharderitistoread

any chance of a download?

that's hilarious and despicable all at once. Just like releasing 1 copy of an album I guess

a mix I made for my cousin's kids, who are 6 and 3

Seun Kuti is coming to my town in July with an 11-piece band

I feel like I should like Prince more than I do. Have you guys heard the Loring Park Sessions though? Holy shit

holy shit, nice gig dude!

atta boy Wax, noice beat

spinrad is excellent.

sickrad, thanks. That's a way better manual.

okay, I see, thanks. So my next question is, are you guys all just figuring it out yourselves, or are you finding some insightful, easily-understood stuff on the internet to help? The manual is pretty hard to grok. I guess I figured the free JJ out by myself... just wondering if there's something on the internet I haven't been able to find. I know about mpc-forums.com

hi guys. A while ago I upgraded the pads on my MPC, perhaps you remember me boasting about that. So for quite a while I've been running the free JJOS 3.16, or whatever the latest one is. Yesterday I installed the spankin' OS2XL, which you have to pay for if you want to save, but otherwise is fully functional. It seems suuuuper awesome. Anyone else use that one? Or any of the other JJ ones? OS2XL has a looper on it too which is all the dopeness.

I've heard most of the bands you guys mentioned and they're not quite what I meant. Rock Well, I think you undervalue the composer's contribution to these recordings. It's all well & good to talk about a "vibe" but it's not like a bunch of Italian session players just went into a studio and started jamming. Parts were written for them. That said, I think it's yet another of my ideas that look good on paper. Most of my ideas are like that. Like the guitar pedal I invented yesterday.

What do you guys think? Imagine a band that was bass, drums, percussion, guitar, keys, a horn/flute player, another horn, maybe a violin. And someone was composing badass library-sounding 70s-esque songs. Would people like that? Cuz you know, library music has a certain cheese to it. But if it were done well would that be actually a good thing? How would you even brand a band like that?

wax oooooon

a good producer is also really good at coaxing the best possible performances out of vocalists or instrumentalists. I think that's a pretty important point actually. Imagine having the balls to tell Fat Joe or somebody to do another pass because he was out of breath. a beatmaker makes beats and allows them to be available for people who want them. a producer crafts the entire track using the beat, the vocalist, whatever else. They probably also have a big-picture view of the whole album or project.

what a bunch of idiots for hoping that.

guys, they're contributing to the dialogue.

you're talking about just how it has a straight arm? Is it better?

Steve, what part of "shut up, I'm right" was difficult for you to understand? GOD

I think possibly there's a bit of a gap in our various personal definitions of the term "mistake". Like if you go up close to a painting by a great master, you can see brush strokes, or chisel markings on a carved masterpiece. I think that's what I like, rather than "mistakes". I like to see some of the "stitches" that are holding the musical "garment" together. Or if you prefer, I like to be able to see some of the "brush strokes" that are an unavoidable part of the process of this musical "painting" to be "painted" by the "paint"-jockey. All awkward analogies aside, an actual example of what I'm talking about in a mix would be sometimes when the dj drops an acapella and they have to adjust its position by hand, or change the speed a bit after a moment, something like that. You can hear them fix it. So it's a "mistake," sure, but I actually think it can sound really ill. Dunno if this will just confuse things more, but I play bass in a lot of improvisational settings. In these settings the mistakes can generate fresh ideas, immediately. So there's no such thing as a mistake? But yes there is, of course. I think it's like TBear said, it's about how you recover. That's where you can flex your ability to react quickly, your grace under pressure, which are traits a performer should certainly have. Live albums contain mistakes, or they probably should. If they are flawless I think "Is this really live?" A lack of mistakes can actually distract me from being immersed in the music because I start wondering about whether it's truly live, I start listening for edits or whatever. I used to study classical guitar, and everyone's favorite player is this guy John Williams (not the movie score composer). His technique was absolutely perfect and flawless, and he never ever ever made any mistakes or errors. And he was fucking boring, it was like listening to a robot or a recording. You felt like he had studied human emotion and was recreating it the best he could, rather than actually experiencing the emotions. It was actually kind of uncomfortable for me, to hear this guy play. Anyways, I guess my point is 1) it sort of depends on your definition of "mistake", and 2) shut up. I'm right.

But haven't you ever listened to a mix that was much too perfect? I have and it bothers me. When all the mixes are completely flawless, I immediately assume the dj is using autosync or whatever and I lose interest. A buddy of mine sent me a mix that he thought I'd like, and I did like the tracklist a lot but the mixing was so boring because it was clearly Serato'd up with perfect looping cuepoints and the beat grid was fixed and everything, and it was lame and boring. It's not that I seek out and prefer mistakes, but mistakes do give me insight into the process, which I guess is important to me. Because with that insight you can get a sense of whether the dj has a certain type of integrity that I want them to have.