Members A_Str8 Posted May 4, 2007 Members Share Posted May 4, 2007 I have two new songs - "Hamlet" and "Not That Pretty" - posted on my site. www.ahdchild.com. I don't think I've ever seen anything hip-hop related in this particular forum, but i would appreciate your feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesway Posted May 4, 2007 Members Share Posted May 4, 2007 you say - this ain't hip hop. okay....the beat is for dance. that repetitive bass kick on all the downbeats is really dance hall, but i'm not really feelin it too much for that either. also, the girl is not in tune with the synth bass track....there's issues in that vocal track........i dug the congas in the back. nice, organic sounding stuff on that...was that tracked? bro, this isn't really too strong for me....the girl's performance needs to be revisited and tracked slower, i think. it reaks to me of one or two-take vocal sessions. as far as "non-performance" issues, i dislike the sounds you used, but i'm not too into that stuff too much anyway, so take it with a grain of salt. ...really...don't spend too much time on that one. not pretty - this is hip hop. and i {censored}ing LOVE hip hop. there's the backbeat....but after a few bars, that triplet in the kick on the 1 gets soooo redundant. i shut it off after the second repetition of the chorus....for me, it's just too much. a triplet is a great thing to pepper in there every few bars or solely on breaks...every measure is overkill, man. as far as your rapping in the verses, you have a cool old school thang going in your rhyming and how you express....it's tight...really; maybe some rhyme variation would do you good, but you're pretty settled in your style and that's nothing but a good thing....as far as the chorus, your hook in "not that pretty" got too repetitive without being strong enough to be very novel to me in the first place.... that said, my main gripe would be in your presentation. i don't personally like your production and your beats very much. (this is with respect...seriously...i get nothing out of being critical about someone's hard work.) when i think about good rap production, i'm not too, too deep...let's see: my favorite's the the ROOTS (ur philly brethren), but i dig naz a little and a bit of kanye...for old school {censored}, it's tupac, fugees, digable planets..a few others.. it's obvious you're trying to reach out of the norm, but there's something missing for me in the productions.....on not pretty,one of the things i'm not too down with is how "major" the sound of this tune is...especially with that chime sound arpeggiating in the back...it's very happy and light, while at the same time, you're rapping out homelessness and suffering....just doesn't work for me...it undermines the depth of what you're trying to do. listen, i kinda feel bad about not being 'soft-handed' with you, but you wanted feedback. i think you have something to offer, but it hasn't come to fruition yet. i'd keep focus on 2 things: production and hooks...you can obviously rap and you have a good unique vibe in your rapping, but the production and the hooks are not there to support it; not in the song you rapped in, anyway. EDIT: about my production comments, i just surfed around your site a bit more and found some stuff i dig more production-wise than the stuff you put up in here...i dug the prod on "lover", but that girl's WAAAAYYY out of pitch again...(i don't want to be an ass, but i don't think she can sing, dude....straight up....she's singing pentatonic stuff in a completely different key...it's like she's recording without the monitors or something) ....moving on, i loved the drum n bass vibe on phosphorus pebbles and that upright-ish bass on relax sets up the groove nicely... a real upright would be awesome on that....and i like how that grows into a somewhat latin drum n bass thang based on the clave. it's hip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RadiationNation Posted May 4, 2007 Members Share Posted May 4, 2007 I liked them. I'd work on getting your beats and vocals to mesh a little better, especially on "Not that Pretty" which never seemed to find a groove. In general, I'd work on the sound of your drums/bass. "You Say" had a pretty good beat and bassline, but it needs to sound bigger, if you know what I'm saying...maybe not...think Black Star. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A_Str8 Posted May 5, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 5, 2007 Wow bluesway. Next time I'm looking for a critique I'll skip the forum and just pm you You Say Yeah, when I said hip-hop, I was referring to the other 2. This one is definitley not hip-hop. Yes, everything including the congas was sequenced. As far as the singer, she sounded good to me, but I definitely can't recognize perfect pitch. At the time we did that song and "Lover", she was recovering from throat surgery. She told me she was much better but still not at 100%, so perhaps the vocal problems had something to do with that. As far as the track overall, I'll take your crit with a grain of salt since you're not into this type of music. It got a really good reception te 2 times I got her to perform it live. RadiationNation - if you mean it needs to sound bigger in the way I think you do, that's something I was purposely trying to avoid on this song. I was going after a particular style of house where the music is simpler and all the movement is low down in the bass. Not That Pretty I just went back and listened to it and I hear what you're saying about the drum. Recently I've been taking more time to make my drums interesting, but the music for this song is actually kind of old. I'll keep comments like yours in mind next time I start to feel lazy while working on drums. As far as the "major" sound, that's something that I did on purpose. When I came up with the idea for the song, I went through my beats and picked this one because it's the most flowery I've made. It was supposed to help with the juxtaposition of the pretty and not-that-pretty. I wanted the experience you get from it when you hear it without paying attention to be the opposite of what you get when you pay attention to the words. Still, maybe if I was doing this song now, I would make it a little darker after the first verse. No comments on Hamlet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted May 5, 2007 Members Share Posted May 5, 2007 Not Pretty - +1 on Bluesway's comments. The major feel and your style of rapping remind me of Digable Planets, but when Digable Planets did not have a great beat underneath them (second album) the smiley feel and loose raps were not enough to compensate - as is the case here. Hamlet - I actually dig all the sounds on this, but the beat is just not getting my ass moving. I liked the instrumental bridge, but you need to vary the beat more during the whole rap/verse. Something about that lazy snare on the two is not sitting right with my funky bone - it might be the contrast with the bass, which doesn't seem to have any shuffle at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RadiationNation Posted May 5, 2007 Members Share Posted May 5, 2007 RadiationNation - if you mean it needs to sound bigger in the way I think you do, that's something I was purposely trying to avoid on this song. I was going after a particular style of house where the music is simpler and all the movement is low down in the bass. I was talking more just the sound. The sparse arrangement is nice, but I think--and maybe it's just a personal preference--the drums should sound fuller. As it is, they sound kind of small and trebley. I liked Hamlet, though I can't really say much other than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesway Posted May 5, 2007 Members Share Posted May 5, 2007 hehehe..it's funny; i was gonna use the word "juxtaposition" in my first message, but didn't for some reason. i saw what it was you were trying to do right away...and i think it's cool, but it got hung up for me on something....maybe if it were MORE flowery, it'd work better...i don't know. anyway, keep posting here, bro. like you said, there isn't much rap over here; part of the reason my first post was so big was because it was a refreshing change. peace, g ps- now i feel like {censored}; knowing that girl had throat surgery. damn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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