why the hell do you do this?

[SOUL CHOPPA]

First and foremost , heres a visual for an upcoming collaboration project. Nothing fancy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RV0mJnhdrY&t=10s
Caption: Making beats is becoming increasingly cathartic; subconsciously, I’m chopping samples that somehow always shout out what I’m feeling

Okay now that thats out of the way, question.

When did you start making beats, how long have you ?
First piece of equipment?
What made you want to make beats? What does making music do for you?
What is your ultimate goal in music, or simply why do you do it ?
What keeps you going? What inspires you?

[thesisdrs]

i started making beats in 2007. I had an acer aspire laptop and an Axiom 25 Gen 2. I was always in music, singing on stage with my brothers and his friends at the age of 5. I knew I had the skill to write and make melodies. Music is a release therapy for me. Its also a promotional tool for something greater. I just do music cause I love it yo. I would love if it could help me pay my bills (all it does now is create bills lol always looking for new gear. Seen a NEVE 5015-V for sale at my local music store for $1500 but as I digress) I would also like to do things outside music and create a network with like minded people to start business' and projects to actually help people. Hearing the stories of other musicians help inspire me to keep going. There is no guarantee in anything in life. You just got to put what you want in the universe and persevere. I always put God first. Start with my ambitions and if it is acceptable to the ineffable one, he can finish it.

[Sharris]

Since I was 7 I've always played some sort of instrument. Got my 1st set of turntables at 17 & got really into writin rhymes & freestylin. All the guys that made beats for me used computers, I didn't know about hardware & didn't think I would like making music on a computer.

3 years ago at 35 a new guy at work mentioned he produced music & was in a band, we would talk music & he mentioned hardware, which peaked my interest. I started doing a bunch of research & he let me borrow his electribe synth. I was hooked. Since all I knew was the electribe I bought 1 too, but only made techno on it & I wanted to make hip hop (not great for that). So shortly after I bought a 404sx & fell in love (gave the electribe to my younger brother & got him into making beats).

There are a lot of things I'm passionate about, but never felt the way I do about beat making. I love everything about it. It's all I think about. It changed my life, it's getting me clean & it created an amazing bond between me & my brother. Only reason I do it is because I love it & it makes me happy.

[zindan]

ok so i started making beats long before the hardware shit and before i got into vinyl, i started in garageband 6 years ago. moved on to fl. had a pretty good amount of passion, but gradually lost it. then one day when i was 17, i heard a record for the first time. roberta flack - feel like makin' love. hearing i can see the sun in late december off that shitty phono, particularly, changed my life forever. instantly i fell in love, and passion came rushing back in a new form.

i am an audiophile. experiencing high fidelity analog sound is like shooting scag for me. i fell in love with records, then i realized what my favorite hip hop producers did. madlib and doom and rza and nujabes and dj premier and dilla etc. etc. how they chop up vinyl on samplers. i decided to ask my parents for an sp404sx and a phono for christmas 2014 (they were divorced so i got twice the shit lol). as soon as i got the shit, i read the entire manual to the sp404sx while performing every single function that it said in the manual! practiced each bit until i learned every single facet of its functionality. ( i must have forgotten a couple things initially because i learned more later on hahaha)
so then i moved on and got a tape deck so i wouldn't have to use my computer as a recording interface, and i could make my shit with hardware only. the beautiful sound of my chopped up vinyl samples mixed with vinyl drum hits and recorded on tape and all that is the strongest drug for me. it's like sex man. that's why i do it. i am truly in love with the sound.
ever since then, i copped a 303 and then a 202 but the 303 forever will be my bottom bitch. i love it sooooo soo so so much.

[zindan]

Since I was 7 I've always played some sort of instrument.

just read this and wanna mention my parents forced me to play piano from age 5 - 8 or 9. lol. then when i got older i learned guitar and bass and drums.

i've always been into music. especially when i first started smoking weed(which was way too young), just listening to music in some skullcandy headphones off my ipod nano was my favorite pastime. i would go skate down to the lake in my neighborhood, smoke a doobie, and just close my eyes and listen for an hour or longer.

[Sharris]

I think a lot, if not all, beat makers have had a close relationship with music most of their lives.

& when I mentioned I didn't want to make beats on a computer I wasn't talkin shit. I've worked on a computer since I was 19, so I've always looked at it as a tool for work. It's hard to work on a computer 8 hours a day then go home & unwind......on a computer. Just thought I would put that out there

[thesisdrs]

Just to add... I also played records on my Dad's turntables (Technics SL 1200's) at the age of 4. He has an onslaught of reggae records, EQ;s Compressors... His genes passed on to me i guess lol. I was also taught how to play trumpet at the age of 11. I still have my 7C mouthpiece I played back then. Did Talent shows in high school. etc. etc.

[thesisdrs]

it's like sex man. that's why i do it. i am truly in love with the sound.

Look for Herbie Hancock and the Head Hunters Live (1974) on youtube. Herbie looks like he about to buss a nut on the keys ROFL

[zindan]

I think a lot, if not all, beat makers have had a close relationship with music most of their lives.

