BY MICHAEL RAINE

In the hip-hop world, the terms "beat maker"and "producer" are often - and wrongly — usedinterchangeably. Though a producer of a trackor album Is often (but not always) also the beatmaker, a beat maker is often not the producer.Put simply, the beat maker, as the namesuggests, is simply the person who composesthe beat or music and passes it to the MC todo as they please. The producer, on the otherhand, is involved with the track or album fromstar t to finish. They exchange ideas with theartists, often compose the beat, mix andmaster the track, and are generally the onessteering the process from beginning to end.

With that in mind, CM discussed bothhip-hop production and beat making with MC/producers Classified and Rich Kidd, and theproduction duo of dean Dirt (a.k.a. ChariesAustin and Graham Campbell), who straddle theworids of hip-hop, folk, and indie rock throughtheir work with Buck 65, David Myles, MattMays, and more. Here's what they had to say.

CM: What is your studio set-up like and whatare the main componente?

Classified: I got my [Akai] MPC 2500 thatpretty much seû[uences everything. I stiilsequence off the MPC and i got a Korg Tritonand Yamaha Motif for keyboards. I've got abunch of plug-ins for Pro Tools, like synths andsound effects and stuff like that. Got a coupleTechnics turntabies: i got my Neumann Ô7 mic,which is the only thing I went out and spent alot of money on. I got some drums, a live piano,and bass in the studio. That's basically it.

I'm a firm believer that there is alwayssomething better that you can get, butsometimes, too many options is a very hard thing.

Rich Kidd: Aii i need is my laptop, my oid harddrive because I have a couple hard drives ofsounds, and some stuff like that. I usually Jamout: if I can get some live instrumentation thenall I need is a room where i can mic stuff andthen I take that and sample that and chop i t upin my own way. I'm mainly software and I mightuse a MPD pad. It's kind of like a MPC but a MID!controller that I connect with FL [Studio] tobang out some stuff.

Graham Campbell {Clean Pirt): Computers arejust so ridiculously powerful now that it's alljust based, for me, around a Mac Fro, Logic anda few other third party plug-ins.

Charles Austin (Clean Pirt): We were usingthe old [E-mu] 5P 1200 last year for a couplethings and there's a sound on there - I don'tknow if Graham wouid agree — but it's prettyhard to duplicate it in a computer

CM: Has that sat-up changed much over time?

Classified: it's basically been the same for awhiie. i change little things here and there but it'sbasically been MPC, turntables, and take my drumsamples and loop the samples through that. Then,just a lot more live instrumentation, it used tojust be the drum machine and samples and medoing a little bit of keys but now it's small string

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orchestras, horn players, just anything. Thekids choir we had sing on "Inner Ninja," wehave that access r\ow that I can reach out topeople and say, "Man, we need a kids choir forthis. Can you hook us up?" and it gets done;it's great.

Rich Kidd: It's pretty much been the samething. I got a laptop now, I just bought alaptop last year, but a ?C laptop. I kind ofhate PCs now; getting into the Mac world,you get sucked in. Until FL [Studio] makes aMac version, ! got to mess with this PC. Wekeep the PC clean, no Internet.

Campbell: With Buck 65, I've been workingwith him since the late-'9Cis and back thenit was very basic, kind of stripped downset-up, which would be basically türntab!es,a DJ mixer, SP 1200 - which is a classicsampling drum machine used on all kinds ofclassic hip-hop records in the '90s - andwe would've been recording back then on acassette four-track. I guess the big shiftcame In early-2000 to 2003 and by thatpoint I was using other samplers connectedto a computer- a fairly primitive FC just forsequencing but not actually doing any audiorecording on a computer.

I switched from sequencing with Cubaseto working with Logic around 2003 and stillat that point using it to trigger sounds onsamplers and using it as a MID! sequencer.Pretty soon, you started just doingeverything in the software.

CM: Do you use samples and, if so, how do youchoose them and doee i t create any issueswith regards t̂ o getting them cleared?

Campbell: This has happened in the past,where somebody has produced a record thatuses a bunch of samp!es that you wouldn'tbe able to actuaüy release without spendinga lot of money on samp!e clearance. Soat that point, what we'!! do is actuaüy sitdown and listen to figure out, basicaüy, howto come up with something original that lemusicaily different but sonlcally, in terms ofthe vibe, does the same thing.

Austin: We're kind of sampüng ourse!ves,if that makes any sense; we're kind ofproducing content as if we found it on an oldrecord but it's actuaüy us mak!ng !t.

Rich Kidd: Just whatever !'m digging orwhatever song is hot. For whatever reason,what makes you feel !ike, "Oh shit, ! cou!dreaüy hook this shit up."

!t a!l depends on the contractualagreement you [and the art ist] got. it'sreaüy for when you guys both produce atrack and put it out. !He rhymes on it, you

produce the track, you use a sample froma known artist, and the agreement thereis when you guys start getting money offof it, they're going to come for both of you.basically, all the parties that are makingmoney off of it, if you have a contract as aproducer or beat maker, saying we can dothis agreement as !ong as you put a pointin there saying [the artist] wouid have tobe respons!b!e for the samp!es. They'd haveto clear them. Whatever lega! terms thelawyers can write for you. You just say thatand basically it's their responsibility.

