Accapellas over beats.....help required

[wrxfiend]

right, i'll try and explain this as best as possible.......i've been making beats myself for awhile now, and they are sh%t boring without lyrics, I cannot!!! rap for sh%t. Therefore i want to lay some hip hop acapellas over my beats, problem is, i can mix tracks on my tt's without much drama, but as acapellas have no beat, i'm finding it hard to sync them up. My beats are made on NI mascine, and all my acapellas are mp3's mainly in serato interface. is there a "cheat program" that will sync these for me, i can load my tracks into serato no probs?

has anyone been able to use something like bpm analizer with acapellas?

hope this makes sense.

cheers

[eggssell]

hey. find out the BPM by listening to the OG track.

as a lot of lyrics start at the start of a phrase (being the first verse), you should be able to line the 1st beat up, and then just pitch it till it sounds right.

not that i have did it heaps, but i have done it with my parents just dont understand acapella from the 12 inch.

you usually cant just let the song run. just line up a verse. then stop and go to the next verse. or just loop the chorus.

wait for overit im sure he'll have plenty of tips. and maybe wazza

[eggssell]

ohhhh you talking production.... hehe

yeh id say find out the OG BPM. adjust acapella accordingly. lay over an tweak.

in terms of help, jonny uses a few hip hop verses.

[wrxfiend]

thanks, after posting i thought to myself, well i do have most of these songs in og form, should just bpm them!

ha cheers for the quick response, if only i wasnt stuck at whaling work!

i managed to drop a marley tune "could you be loved" over a ghostface beat, worked ok, but i have found that because hip hop is usually sequence based, the "normal" track goes out of sync alot, because of the naturalness (lol) of the recording, as in no drummer is a metronome!

i'll keep trying!

What inspired me was a DJ Woody 90's mix tape, but the more i listen to it, the more i think its all done in logic or something.....try to learn this shit og krs1 styles!

[yizzle]

could you use MIK to find the bpm of the acapellas?

then you would have an idea of what range your working with?

[wrxfiend]

ohhhh you talking production.... hehe

yeh id say find out the OG BPM. adjust acapella accordingly. lay over an tweak.

in terms of help, jonny uses a few hip hop verses.

production yes, but moreso just trying to expand my tt skills! i can seemlessly mix instrumentals allday, but would like to throw the odd well known verse over the top.

off topic now, but how many hip hop users rep here on adjf. I'm thinking we are quite the minority? are there any hip hop forums you could recommend? dont worry i wont leave all these whales behind, too many lols to be had!

[wrxfiend]

could you use MIK to find the bpm of the acapellas?

then you would have an idea of what range your working with?

mixed in key?

havnt tried, is it expensive?

[eggssell]

i managed to drop a marley tune "could you be loved" over a ghostface beat, worked ok, but i have found that because hip hop is usually sequence based, the "normal" track goes out of sync alot, because of the naturalness (lol) of the recording, as in no drummer is a metronome!

thats why you cant just let it run. you will always have to tweak the pitch the right way thru.

even hip hop tracks sequenced, they have either been smashed out on pads OR have had swing introduced via the mpc function

thats why hip hop dj's need to keep messing with the pitch not just to beat match for transition. not to mention the turntable wow & flutter which im sure you have had to deal with

[yizzle]

yeah, sorry Mixed In Key.

personally, i think its a steal at $55.60 AUD.

but.. im not sure if it will solve your problem though. i was more on the suggestive side thinking maybe you already had it

[eggssell]

comment

stuff that lets bring hip hop here!!!! hehe

i am a hip hop fan but mos def not a hip hop dj. have tried for three years and fail miserably. hence why im waiting for overit to start his classes.

i think cupertino can dj hip hop? and overit does. there are a few fly by night guys but no other regs.

anyways the only other hip hop forum i hit up is ozhiphop, but not a lot on there for djs.

back to topic

[yizzle]

comment

im pretty sure Duz can mix hip hop pretty well.

back on topic

[Mitch]

As far as finding the bpm of the acapella. either scan the normal song in serato and it will give you the BPM.

Acapellas that are released aren't always the same speed. You could listen to the acapella and tap out the speed, I have an app on my iphone that you tap on the screen and it gives you the speed. also the same on pioneer mixers.

if you wanted to make a production you could use a program like fruity loops, ableton, logic, etc to sync them together.

If you wanted to use the decks but your having trouble beatmatching them you could cheat and use a calculator to help find the % adjustment needed. How good are you with math?

[wrxfiend]

As far as finding the bpm of the acapella. either scan the normal song in serato and it will give you the BPM.

Acapellas that are released aren't always the same speed. You could listen to the acapella and tap out the speed, I have an app on my iphone that you tap on the screen and it gives you the speed. also the same on pioneer mixers.

if you wanted to make a production you could use a program like fruity loops, ableton, logic, etc to sync them together.

