A sample of the projects I'm working on currently.

[Mindset]

These are rough drafts and not really mixed down items very recently done for a couple projects I'm working on. Get your mind set

These are basically commercial friendly content.

Dough Boy & Weatherman:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=253575&songID=4941760

You Don't Want It - Kaos, Titan, and weatherman will be on it when we finished actual tracking in the studio
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=253575&songID=4941775

 

[Mindset]

btw these were done on mediocre equipment found in all ghetto studios near you lol. The full recorded versions will definitely be in the studios.

First one is untitled, featuring Dough Boy of Big Wheel Records & Weatherman of Mindset Entertainment

The second one is featuring Kaos, Titan, and soon to be Weatherman all of Mindset Entertainment artists.

 

[TelePaul]

Very cool, great vocal sounds too. Mindset, what kinda stuff do you use sample-wise? Or in terms of VSTs or soundbanks? I'm curious because I've seen you at work with some awesome gear, was wondering what the typical rap studio uses for its beats?

 

[ammarg89]

Nice trax, i liked teh beat on teh second oen alot more, but the vocal quality on da forts sounded better, good drops, ill beats, sick rhymes

 

[Trumpspade]

Yo Cuz,
You already know homie!!!!

 

[bknot1]

DB and Weatherman song is on point..nice song right there...
might want to de-ess the last verse a bit i think if im hearing right on these computer speakers...LOL


You Dont Really Want it With Me- is OK..but sounds to much of a A-town track like any other Atlanta track..nice vocals beat is nice..but hell what do I know..I heard so damn much A-town tracks they starting to all sound the same to me..hell thig might turn into a hit..it def..have a nice club feel...

keep doin it big Mindset.. ( i really dont like their Cool Smiley at all )

 

[Mindset]

Yeah, that's what I figured. The first one with DB, Weatherman's vocals does need some tuning. I'm probably going to take them to the studio this weekend to actually drop the full version of those tracks.

The second one does sound like every other a-town track. I personally don't like those types of tracks, but even I need some commercially region friendly tracks. I doubt it'll be played anywhere else other than the south for the most part.

They were done on a sh*tty 24/96, with a behringer mixer & a sm57 haha... The computer was s hit too. DAW control was horrible with 256mb of RAM.

I appreciate all the comments peoples.

 

[Mindset]

Very cool, great vocal sounds too. Mindset, what kinda stuff do you use sample-wise? Or in terms of VSTs or soundbanks? I'm curious because I've seen you at work with some awesome gear, was wondering what the typical rap studio uses for its beats?

I either buy my own beats, or make them out of my Yamaha SY77. Most of the beats I use are built by hand by me or one of our producers. Other than that, you'll be suprise what we have up here. 8 Reason 3 rigs. They all have Digi002 setups there running pro tools and like 4-5 processors on each of the 8 rigs. That's what we call a Lab room. Other than that, there's like 8 key's that we use, and a roland digital drum set. I can't think of the key's on the top of my head I'll have to get back to you on what they have up there.
For the most part, the recent beats were done on a Neko with Nuendo 3 & Stylus RMX which i think is one of the best stuff I used. I love the Neko as my teacher was one of their designers. We shipped it out like 2 months ago to customize it to what we call the ultimate version of the Neko. 24 in 24 out on top of the delta 1010 built on. The 24/24's are all light pipe. I think we thinking of throwing 24/24 AES on it too.

 

[Change of POETS]

1st things first... Dude on the hook in the Dough Boy and Weatherman Track is WAY flat. He needs to either learn how to sing, or you'll need to invest in / load up Auto Tune to fix that. It's horrible. The second verse on this track is in desperate need of EQ. Sounds extremely Tinny. Best advice here, is retrack it in your studio. Just sounds horrible. Actually, I wouldn't even work with that, fam. Just tell em it has to be retracked, or it doesn't get released...lol.. Put your foot down, man.

The second track, yes, it's a typical ATL type of track but... Great use of effects, the mix is off in parts, especially on the vocal effect tracks the supplement the verse. I'd bring em down a few db. The hook could use some widening imo. The vocal sounds alone in there... Maybe, add a duplicate track or two, separate with pans, run the duplicates through a bus delay of 13ms or 20ms or so... Play with it, widen it up. Outside of that, I can hear this one on Southern Radio easy.

 

[Mindset]

1st things first... Dude on the hook in the Dough Boy and Weatherman Track is WAY flat. He needs to either learn how to sing, or you'll need to invest in / load up Auto Tune to fix that. It's horrible. The second verse on this track is in desperate need of EQ. Sounds extremely Tinny. Best advice here, is retrack it in your studio. Just sounds horrible. Actually, I wouldn't even work with that, fam. Just tell em it has to be retracked, or it doesn't get released...lol.. Put your foot down, man.

The second track, yes, it's a typical ATL type of track but... Great use of effects, the mix is off in parts, especially on the vocal effect tracks the supplement the verse. I'd bring em down a few db. The hook could use some widening imo. The vocal sounds alone in there... Maybe, add a duplicate track or two, separate with pans, run the duplicates through a bus delay of 13ms or 20ms or so... Play with it, widen it up. Outside of that, I can hear this one on Southern Radio easy.

I agree. I wasn't available to actually track these 2 songs so none of my guidance went along with it lol. There's no way I would release these into an album without full production in the actual studio. They were mixed down by Weatherman which I'm still teaching him the in's & outs of mixing. I was thinking of when all vocals are clean and it's a decent mix, the delay should have been timed at 550ms to 650ms based on "100 bpm" which I have no clue of right now really but I'm guessing it was around 90-100. Then I would have done the tele effects better using a parametric eq. I don't even think it was actually tracked. Honestly I think they both sound somewhat like shit lol. The sound of the actual tracks to me sounded like they were recorded in a imperfect room. I can hear it clearly within the vocals.

I also know there was no EQ work done to actually mix the vocals to track, no compression, no reverb, nothing but a tele effect w/ eq, and pitch shift. Because of the SM57 as the microphone, which of course has a boost in the lows & midrange area and not much highs in the response, a tele effect on there boosted the mid/hi mids a little way too much since it wasn't flat in the first place. Which I think is one reason of it sounding so bad.

To remix it would be out of the question unless I get Cubase which it was recorded on. To retrack the whole thing, seems a WHOLE lot more logical to me. I also think that a notch out of the instrumental is needed too because the vocals sometimes get masked to the beat. actually it happened quite a few times that I can tell. After remixing & retracking the whole deal, I think they could come out OK. Ok enough for me to put it on a CD & sell it that is.

I do k now for a fact that Weatherman uses Cubase & Izotope for effects since he has no outboard gear. This then equals him using Izotopes built in presets, which IMO sound like shit. That's no tweaking of the processor to get it right with the music. Oh well, th at's one major reason I went ahead and booked 30 hours for this week. Which brings me to my goal of 200 hours a month booked in the studio. Enough for 3 months worth of recording without rushing through things & enough to drop a full length album easily. I'm going to have to put my foot down lol. But it's still considered a rough draft, and they were just showing me a new track they were writing and wanted me to pass it or scratch the thing before actual recording. SOO I'll keep you guys posted. Thanks

 

[bknot1]

dont worry about it..we know you goin to redo(re-track) them and get them right and ready for commerical release..