TO THE BEATMAKERS OUT THERE

You have no idea how many calls I get. You have no idea how many emails I get. You would think that the majority of them would be about tracks or representation. You’d think all of it was about some advice about the business…

…Ok most of it is just that. Those calls can take up my entire day but that’s the business I’m in. No, the calls & emails that annoy me are the “you gotta’ get this new gear” calls. It never fails, every time some soft or hardware company invents or updates some seemingly, absolutely necessary piece of gear, everybody wants to jump on it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a “stone cold business man”, so I understand about selling your product to the public or in our case, to the music makers community, but damn, does everybody have to get the same thing. There are so many ways now to make a beat it’s ridiculous, and all of them produce industry standard material, but let’s get some variety in there. I know a producer/rapper/engineer who is a beast with his Sonar gear. I know a few who have shocked even me with their pushing of the FL Studio software. There are people out there who swear that The Machine is the second coming and some even hate on anything but the Akai MPC.

I remember years after my “tank” days carrying this big black “soft case” everywhere, and in it was an Ensoniq ASR-10. That was my baby. You literally had to make your own drum kits and sounds using the sampler feature. I play the piano (yes people still do that), so the keyboard was a dream tool for me. Cat’s used to laugh when they saw me comin’ with that ol’ monster. They laughed until I pressed play. The look on their faces was priceless. How in the hell did he get that beat from that old-ass machine? They looked at me like I was alien, and could not believe their ears.

See, it’s not the gear. It’s the person working the gear. With nothing but a then, fifteen year old piece of gear I was killin’ everything out there. Everybody would get the new this or the new that and I would make them wish they hadn’t wasted the money. In the past few years, I’ve been able to develop a sound and style with nothing more than a Mac and a midi controller.

What I think inspires some people to get everything that comes out is what I call “sound hogging”. Every time a new tech drops it’s supposed to have the baddest new sounds, but if you’ve been at this as long as I have you get to understand that most of the “so-called” new sounds are re-hashing of old sounds from some old gear that maybe a lot of kids starting out have never heard. Look, if you’ve got it like that and can afford to buy, buy, buy every new music tech, then more power to ya’. That, however, does not make you a great producer. When you can walk into a studio and seemingly pull greatness out of thin air, when you can squeeze one last drop of dopeness out of a piece of vintage gear, or when you can use every piece of new gear that comes out but, a part of you still shines through, then you’re on your way to greatness. When the label is willing to give you an assignment and then step back & take a hands-off approach with you, because they trust you’ll give them something special (and keep your eye on the budget), then you are surpassing what any new gear can give you. You’re gaining valuable experience so even if the gear is not the latest you can still pull greatness.

That’s the difference between being a “beat maker” and a “record producer” (There is a difference, but we’ll talk about that another time).

- Odell

Hit Man!!!