If you wanted to use the decks but your having trouble beatmatching them you could cheat and use a calculator to help find the % adjustment needed. How good are you with math?

serato allows me to tap out the bpm, but I find in hip hop the vocals can be so offbeat, its hard to know when to drop, thanks everyone for the input, i shall giv this more practice and post up my results

[Mitch]

yer you've chosen one of the hardest genres to learn with as hip hop vocals vary so much compared to alot of other electronic genres where the vocals are all warped for you already to sit nicely

[overit]

it's all about feel mate.

Knowing the tempo of the original tune will help but a rap is all about flow and your productions or mixes should be all about the flow you create.

Practise using your decks to mix vocals over instrumentals so you can manipulate with your hands. When you get an idea as to which accapella and which tracks work well together you can transfer these to your prod.

Feel it buddy. the old skool way.

[wrxfiend]

Feel it buddy. the old skool way.

thats what i'm all about! I know there are easier ways of doing things these days, but to me a dj has to feel it or there's just no point.

And yes i have chosen the hardest genre, but it chose me!

[GREMM1S]

Get the original song the acapella came from, load it and acapella into a program like virtual dj/serato.

Used a program that has pitch and bpm readings.

You will be able to determine the tempo and where in the track (bars) the vocal starts.

As others have mentioned you can also get the key from the original as well, that way you can ensure they are harmonically suiting.

[overit]

sorry was in a rush earlier, pretty vague.

I'll try and explain a bit more:

with real hiphop and real raps knowing the digital BPM won't really help. The rapper achieves the flow by being lazy or quick and using analog timings to add energy and interest to his song. If you load an accapella into most software it will do it's best to quantize this and will thus remove all the feel.

If instead you get into manipulating vinyl with drags and nudges to add your energy to the accappella, thus helping it fit over a different instrumental, you will get closer to the real feel. You may find you have to hold the whole vocal after one verse because the song structure of the instrumental won't match due to a break or whatever, you may find things fit really well.

I know of producers who record their accapellas direct into software from vinyl decks so they can manipulate it by hand, thus avoiding the software doing any quantizing/warping and maintaining the original rappers flow as much as possible. in other words they do a live mix but instead of using two decks they have the instrumental in the software and record the acceppalla from the vinyl live to a new track in the software by actually mixing it in real time.

Hope that explains it a bit more, would be much easier to demonstrate irl.

[GREMM1S]

You have misunderstood some aspects.

You don't load the acapella into programs to be analysed that will never work properly.

Unless it's a DIY acapella job that still has remnants of the beat left in it, software can't determine bpm without a beat.

You have to get the bpm from the full original track where the acapella comes from.

Even then you will have to align the acapella next to the original track in some form of software to ensure the acapella is the original tempo or to figure out what tempo it is.

I then use ableton with the acapella and orginal song all linedup and add custom warp markers so that the warping is done correctly, i would never just let abelton do it on auto as you mentioned overit, it won't be that good.

However i dont buy the argument for one second this should be done on decks cdj or vinyl as opposed to in a good software suite, rap is the same as any other genre of music, rappers work to a tempo and bar structure, if you ignore this and attempt to do mashups willy nilly you will never achieve the same outcome as on software.

[overit]

I havent misunderstood anything.

Your point of view is different is all.

I would not approach anything willy nilly. I would approach the recording of a live take like a rehearsed musician who knows exactly what "feel" he is attempting to achieve after hours of practise and consideration.

I may record it in several takes and edit these in the software.

But I would not use ableton warp at all.

I guess it is up to wrxfiend to try both techniques and see which suits his projects best.

[eggssell]

hey grem. Fully understand your comment but dont agree with the very last part.

Just grab a ztrip mix or a dj am mix and you will see you can definitely achieve on decks what you can in software.

and then some.

and these guys just made it famous. Djs have been live remixing since forever and the acapella blend was just one technique

[eggssell]

but yeh wrx check out jonnys or knocked up noise soundcloud. if thats what you thunking.

And hopefulky jonny gets in here.

Pretty sure he is a logic guy

[eggssell]

I know its no longer OP but still kinda related

oh yeh this vid from the scratch doco (this is only one bit it goes thru about six techniques)

Its only too bad there isnt a lot of explaining. But its cool

and as i said in very first post (when i thought you were talking djing not production) you have to ride that pitch

[eggssell]

but yeh wrx check out jonnys or knocked up noise soundcloud. if thats what you thunking.

And hopefulky jonny gets in here.

Pretty sure he is a logic guy

anyways take five. Back to what you saying. You create beats and want some vocal. yeah as above check jonnys (swissdub). The KUN track i was thinking of i think was "hope" but its gone now. wicked track.

also i know tomy does nice bootlegs. his 2 live crew one i trainwrecked in one of my mixes. So he may also be able to help

[wazza]

use ableton-serato bridge....

it will give you everthing you need to do this right..with the hardware you got now....just need ableton software.

like...you can use your NI Mascine as a vsti inside one ableton deck...and controll speed/tempo off ableton sequencer from your tt on both decks

you can play acapellas on both decks & be able to flip-flop /switch the mascine beat that play in ableton over both acapellas that are playing in the serato decks

use beat-grid, ableton or serato to mark where the 4 beats would be in the acapellas...us ableton to warp the acapellas so it keeps the same tempo/timming, same flow