Hip hop production is the creation of
hip hop music. While the term
encompasses all aspects of hip hop
music, it is most commonly used to refer
to the instrumental, non-lyrical aspects
of hip hop. This means that hip hop
producers are the instrumentalists
involved in a work. Modern hip hop
production uses samplers, sequencers,
drum machines, synthesizers, turntables,
and live instrumentation. A hip hop
instrumental is casually referred to as
a beat, and its composer is casually
referred to as a producer or beatmaker.
In the studio, however, a hip hop
producer also functions as a traditional
record producer, being the person who is
ultimately responsible for the final
sound of a recording.
History 
= 1980s =
Kurtis Blow was the first hip hop artist
to use a digital sampler, the Fairlight,
in a song. The Roland TR-808 was
introduced in 1980. The 808 was heavily
used by Afrika Bambaataa, who released
Planet Rock in 1982, which gave rise to
the fledgling Electro genre. An
especially notable artist is the genre's
own pioneer Juan Atkins who released
what is generally accepted as the first
American techno record, "Clear" in 1984.
These early electro records laid down
the foundations that later Detroit
techno artists such as Derrick May built
upon. In 1983, Run-DMC recorded "It's
Like That" and "Sucker MC's," two songs
which relied completely on synthetic
sounds, in this case via an Oberheim DMX
drum machine, ignoring samples entirely;
much like early songs by Bambaataa and
the Furious Five. The E-mu SP-12 came
out in 1985, capable of 2.5 seconds of
recording time. The E-mu SP-1200
promptly followed with an expanded
recording time of 10 seconds, divided on
4 banks. One of the earliest songs to
contain a drum loop or break was "Rhymin
and Stealin" by the Beastie Boys,
produced by Rick Rubin. Marley Marl also
popularized a minimal style of using one
or two sampled loops in the late 1980s.
Dr. Dre with World Class Wreckin' Cru
recorded 'Juice' and 'Before You Turn
The Lights Out'. The Akai MPC60 came out
in 1988, capable of 12 seconds of
sampling time. The Beastie Boys released
Paul's Boutique in 1989, an entire album
created completely from an eclectic mix
of samples, produced by the Dust
Brothers using an Emax sampler. De La
Soul also released 3 Feet High and
Rising that year. Their producer at the
time, Prince Paul, mixed sounds from
funk, rock, disco and even children's
records.
= 1990s-present =
Public Enemy's Bomb Squad revolutionized
the sound of hip-hop with incredibly
dense production styles, combining tens
of samples per song, often combining
breaks with a drum machine. Their beats
were much more structured than the early
more minimal and repetitive beats. The
MPC3000 was released in 1994, the AKAI
MPC2000 in 1997, followed by the
MPC2000XL in 1999  and the MPC2500 in
2006. These machines combined a sampling
drum machine with an onboard MIDI
sequencer and became the centerpiece of
many hip hop producers' studios. The Wu
Tang Clan's superproducer RZA is often
credited for snatching the eye of hip
hop from Dr. Dre's more polished sound
in 1993, with his more gritty sound with
low rumbling bass, sharp snares and
unique sampling style based on Ensoniq
sampler . With the 1994 release of The
Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die, Sean
Combs and his assisting producers
ushered in a new style where entire
sections of records were sampled,
instead of short snippets. Records like
"Warning", and "One More Chance"
epitomized this aesthetic. In the early
2000s, Roc-a-Fella in-house producer
Kanye West made popular the "chipmunk"
technique, which had been first used by
1980s electro hip-hop group Newcleus
with such songs as "Jam on It". This
technique involves speeding up a vocal
sample, and its corresponding
instrumental loop, to the point where
the vocal sounds high-pitched. The
result is a vocal sample that sounds
similar to the singing of the popular
cartoon singing animals "Alvin and the
Chipmunks". West adopted this style from
J Dilla and the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, who
in turn was influenced by Prince Paul,
the pioneer of the style of speeding up
and looping vocal samples to achieve the
"chipmunk" sound.
Basic elements 
= Drum beat =
The drum beat is a core element of hip
hop production. While some beats are
sampled, others are created by drum
machines such as the analog Roland TR
808. Digital drum machines such as the
E-mu SP 12, E-mu SP 1200, Akai MPC 60,
Akai MPC 2000 and Alesis HR-16, have
also been used. Others yet are a hybrid
of the two techniques, sampled parts of
drum beats that are arranged in original
patterns altogether. Another mainstay in
hip-hop is the use of the Ensoniq ASR-10
sampler to provide beats, particularly
by The Neptunes and the MPC 2000.
