Boom-Bap Hip-Hop is considered by many to be the purest form of Hip-Hop. This is due to its direct lineage to Hip-Hop’s foundations built on manipulating vintage ‘break-beat’ recordings. The boom-bap style was originally formulated in the late 80s but came into its own during the 90’s golden era. Producers such as DJ Premier, Pete Rock and J Dilla dug deep in the crates to unearth samplable nuggets. They would then surgically loop, chop and flip these samples into head noddingly funky new creations.

The 90’s Boom-Bap heyday may be long behind us but the spirit of Boom-Bap lives on. A new generation of beat-makers are discovering and harnessing this much more organic hip-hop sound. In this post, we look at 5 great plugins that can help you to put some boom in your bap and relive hip-hop’s golden era.

Inphonik – RX1200

When it comes to 90’s era boom-bap hip-hop one sampler ruled supreme. I talk of course of the Emu SP1200. This sampling drum machine provided producers with an all-in-one beat-making solution that, most importantly sounded extremely phat! While a good condition original SP will probably set you back upwards of 5k nowadays there is a much more affordable alternative. Inphonik has done a miraculous job of modelling the 12-bit majesty of the SP, complete with its iconic anti-aliasing effect. As a user back in the day of the SP1200 I can honestly say that the sound of the RX1200 is spookily close to the original. Sampled kicks sound super chunky and it gives snares a mean crunch.

The interface is also extremely intuitive to use allowing you to easily drag samples onto the pads. The sample manipulation and editing is more limited than many other dedicated samplers but this is very much representative of the original machine. It’s worth bearing in mind that most current-day SP1200 users say its limitations are its strong point forcing you to be creative with just the rudimentary tools. Luckily you are now afforded limitless sample time as opposed to the original 10 seconds!

It’s also worth noting that this plugin is merely a sampler and does not include a sequencing facility. With most DAWs such as Ableton offering SP1200 groove templates, this shouldn’t represent an issue.

For a more in-depth assessment of the RX1200 check out this post. And if you want to hear exactly how close this gets to the original machine check out the A/B analysis video below.

Addictive Drums 2

At the core of boom-bap hip-hop lie drums. Boom Bap drums opposed to those of Trap are generally sourced from old breakbeats. Classic drum breaks such as Impeach the President by The Honey Drippers
or Outside Love by Brethren would be looped or more commonly chopped, isolating one-shot drum hits. These drums would then be reprogrammed and used to accompany melodic samples and basslines.

So what if you could recreate the sort of vintage ‘breakbeat’ style drums used in Boom-Bap production from the comfort of your DAW? Enter Addictive Drums 2. This incredibly powerful plugin offers a host of meticulously multi-sampled drum kits that when replayed well can easily pass off as actual drums. And when many of the kits available originate from the 60’s and 70’s you start to enter original Break-Beat territory! But, while many of the kits are of a vintage heritage you will still have to do some work to give them an authentic old drum-break feel. Luckily the inbuilt edit functions of AD2 are insanely good. You can shape, saturate and colour your drums in almost limitless ways. There’s even a vinyl noise generator that allows you to add and shape a touch of vinyl crust to your drum hits.

So whether you intend on creating authentic 60’s sounding drum loops or killer drum hits to reprogram, the potential to elevate boom-bap production through AD2 is beyond awesome! Just check out this video where Hip-Hop producer Barry Beats uses Addictive drums alongside other virtual instruments to make a groove-heavy instrumental.

Teletone Audio -Retrograde Bass

So we have the drums down pat courtesy of Addictive Drums 2. But for the ultimate boom-bap hip-hop rhythm section you’re gonna also need a killer bass line. Boom Bap basslines tend to take many forms from Dr Dre style synth basses to deep Mobb Deep type sub bass’s. If however you’re after a super realistic vintage-sounding bass akin to the sort of recordings famously sampled in Boom-bap nothing sounds quite as raw and authentic as Retrograde Bass by Teletone Audio.

Teletone have come to prominence in recent years as one of the leading exponents of realistically retro virtual instruments. As well as producing remarkably realistic Kontakt instruments they also put a huge focus on the vintage-aged sound of the instrument. This is certainly the case with Retrograde Bass. The inspiration for retrograde bass comes from the classic 60’s West Coast recordings by session musicians ‘The Wrecking Crew’. In particular the legendary bassist Carol Kaye. This bass instrument also screams of vintage library music recordings which have long been a staple for boom-bap hip-hop producers such as The Alchemist.

So if you want to apply the kind of basslines that all your favourite 90s hip-hop producers were using to your beats then you cant go too far wrong with this beauty. For a full rundown of its many features check out this walkthrough.

Serato Sampler 2.0

Most DAWs will offer a sampler as part of their instrument suite. These are often more than capable but the workflow of boom-bap production can sometimes call for something slightly different. Serato sample seems to have been built very much with the sample chopper in mind. And anyone who’s studied the production style of pioneers such as DJ Premier will know that boom bap is all about the chop!

Serato aims to maximise creativity through a host of intuitive tools but at the heart of this sampler is the ability to easily chop and manipulate samples. The layout is clear and simple making it extremely inviting to use. Drag in a sample and the waveform is instantly displayed writ large with clear slice markers. You have the option of manually chopping or using its unique feature of intelligent auto-chop mode. This will slice a sample up for you and add the slices to your sample slots – instantly! And once you have a boom-bapping bag of sampled slices at your disposal you then have the option to execute stem extract. Serato Sampler offers vocal, melodic, bass and drum separation. Add to this, some of the cleanest time and pitch shifting and you have all the tools necessary for next-level sample flipping.

Check out this demonstration to see what it can offer a budding boom bap practitioner.

STOP PRESS: Looking for said next-level samples to flip? Well, consider yourself covered here at RouteNote Create. And just to get you started check out this selection of boom bap flavoured sample packs

IZotope Vinyl

And finally a nice little freeby for ya! Unlike the other contenders on this list, Izotope Vinyl is an audio-processing plugin. And the clue is very much in the title! This plugin attempts to take your digital audio signal and place it carefully onto a turntable. This can be particularly useful when using virtual instruments such as keys, horns or strings. Most virtual instruments have been multi-sampled using state of the art modern recording processes. This often results in instruments that sound very crisp and clean. Not the sort of sound one would associate with the grimy crate-dug sound of boom-bap hip-hop.

Drop an instance of Vinyl onto your sampled or virtual instrument and you have the option to send it back as far as the 1930s through to the 2000’s (Don’t use 2000’s for boom-bap) You also have independent control over the amount of dust, scratches and the classic lofi warp. A useful wear control can add additional degradation to your audio signal. Used in conjunction with other saturation tools such as tape and tube emulators it’s possible to pass off your virtual instrument compositions as old samples.

Check out the following video to hear IZotope Vinyl in action

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