Production Tips for Rap

MatrixClaw said:
+5000, he sounds white. Not that that's a bad thing... but using "nigga" in a non-joking way when you're white is a sure-fire way to get shot :loco:
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Lol, sorry for the offtopic but i just remembered a totally random and hilarious story:

A couple years ago, a Greek (and white skinned) friend of mine visited the States, for the first time in his life. He doesn't speak English very well, so he thought that the word "my pals" was a polite way to call black people, (similar to "sir". :lol:)
So, when he needed directions to see the city, he asked a local (black) guy for help, by saying "Excuse me, my pals, how do i get to xyz spot??" causing the guy to EXPLODE! :worship: :lol:
 
MetalSound said:
i think i´ll better not comment on this but it somehow shows the direction where this forum has been going for some time.
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Nah, if anything your original post demonstrates more the ignorance that you're now trying to say perpetuates this place.

This forum is chock full of useful advice and production tips first and foremost, these are more often than not applicable to more than just one genre and considering it is Andy's forum he's never condemned, quite rightly so, the discussion of other genres even if the URL title would indicate a genre focus, and this forum is "Production Tips" not "Production Tips For Metal".
 
MetalSound said:
i think i´ll better not comment on this but it somehow shows the direction where this forum has been going for some time.

sorry for not contributing anything useful to this thread again. i will stop now before this is getting out of control.
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my bad dude, sorry for lashing out just i thought you were trying to start some metal troll stuff
 
XxRobbieChaosxX said:
I know there's people on here who have done rap.

What're some effects/ideas you could share?

Lately I've had a few rappers come in to record, and because of them, I have another 2 lined up for next week.

Examples:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1317792/KushSmokeGreat/Imma Do Me_mixdown.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1317792/KushSmokeGreat/Woke up_mixdown.mp3

Horrible way to word it, but I'm going for more of a "sellout"/"rap on the radio" sound. As, that is what they requested.

Any advice? Also, if anyone has recorded rappers in the past, I'd love to hear.
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double double double double everything

double everything

double some other shit, just for fun

edit everything pretty tight, but leave room for error here and there, rap aint pop, its still gotta have some edge

use delay in creative ways with low feedback (think of it like a slapback reverb)
 
joeymusicguy said:
double double double double everything

double everything

double some other shit, just for fun

edit everything pretty tight, but leave room for error here and there, rap aint pop, its still gotta have some edge

use delay in creative ways with low feedback (think of it like a slapback reverb)
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And what NOT to double? I've had a country-ish band coming in and they wanted to double everything. I wouldnt be mixing it, so I said 'Ok then...'. It sounded like crap, the only thing that wasn't doubled was drums and bass. I wished the AE good luck to try finding space for all that doubled stuff.
 
It's actually pretty interesting when you're used to mixing or recording one genre of music and then step over to another. For example I'm currently working on an indie folk album and to me the mixes blow some commercial releases out of the water thanks to my experience with mixing metal (getting everything clean and tight). And I think also that there are a lot of similarities between metal and rap, sometimes it's good to break the mold and develop some new mixing techniques instead of staying in your comfort zone. As far as my contribution; mix the beat yourself, this is the biggest trouble I've had is crappy beats that sound like they were recorded off of a mpc that dre started out on. This is kind of where the similarities come in since you need to kick to be the main element of the music without being over bearing, and make sure that the instruments don't sound cheesy. SM7b's work great, I've had limited luck with fatheads but with something like that it's definitely singer variant.
 
I thought rappers were suppose to be smart and witty and also literate.
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maybe in england, where you have guys like mike skinner doing they're thing

on our side of the pond, most "rappers" are illiterate, uneducated, trash who don't have a clue what they're doing
 
http://www.soundclick.com/testmixes

I do a whole bunch of hip hop mixing. One of my little tricks is to smash the hell out of the lead vocal but leave any doubles or backup vocals uncompressed (maybe a liiittle compressed). It gives it more punch, almost like NY parrallel. Hell you can even do some NY compression to it.

Another trick is to take a mono track of backup vocals, throw Reapitch on them with two taps, one pitched up 9 cents and the other down 9 cents and then pan them out left and right.

Like Joey said double and triple track pretty much everything and edit to tighten it all up.
 
