How To Make Dark 90s Boom Bap Beats Like Mobb Deep

alright so after my last boom Back

tutorial the last comment was someone

asking me for a dark mob deep Style

video and since the one of my all-time

favorite hip-hop groups I had to do it

havoc's a genius when it comes to

sampling and we all know how legendary

the beat for Shook Ones Part Two is so

this might be tough but I'm gonna be

using some of his techniques to try and

get that authentic gritty sound so let's

get straight into it

alright so there's a few different

styles of mob deep beats we could make

we could go with some early 2000s out of

control type beat or we could take it a

bit further back and go for that 90s

grungy underground hip-hop sound and

that's the style I want to make today

because I feel like that's what he's

known best for especially with tracks

like Shook Ones Part 2 or survival of

the fittest and I found this Jazz sample

which might work

and I've already got an idea of how I

want to flip it really when you listen

to that you wouldn't imagine a dark

grungy hip-hop beat but that's why Havoc

was so sick he'd find tiny pieces in

samples and flip them into something

crazy so there's really an art to

sampling and one technique that it used

a lot is just time stretching so let me

show you what I mean so I'm going to

start by just cutting that beginning

part off I've got the BPM set to 90.

and I think I just want to take this

beginning part so it's a stretch just

make sure this stretch buttons on now I

can hold alt click and drag I want to

stretch it it's going to change the

pitch because I'm making it longer the

pitch is going to go down so it's gonna

sound darker

foreign

I start to stretch it almost sounds like

some Shook Ones Vibes just a tiny bit

further back

I just wanted to get the right tone

first so from here I'm going to

consolidate that track because now when

I bring this into something like FL

slicer it's going to be the slow down

version all right so I've just double

clicked there and I'm actually going to

open this in Edison and instead of the

slicer I've opened FPC because what I

want to do is take micro chops kind of

like cover could do and then drag them

into each pad and then I can chop using

my drum pad so I'll show you what I mean

so I think each of these notes I can

take so we'll grab this first one then

I'm going to drag it onto this pad and

then whenever I'm working in FPC I

always go to each pad and set the cut to

one and the cut by to one that just

means the notes aren't going to overlap

so as soon as I press one then press

another it's going to cut the first one

off so let's carry on we'll take this

grab that one this one too and then

we'll just keep going

I don't think I want that one definitely

want this oh when I'm chopping I just

leave this on Snap to zero Crossing just

means you're gonna get a cleaner chart

and you can find parts that don't have a

click at the beginning already and if

you've got a drum pad or a keyboard with

some drum pads on it if you're

struggling to map them I usually just

click this arrow and then select map

notes for entire bank and then I'll go

from the bottom left to the top right

like this

foreign

with the chops

all right so I'm thinking something like

this

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all right so kind of a sick chart but I

still want to take it further so first

of all I'm going to quantize the notes

control and Q we'll level out the

velocity just holding shift clicking and

dragging

you don't need to do this but if you

press Ctrl and L it will link the notes

up

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so with some of them I'm just hearing a

bit of a click so I'm going to turn on

the envelope and just bring that attack

back and also drag this up sustain can

go all the way up so we move to K really

or you can do it manually like this

so yeah bring everything up and then

just do the same with others

so yeah any with a click just do that

same process I'm just going to change

that pattern a little bit I just want to

switch up something here yeah so maybe

like this

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okay so next I've just sent this to an

empty insert I'm going to click down

here and then alt and R just to render

it and I want to try and time stretch it

again just to see what kind of vibe we

get so let's just make it eight bars

this time

foreign

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vibe from it okay next I'm gonna add

vinyl we'll turn the dust all the way

down and then let's try 1930.

1950.

