Operation

As the artwork suggests, this beat is inspired by the soundtrack of an old James Bond movie. A few years ago I bought that soundtrack somewhere on vinyl and discovered a beautiful sample. I couldn’t stop listening and thought to myself “I want to make a beat of this”. So that’s what I did. So I ripped it to my computer, loaded it into fruity loops, cut it into pieces with fruity slicer and then arranged it according to my own taste. Actually, I did not do much to the sample at all. It’s only pitched to a different note which fitted better, because the original was not 100% in tune for some reason. You will notice it as soon as you add some midi instruments. Not a single note will sound good with the sample. In this case you are probably dealing with a recording that is not 100% in tune. You can solve this problem by “fine-tuning” the sample or recording to the root note by ear. These are things that you as a starting producer cannot easily put your finger on. Fortunately, I passed that stage.

Anyways, For the bass I made a copy of the sample parts and cut out all high frequencies and gave the sub frequencies a boost to give it that old school hip-hop vibe. I also added some filters, fx and synthesizers to make it a bit more interesting. Normally I try to give the beat a bit more variation, but in this case it worked out well and offers space for a possible vocalist. I used to listen a lot to producers like J Dilla and Flying Lotus and they showed me that it is not always necessary to have a lot of variety in a beat. A “loop kind of beat” with a melody that you could listen to for hours can also work fine. After all, there are no rules in making music.