East coast hiphop

[whitefang]

I'm trying to get my mixes to sound more like the east side mixes such as Diddy or biggie. anybody has any advice for me?

Thank you

[gullyjewelz]

not exactly sure how u mean this . . . how bout posting up a song you already did and let us know what biggie joint you want it to "compare" with . .

[Trumpspade]

In what way would you want your mixes to sound like Biggie or Diddy? A good mix is a good mix regardless of who it is....I don't believe there is an East coast style of mixing vs a West coast style vs down south style....

Are you sure you're not taklking about emulating their sound? That's more of a beatmaking issue! All Bad Boy was doing, for the most part, was sampling '80's hits anyways......

[GeniusMob]

From my recollection, I'm assuming that you're talking about the "gritty-ness" of the beats that the East is(was RIP), known for, right? Like the hissing-due-to-sampling-everything-on-the-beat kind of ruggedness, right?

If this is the case to be honest, you won't find much luck trying to make a, say, keyboard-based beat sound like (for example) "Juicy" from Biggie. Reason being: there's nothing like sampling. People think that sampling is stealing. However, there's a vibe that sampling gives your beats if you do so, something that no plug-in or sound effect can emulate. I'm talking sampling from drums, too. (How do you think old Hip Hop heads got their sounds back in the day if they didn't have an 808?)

Example: I had a kid come to me with a piano-lead beat he made on a Roland MC909 drum/synth machine, and he wanted me to make it sound like it was sampled off an old record. Though I made it sound close and he was satisfied, it was nothing compared to if he actually sampled those sounds from records. Why? Take into consideration that keyboard sounds are "immitation" sounds of the original sound they're tryin to emulate. Also, when sampling, it has more of a smooth feel since the majority of records from back in the day were recorded analog from people using actual instruments... so things like "quantizing", "sequencing" and even 44.1k 24bit sound was not only unheard of during the time but THROUGH time the records lose their quality. Let's not get into the "cutting" phase of what it does to the "east coast" sound, cuz that'll be plenty more paragraphs.

Overall, if your beats are created and based around keyboard sounds and/or contemporary sounds like what you hear on the radio, it'll be a process to make them sound like the original East Coast sound. As far as artistically, that's on you and your music, cuz you can't "engineer" and morph a Miami Bass beat into an old East Coast beat unless it's done artistically; but technically you can't make it happen.

I would suggest to try and get some plug ins that emulate old sounds, etc. It's all about what your ear hears and wants. Most recording/editing programs have multiple effects on them that you can mess with to make your keyboard sounds different, both quality wise and/or artistically. I love keyboard-based beats where the producer basically PLAYED his own effects into the beat and created his own sound.

Hope that helped.

[Atillah]

I know exactly what you mean since I try to make some of my mixes sound that way.

The key for the "Biggie sound" is to use drums from vinyl, or make your drums sound like vinyl by using some record player his and crackle, plus some slight audio degredation(the grimey sound).

There are plugins that make your trcks sound like they were done on an old SP1200 sampler that are great for this effect also.

Another thing is your choice of samples or the way you make your original instrumentation sound like it was sampled.

It all comes down to aesthetics(artistic taste).

A surefire way to get your mixes to sound more like anyones(since that sounds like your aim) is to listen to the tracks you like most for about 30 minutes before you go to lay a track down. Even if you don't remember every minute detail of the mix, subconsciously you will make adjustments that you wouldn't have before because you mind is trying to compensate and make it sound "right".

Home this helps you dude!

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