If you're working with !abels, if they knowthere is a sample, they're going to try toc!ear it. A!! you have to do is do a sample

sheet. "They ask you what sample, the nameof the artist, the writers on the song, howiong of a duration did you sample, and thenthey make you sign a !itt!e thing at the endsaying if there is any samples that you didn'tte!! us about, you're qo'\nq to have to pay forit and a!! the !egai ramifications go to you.

CM: What do you look for in any MC you workwith?

Classified: I look at !t two different waysbecause ! am a rapper, too. !'m lookingat i t as a competitive !vlC. Like, "Did hejust fucking murder this shit? Did he saysome shit that blew my mind?' Or, is theresomething iyricaily he's saying that hasme going, "! wish ! wrote that song." That'susuaüy how ! know ! reaüy !ike something, it's!ike, "Man, ! wish ! came up with that idea."

Campbell: I guess from an engineer's orproducer's perspective, somebody who has

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got their lyrics written and rehearsed tosome extent and is abie to execute themconsistently rather than winding up with asituation where you're having to piece thingstogether.

Austin: I think one thing, personally,that I really appreciate that you don'tnecessarily get to hear a lot is not onlyrhythmic consistently, but also some kind oforiginaiity. Obviously the guys who are trueto themselves, iike Rich [Terfry, a.k.a. Buck65] is from Mount Uniacke [Nova Scotia]so he's not really talking about driving alowrider and selling drugs on the corner. Hestays true to who he is.

We worked on this Scratch Bastidrecord and Cadence Weapon came in andworked on a track and I was impressed withhim because he was original. He had a great

Classified: I've always been like, "I've got my30 beats. Let me just send them down tothis girl in New York who shops beats." Andyou know, different connections over theyears, like, "Send me your beats. I'll get themplaced^ Nothing has ever really come out ofthat and a t the same time, I think that'spartly my mistake as well.

That's something that me and mymanager always talk about, but when I goin on something, I really spend a lot of timeand I can't go spend two months to werk onsomething that might get used. If I work onsomething, I want it out and want people tohear it.

Rich Kidd: Yeah, I have to. At the end of theday I'm still aspiring to be a producer whereI have a good resume of artists that i workwith and have an extensive resume that

Classified: Other songs usually. I rememberwhen Dr. Dre's 2001 came out. I guess I wasstill working a job, and I remember drivinghome from that and hearing "What's theDifference" and I just get inspired andexcited. I'm not like, "I want to go make thatalbum," but when you hear something thatreally excites you, it makes you exoitedtc get home so you can turn on the drummachine.

Just hearing other music and gettinga spark of some idea, it's just like, "01^, let'stake this spark and try to turn it into aforest fire."

Austin: We both are pretty inspired bypeople like Massive Attack and Aphex Twin,so in terms of going back to what I saidabout trying to be original, I'm like, 'Well,what if Aphex Twin had an acoustic guitar?

f\ow and everything but he was also doing hisown thing. I've had younger guys in here whoare incredibly talented in terms of their flowand everything, but they're talking aboutstuff that is not a reality to them and it'skind of tiresome.

Rich Kidd: I appreciate the passion projects;the ones where I feel the art ist is really in-tune with creating a masterpiece or stufflike that. The hit albums or the ones thatsell the most, I'd definitely love tc be onthose, but when I can work with an artistwhose goal is to make a classic album andsomething that is true to them but may beunderrated, I'd rather take the underratedapproach and be respected as a legend thanjust get on temporarily and have peopleforget the next day.

CM: Do you shop beats around?

shows that I've put in the work. So, I alwaysgot to stay shopping beats to these labelsor these publishers. It's a game that's verysaturated; everybody makes beats and a letof guys have their in-house guys.

Campbell: I guess I kind of stopped makingbeats around the time that shopping ycurbeats around became a thing.

Austin: It's a shame!

Campbell: I'm a mix engineer and kind ofbecame obsessed with that aspect of it; itworks a lot better if I got somebody feedingme stuff and I can turn it into somethinggood. We've done more remixing thanactually generating stuff from scratch tosell to people.

CM: Who or what inspiresyour work andmusic?

What would that be like?" So I'll makesomething that is probably not that greatand then I'll give it to Graham and he'll turnit into something pretty cool.

Rich Kidd: In the hip-hop producercommunity it's all my peers. I'm talkingCanada-wide: Boi-Ida, obviously; T-Minus,he's a good guy; Saukrates; DJ Scam. Awhole bunch of producers who did big hitsback in the day to the guys who are doingthe hits now, everybody kind of inspires me.

A lot of people just hear the words buta producer, when they first hear a track, theyhear the beat and they take in the beat morethan the words. It's just a thing. So i respeotall these producers paving the way and makingit easier to get some money [laughs]. •

Mictioei Raine is the Assistant Editor of CsmámUuskian.

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