Got someone lined up for today around 2:00pm for recording more Raps.
If anyone has ever turned someone down because they asked to record raps, and it's "not your style".
Think again. Epically if you have the ability to use FL Studio or Reason.
They take their music more seriously than any metal band I've ever recorded. (even if they suck)
They spread the word to their other friends, and it gets your more business.
When you listen to rap songs, you wonder why some of them rap about why their weed is so good.
When they smoke you out, you realize why.
A lot less work to do if you tell them beforehand to bring everything prepared and be ready for doubles.
Some of them come with beats they downloaded off the internet, meaning, you're doing almost NO work.
Did I mention how good their bud is? lol
 
joeymusicguy said:
double double double double everything

double everything

double some other shit, just for fun

edit everything pretty tight, but leave room for error here and there, rap aint pop, its still gotta have some edge

use delay in creative ways with low feedback (think of it like a slapback reverb)
Click to expand...

Pretty much exactly what I do.
Epically on the doubles thing.
 
Funny thing is, I dont necessarily try to stay away from mixing and producing rap it just always finds it's way back to me for exactly the reasons you stated above. The majority of rappers I've worked with promote me and themselves waaaayyy more than bands do. It's like bands covet their studio/engineer and don't want anyone else stealing their sound lol.

I've worked with guys that have the downloaded instrumentals and the problem is that most of them are "pre-mastered" so it may not be difficult to get the vocals to fit but it's difficult to get them to fit and vibe the way YOU want them to. Oddly enough though, the groups/artists that have hired me to mix them have their instrumentals tracked out. Since day one , I've been an avid FL user so that always helps too.
 
One thing that happens a lot in rap that your tracks were missing is what I call "hype." (Not sure if that's the official term).

Just have him say shit "Yeah, ats right, what it do" the whole time in the background. T.I. does that a lot and it adds to the track.
 
zackpennington said:
One thing that happens a lot in rap that your tracks were missing is what I call "hype." (Not sure if that's the official term).

Just have him say shit "Yeah, ats right, what it do" the whole time in the background. T.I. does that a lot and it adds to the track.
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Another variation of this is madlibs.

ALSO! QUESTION EVERYONE!

Guy I tracked yesterday recorded alright, and he's coming back over in about 30 minutes.
His raps are less "MY SWAG IS TiiGHHT ,NIGGAA!" and a BITTT (tiny bit) more meaningful.

But his voice is extremely white. Not even in the way where you could kinda get away with it.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to make it sound like it has more of a body n presence and a bigger sound?
or should I just comp the shit out of it to get the results?
 
XxRobbieChaosxX said:
Got someone lined up for today around 2:00pm for recording more Raps.
If anyone has ever turned someone down because they asked to record raps, and it's "not your style".
Think again. Epically if you have the ability to use FL Studio or Reason.
They take their music more seriously than any metal band I've ever recorded. (even if they suck)
They spread the word to their other friends, and it gets your more business.
When you listen to rap songs, you wonder why some of them rap about why their weed is so good.
When they smoke you out, you realize why.
A lot less work to do if you tell them beforehand to bring everything prepared and be ready for doubles.
Some of them come with beats they downloaded off the internet, meaning, you're doing almost NO work.
Did I mention how good their bud is? lol
Click to expand...

yea but then you get a bunch of gangsters hanging around your place

and a bunch of dudes hitting lines of coke when you're not looking

and the occasional gun-related incident...sometimes with shit being pointed at the engineer

not to say none of the above can't happen with metal bands, but IME, it's more apt to occur with the wannabe gangster shitheads than personify most rappers
 
joey's right on the money with delay tip and doubling. i do some rap here and there, probably just as much as anything else. get 'em to put down "looseys" aka "hype tracks" aka "overdubs", which are basically uhhhs, yeahhhhs, whaaats and shit like that. edit/tweak those and give a few dedicated tracks for EQ, verb, whatever. automate a delay to get a slapback effect in certain places. 'screw' the vocals... which is basically pitch-shifting/time-stretching the vocals to give them a slurred effect. PITCH CORRECT and i'm not talking about auto-tune T-Pain setting, more along the lines of graphic/manual-mode in auto-tune, melodyne, waves tune, variaudio, whatever. you can hear certain parts where he's half-singing and those could afford to get some correction. i tend to push vocals a little hotter in the high end to get a sizzling type of vocal when i do rap and RnB, but that might just be a personal preference.
 
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