Some producers have drum kits all their
own, such as Dr. Dre, Timbaland, DJ Paul
& Juicy J, Swizz Beatz, Kanye West and
The Neptunes. Some drum sounds, such as
the TR-808 cowbell, remain as historical
elements of hip hop lore used in modern
hip hop to lend a more credible and
mature sound to the recording.
= Sampling =
Sampling is using a segment of another's
musical recording as part of one's own
recording. It has been integral to hip
hop production since its inception. In
hip-hop, the term describes a technique
of splicing out or copying sections of
other songs and rearranging or reworking
these sections into cohesive musical
patterns, or "loops." This technique was
first fully explored in 1982 by Afrika
Bambaata, on the Soulsonic Force tape
Planet Rock, which sampled parts of
dance act Kraftwerk and experienced vast
public acclaim. This was followed up on
in 1986: then-Def Jam producer Rick
Rubin used Black Sabbath and Led
Zeppelin loops in creating the Beastie
Boys' debut Licensed to Ill, and the
following year rap duo Eric B. & Rakim
popularized James Brown samples with
their album Paid in Full.
The technique took a bi-coastal turn
when discovered by a young Dr. Dre,
whose first gig was the DJ of Afrika
Bambaata-esque electrofunk group, the
World Class Wreckin' Cru. In 1988, Dre
began his use of sampling in hip-hop
when he produced the N.W.A album
Straight Outta Compton, a landmark in
the genre of gangsta rap. In 1989,
Jazz-sampling pioneers Gang Starr
followed in 1991 by Pete Rock & CL
Smooth and A Tribe Called Quest both
appeared on the scene, popularizing
their brand, and sampling took on a full
role in hip-hop, spreading to prominence
in high-profile projects like the
Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang: 36
Chambers, Dr. Dre's The Chronic, Nas'
Illmatic and Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to
Die.
In the 2000s, sampling began to reach an
all-time high; Jay-Z's album The
Blueprint helped put producers Kanye
West and Just Blaze on the map for their
sampling of soul records. Kanye West
himself scored early hits with "Through
the Wire" and "Jesus Walks." His 2004
album, The College Dropout, included two
sampled hits featuring Twista which led
to the Chicago rapper's Kamikaze selling
platinum. On September 7, 2004, however,
a U.S. Court of Appeals in Nashville
changed the nature of musical copyright
infringement by ruling that a license is
needed in every case of sampling, where
previously a small portion of the song
could be copied without repercussion.
The law immediately began rarefying
samples in hip-hop; in a 2005 interview
with Scratch magazine, Dr. Dre announced
he was moving more toward
instrumentation, and in 2006 The
Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 debut album
Ready to Die was temporarily pulled from
shelves for a retroactive sample
clearance issue. As a result, more major
producers and artists have moved further
away from sampling and toward live
instrumentation, such as Wu-Tang's RZA
and Mos Def.
Studio parts 
A producer's studio is the environment
where they produce music. It can be as
varied as a four-track sequencer and a
collection of tapes or a
multimillion-dollar studio loaded with
advanced sound processing hardware.
= Synthesizers =
Synthesizers are used quite often in hip
hop production. They are used for
melody, basslines, as percussive stabs,
and for sound synthesis. The use of
synthesizers has been popularized
largely by Dr. Dre during the G-funk
era. Modern use of synthesizers is
rampant by producers such as Jim Jonsin,
Cool and Dre, Lil Jon, Scott Storch, and
Neptunes. Often in low-budget studio
environments or environments constrained
by space limitations, producers employ
virtual Instruments in place of hardware
synthesizers. Virtual Instruments are
also now becoming more common in
high-budget studio environments.
= Recording =
In hip hop, a multi-track recorder is
standard for recording. The portastudios
4 tracks cassette recorders was the law
in the in-house recording studios in the
1980s. Digital ADAT tape recorders
became standard during the 1990s, but
have been largely replaced by Digital
Audio Workstations or DAWs such as
Apple's Logic, Avid's Pro Tools and
Steinberg's Nuendo and Cubase. DAW's
allow for more intricate editing and
unlimited track counts, as well as
built-in effects. This allows producers
to create music without the expense of a
large commercial studio.
Vocal recording 
Generally, professional producers opt
for a condenser microphone for studio
recording, mostly due to their
wide-range response and high quality. A
primary alternative to the expensive
condenser microphone is the dynamic
microphone, used more often in live
performances due to its durability. The
major disadvantages of condenser
microphones are their expense and
fragility. Also, most condenser
microphones require phantom power,
unlike dynamic microphones. Conversely,
the disadvantages of dynamic microphones
are they do not generally possess the
wide spectrum of condenser microphones
and their frequency response is not as
uniform. Many hip-hop producers
typically used the Neumann U-87 for
recording vocals which imparts a glassy
"sheen" especially on female vocals. But
today, many producers in this musical
genre use the Sony C-800 tube
microphone, vintage microphones, and
high-end ribbon microphones tuned for
flattering, "big" vocal expression. It
should also be noted that many classic
hip-hop songs were recorded with the
most basic of equipment. In many cases
this contributes to its raw sound
quality, and charm.