I think all the way

we'll turn the dust down too

yeah it sounds kind of hard sounds more

like he's taken from an actual vinyl

bring the BPM up a little bit and a lot

of these beats were simple it would be

something like this and maybe a couple

other layers taken from different

samples before I think about adding

anything else melodic in there I want to

get some drums in and for the drums I

want some gritty boom bap stuff so let's

see what we've got and for the drums a

lot of times producers in the 90s will

just take a drum break from another

sample and then pitch it up or chop out

the drums from it but for this one I've

got so many drums in my library already

so I'm gonna see what I can find

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I'm for boom bat beats you don't want

everything perfectly on the grid so even

with the snares I might just move some

just holding alt clicking and dragging

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okay let's layer that

I'm going to add some Reverb to those

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you're about there okay we're grabbing a

hat as well like this and for the hats I

want them to be real natural so I'm just

going to record them in

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okay from here I'm just gonna go in and

fine tune it a bit because I want them

to be off but some of them are a bit too

off so I'm just going to bring those

back

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so it sounds natural but not too well

let's just try some others

you might even have a better one in my

sauce boom bap kit

the Styles one or this West Coast one

I think this one right for the kick I

want a realistic one so let's start with

something like this boost it a bit and

then same with this I'm just going to

record something

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I might actually bring the kicks to the

same velocity and then just bring some

of them down like these ones

I'm gonna find a better kick though

maybe this we could pitch it down

just want to bring down some of the high

end of that kick

and maybe boost some punch

I'm just gonna bring that boost down I

don't need to clip it so much for these

type of Beats I might even move some of

these kicks as well

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let's add a basin as well and for the

base I think we could go to Sakura and

then if we go to base and then the one

is deep house

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I think something like this

or we pitch these up

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switch up the end here

movie this one down

yeah I'm feeling that and I want to

enhance this piece a bit so I'm going to

use our base and just so you're not

randomly setting the frequency what I

like to do is set it to the root note so

let me show you what I mean if you pull

up the parametric EQ if I right click on

one of these and go to key I know that

my root note is D sharp and it's going

to tell me the frequency here this one

might be too low but if we set it to

this so 77.8 we could just do 78 it's

going to be more accurate

foreign so this is before and then after

this makes you a bit fire okay I'm also

just gonna add this tambourine on some

of the snares or I can just layer it

well I won't have this all the way

through

let's add some nice layer and honestly

for a lot of the old school mob deep

beats you wouldn't find much more drums

than that sometimes you might have an

open heart or some percussion but most

of the time it's just a simple beat to

keep your head knotted you might add one

or two more things but for now I

actually want to group these drums and

we'll just create a drum bus so I'm just

holding Ctrl clicking and dragging and

then I'll right click on an empty insert

route to this track only and this is

going to send all the drums there and

from here I want a bit more grit so I

want to run it through a tape machine

like I see 20. I'm just going to choose

the vinyl one preset I'll bring the

noise down I'm gonna bring that low back

in let's change the Distortion as well

try the crunch one

was hard

and after

it's osmo grip all right and I

definitely want something that can

separate the hook so I'm thinking it's

either something more melodic or some

kind of effect okay just found this

siren

Perfect all right one last thing I want

to add is some kind of drum fill but

just a short one so I'll see what I've

got

something like this let's just bring

that back

and we'll send that to the Drone boss

too and just normalize it and I only

want to take one part of that I think

just this section

yeah hi and then I can cut the drums

when that comes in I could keep adding

to it but I just wouldn't have that

authentic feeling so let's copy it out a

few times and the arrangement is going

to be really simple I'm just gonna have

a plane like this

so yeah just a 8-bat intro we'll bring

the bass in but I'll cut these middle

parts out

and then we'll bring something else in

maybe we could bring the hats into and

then the kick in just before the drop

and then one snare

this will be the hook and then when it

comes to this section we'll bring this

out and the siren and let's see how it

transitions

yeah maybe something like this

[Music]

and then in this section we'll just take

the siren out and the base

maybe we take the snare out here

and then we could just trim the hats

like this

and then yeah let's just take that and

copy it over okay one thing I'm going to

do is add a ride

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okay last thing I'm gonna add is just a

crash down

okay and last minute touches to the mix

I'm just boosting the piano a bit with a

compressor I just wanted to capture some

of the Peaks and then bring everything

up together

and yeah let's have a listen from the

beginning and I know this beats really

simple but that's what the authentic

sound is if you don't believe me check

out Shook Ones Part 2 check out survival

of the fittest pretty much any 90s mob

deep beat things started getting a

little bit more advanced in the early

2000s but this one's for the 90s so

let's have a listen from the beginning

and before we do that let's just add

that noise in

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all right so here's what we've got

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yeah to make sure it works

simple intro too just the hots in the

face

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I touch

go home with my skin is thick yeah if

you're feeling this one you want more

Boombox tutorials

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I'm trapped