& when I mentioned I didn't want to make beats on a computer I wasn't talkin shit. I've worked on a computer since I was 19, so I've always looked at it as a tool for work. It's hard to work on a computer 8 hours a day then go home & unwind......on a computer. Just thought I would put that out there

ya i still fuck with computers, but my main passion is analog and hardware for sure

[zindan]

it's like sex man. that's why i do it. i am truly in love with the sound.

Look for Herbie Hancock and the Head Hunters Live (1974) on youtube. Herbie looks like he about to buss a nut on the keys ROFL

i loooooove herbie hancock, his vinyl is soooo hard to find

you should watch bill evans trio live

[zindan]

Just to add... I also played records on my Dad's turntables (Technics SL 1200's) at the age of 4. He has an onslaught of reggae records, EQ;s Compressors... His genes passed on to me i guess lol. I was also taught how to play trumpet at the age of 11. I still have my 7C mouthpiece I played back then. Did Talent shows in high school. etc. etc.

deadass. i love jazz because i grew up listening to my dad listen to it.

[Kegeratorz]

I just like creating in general, I always try to make something from nothing or leave something better then I found it. Always have and probably always will, I'm just lucky enough that someone threw an instrument at me.

[Ill Green]

It was always in me. At 8 yrs I recorded myself on a boombox with a cassette recorder banging on a garbage can for drums as I rapped my version of Roxanne's Revenge, which was called Ralph's Revenge.

It was always for fun. Just to make tapes for the crew on the block for laughs. Tapes I made were half comedy skits with parody versions of the latest Rap hits of the time in between.

Nothing serious...until my brother decides to make his own tapes and starts dissing me in a rap. My zitz, my comics, and my fucked up bikes (hey, I was a big nerd, but street ) it pissed me off because he has a bigger demographic than just the neighborhood blocks and I was laughed at in my own town. Thats when I said "fuck this nigga!"

Spent the whole night writing the illest lyrics to destroy bro. Then my pops gave me his illest records, shit you can loop for days so dope and crafted the craziest tape I can never replicate with just a turntable, mixer and a DS-8 with heavy duty Kenwood amps and equalizer. Peeps loved it. Gave me such courage that I just began writing rhymes and battling emcees across the 5 boroughs of New York, alone.

When I felt like I forged my rhyming skills, I felt it was time to record it to some beats. But I spilled beer on my DS-8, it was dead and pops took back his stereo system. So I joined the yuppies working in Manhattan at a proxy statement firm. Saved up about $900 until they went out of business. I lost my friend in a gang fight and had a rude awakening about life so I took that money, left NY and came to Puerto Rico. My pop finds me and has a Roland MS-1 in his hand. Ever since then, I was back into tapes again but no skits or comedy, just music, beats of instrumentals.

I guess its the satisfaction that people listen and feel my music that keep me going. I love when someone writes to me about my craft. Sometimes I don't feel its great but then a letter of how that song echoes to them, is really breathe taking.

I am working on a new album right now

[thesisdrs]

i loooooove herbie hancock, his vinyl is soooo hard to find

Yeah? the first record I bought was his... Thrust. (the one he made after Head Hunters)

[thesisdrs]

It was always in me. At 8 yrs I recorded myself on a boombox with a cassette recorder banging on a garbage can for drums as I rapped my version of Roxanne's Revenge, which was called Ralph's Revenge.

It was always for fun. Just to make tapes for the crew on the block for laughs. Tapes I made were half comedy skits with parody versions of the latest Rap hits of the time in between.

Nothing serious...until my brother decides to make his own tapes and starts dissing me in a rap. My zitz, my comics, and my fucked up bikes (hey, I was a big nerd, but street ) it pissed me off because he has a bigger demographic than just the neighborhood blocks and I was laughed at in my own town. Thats when I said "fuck this nigga!"

Spent the whole night writing the illest lyrics to destroy bro. Then my pops gave me his illest records, shit you can loop for days so dope and crafted the craziest tape I can never replicate with just a turntable, mixer and a DS-8 with heavy duty Kenwood amps and equalizer. Peeps loved it. Gave me such courage that I just began writing rhymes and battling emcees across the 5 boroughs of New York, alone.

When I felt like I forged my rhyming skills, I felt it was time to record it to some beats. But I spilled beer on my DS-8, it was dead and pops took back his stereo system. So I joined the yuppies working in Manhattan at a proxy statement firm. Saved up about $900 until they went out of business. I lost my friend in a gang fight and had a rude awakening about life so I took that money, left NY and came to Puerto Rico. My pop finds me and has a Roland MS-1 in his hand. Ever since then, I was back into tapes again but no skits or comedy, just music, beats of instrumentals.

I guess its the satisfaction that people listen and feel my music that keep me going. I love when someone writes to me about my craft. Sometimes I don't feel its great but then a letter of how that song echoes to them, is really breathe taking.

I am working on a new album right now

Word Why is it always the fathers who help ignite the musicians in people