= Digital audio workstations =
DAWs and software sequencers are used in
modern hip hop production as software
production products are cheaper, easier
to expand, and require less room to run
than their hardware counterparts. The
success of these DAWs generated a flood
of new semi-professional
hip-hop-producers, who license their
beats or instrumentals preferably on
digital marketplaces to rap artists from
all around the world and caused the
creation of a new niche market. Some
producers oppose complete reliance on
DAWs and software, citing lower overall
quality, lack of effort, and lack of
identity in computer-generated beats.
Sequencing software often comes under
criticism from purist listeners and
traditional producers as producing
sounds that are flat, overly clean, and
overly compressed.
Popular DAWs include:
Ableton Live
Adobe Audition
Apple's Logic Pro
Avid Technology's Pro Tools
Cakewalk SONAR
Steinberg Cubase
Image-Line's FL Studio
Propellerhead Software Reason
Sony ACID Pro
Apple's GarageBand
Motu Inc. Digital Performer
Cockos REAPER
Ardour
= Live instrumentation =
Live instrumentation is not as
widespread in hip hop, but is used by a
number of acts and is prominent in hip
hop-based fusion genres such as rapcore.
Before samplers and synthesizers became
prominent parts of hip hop production,
early hip hop hits such as "Rapper's
Delight" and "The Breaks" were recorded
with live studio bands. During the
1980s, Stetsasonic was a pioneering
example of a live hip hop band. Hip hop
with live instrumentation regained
prominence during the late-1990s and
early 2000s with the work of The Goats,
The Coup, The Roots, Mello-D and the
Rados, Common, DJ Quik, UGK and OutKast,
among others. In recent years, The
Robert Glasper Experiment has explored
live instrumentation with an emphasis on
the instrumental and improvisational
aspect of hip hop with rappers such as
Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Q-Tip, and Common
as well as neo-soul singer Bilal Oliver.
Instrumental hip hop 
Instrumental hip hop is hip hop music
without vocals. Hip hop as a general
rule consists of two elements: an
instrumental track and a vocal track.
The artist who crafts the beat is the
producer, and the one who crafts the rap
is the MC. In this format, the rap is
almost always the primary focus of the
song, providing most of the complexity
and variation over a more or less
repetitive beat.
Instrumental hip hop is therefore hip
hop music without emcee accompaniment.
This format affords the producer the
flexibility to create more complex,
richly detailed and varied
instrumentals, with less emphasis on
vocals. Songs of this genre may wander
off in different musical directions
without the vocal constraints of the MC.
Although producers have made and
released hip hop beats without MCs since
hip hop's inception, those records
rarely became well-known. Jazz keyboard
legend Herbie Hancock and
bassist/producer Bill Laswell's
electro-inspired collaborations are
notable exceptions. 1983's Future Shock
album and hit single "Rockit" featured
turntablist Grand Mixer D.ST, the first
instance of turntables in jazz fusion,
and gave the instrument widespread
exposure.
The release of DJ Shadow's debut album
Endtroducing..... in 1996 saw the
beginnings of a movement in instrumental
hip hop. Relying mainly on a combination
of sampled funk, hip hop and film score,
DJ Shadow's innovative sample
arrangements influenced countless
producers and musicians. In recent
years, artists such as RJD2, J Dilla,
Pete Rock, MF Doom, Danny!, Nujabes,
Madlib, Wax Tailor, DJ Babu, DJ Krush,
Hermitude Swindali [1] and Blockhead
have garnered critical acclaim with a
number of instrumental hip hop albums.
Instrumental hip hop has yet to be fully
recognized as a genre unto itself, and
is often classified as trip hop,
breakbeat hardcore, drum and bass,
oldschool jungle, grime, trap, or
industrial music. This may be a result
of its varied and experimental nature; a
single track can incorporate samples
from many different genres of music.
Due to the current state of copyright
law, most instrumental hip-hop releases
are published on small, independent
labels. Producers often have difficulty
obtaining clearance for the many samples
found throughout their work, and even
relatively unknown labels such as Stones
Throw are fraught with legal problems.
See also 
List of hip hop DJs and producers
Turntablism
Notes 
References 
Ross, Alex. Listen to This. Fourth
Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-731906-0. 
Lovalerie King, Linda F. Selzer, ed..
New Essays on the African American
Novel: From Hurston and Ellison to
Morrison and Whitehead. Macmillan. ISBN
0-230-60327-0.
