How to Make Boom Bap Hip-Hop
The Boom Bap style of Hip-Hop was developed and nurtured in the 90s. It’s a distinctive head-nodding sound that has grown in popularity over recent years, possibly as a backlash against the less organic sounds of Trap. In this blog, we break down the essence of Boom Bap revealing what goes into a boom-bap banger and how you can create your own beats to rival those of the 90’s pioneers.
Definition of Boom Bap
Boom Bap Hip-Hop represents a direct link to the very fundamentals of Hip-Hop as established in the 1970s. Early Hip-Hop DJs would specialise in finding and playing rare and obscure records that would feature so called “Break Beats”. These short parts of the records were where the record would break down to a rhythmic section. The DJ would then manipulate these parts in order to keep them going. In essence, live looping.
The spirit of this practice was rekindled in the late 80s when sampling allowed producers to loop funky old records by artists such as James Brown and George Clinton. While early sampling was fairly crude and basic, by the 90’s producers such as DJ Premier, Lord Finesse, Pete Rock, DJ Muggs, Havoc and Large Professor were employing ever more sophisticated sampling techniques. This was the era of the Boom Bap Producer.
Traditionally boom bap beats revolve around hard phat sounding drums. These are commonly programmed using one shot drum hits lifted from old drum breaks. Tempo-wise, boom bap tends to sit in the 86-100bpm region. The perfect head-nodding tempo.
Melodically there is an almost undefinable nature to the sort of music that would be sampled. By the 90’s nothing was off limit and almost all forms of music were being sampled. The best bits of Jazz, Rock, Pop, Soundtracks and of course funk and soul would all find their way into the sampling devices of 90s Hip-Hop producers. The kind of samples you used and the way you would use them would define you as a producer. And by the late 90’s there were many producers that had developed highly distinctive signature sounds.
Necessary Equipment
While the original Boom Bap was largely created using vintage hardware samplers it is now possible to create Boom Bap Beats on almost anything, even your phone! The main thing you will need is a capable sampler integrated into a digital audio workstation (DAW)
In addition, having a MIDI controller will give you more freedom to be hands-on with your sample manipulation. As boom bap is not as reliant on traditional musical compositional techniques, beatmakers often choose to use pad-based controllers rather than a keyboard. This is purely a personal choice and either option will work perfectly well.
Another vital component needed, especially if you intend to sample from 3rd party analogue sources is an audio interface. These don’t need to cost the earth but should ideally accommodate 2 input channels. For a guide to choosing an audio interface check out this post.
Boom Bap Drums
As alluded to previously, drums are very much the driving force behind Boom Bap. They dominate the sonics providing much of the energy and attitude. And unlike trap which relies heavily on just one very specific drum sound (The 808) the variety of boom-bap drum sounds is vast. This is very much a product of the huge array of sampled drum breaks used in the boom bap idium.
Despite the wide variety of drum sounds and sources used in Boom Bap, there are generally two main approaches to creating drum tracks. Let’s explore them…
Programmed Drums
Programmed drums are the most popular technique used in Boom Bap. Traditionally individual drum hits will be placed on individual pads or keys. In the 90’s this would have probably been done on an E-mu SP1200 or an Akai MPC. These drum hits are trimmed tightly to produce crunchy drums with snappy transients. Reverb is often added to shorter hits in order to give characterful tails to the drums.
The most popular Boom Bap drum programs involve hi-hats quantised to 8th notes. the snare is often played on the 3rd beat of a bar with Kick patterns providing a merry dance around the snare. It’s the kick programming that serves to accent the sample loop or chops. Ghost notes are commonly added for groove enhancement. Until Detrit producer J Dilla arrived on the hip-hop map most drum programming aimed to be as tight as possible. Dilla however changed the landscape by inspiring a looseness to the drum track. He utilised various swing settings as well as playing drums with no quantisation.
Both tight and loose drums are accepted within the Boom Bap rule book so just go with what you are feeling when creating your own boom-bap drums. For a more detailed guide to programming Boom Bap drums, check out this post.
Looped Drums
The other technique common to boom bap production is the use of looped drum breaks. Here, you are looking for drum breaks that have a great natural swing or bounce to them. When using drum loops you have to be aware of the subtle timing inconsistencies inherent with a live drummer. While boom-bap producers in the 90’s didn’t have the luxury of real-time time manipulation, it is now possible to stretch the audio of drum loops so they sit snuggly on the grid. Just be wary that you don’t want to stretch your drums too rigidly and lose the funky nature of the original drumming.
As well as simply looping drums you can also chop them up and reprogram them in a different order. This way you get the original feel of the breakbeat but with additional control over the drum pattern. It is even more essential that you time-stretch your drum break to get it on the grid if you are planning to chop up and reprogram your drums like this.
Boom Bap Melodic Content
Once you have your drums banging it’s time to turn your attention to your melodic content. Boom-bap hip-hop is an extremely versatile and varied genre with no steadfast rules. Being musically experimental is to be rewarded. You are therefore free to do whatever you feel.
There are several ways in which melodic content is represented. Here are 4 popular approaches.
- Sample Loops: Repetitive melodic loops generally 1,2 or 4 bars in length. Loops are often Low pass filtered throughout a composition to reveal and isolate the sample’s bassline.
- Sample Chops: The dissection and reprogramming of a melodic sample. Samples can be chopped into short pieces and reprogrammed leaving space or sliced and re-edited with little or no gaps.
- Minimal elements: The use of stripped down basslines, Abstract Spacy or Dark effects, Short stabs, pads and atmospheres.
- Live composition: Using vintage-sounding instruments to play original melodic content in the style of old 3rd party samples. Philidelphian group The Roots are pioneers of this approach.
Boom Bap Melody Selection
The choice of melodic content in Boom Bap is critical. It is the main factor that influences the mood and feeling of a track. In the 90’s finding and sampling the best musical snippets was an art form in itself. Unearthing and hooking up the best samples is what sets a great producer apart from a mediocre producer. Having a well-trained ear is therefore essential.
Searching for great samples or musical inspiration is imperative. Many sample makers today specialise in creating old dusty sounding samples that resemble the sort of crate dug samples 90s producers were using. You should search out sample like these for your melodic elements. This will ensure your boom-bap beats retain the raw dusty sampled sound synonymous with the style. We have a great selection of both drum and melodic vintage sounding samples on RouteNote Create. Perfect for all your boom bap needs.
Boom Bap Beat Building Tips
Time to get busy on the beats! As there is no set formula for making Boom Bap Hip-Hop we’ve got some essential tips that you can incorporate into your beat making.
Drums or Music first?
The age-old question and one to which there is no right or wrong answer. Having some great drums hooked up can make auditioning samples a lot more enjoyable. You should be able to catch a vibe as soon as you lay the melody over the drums. On the other hand, many producers prefer to prioritise a melodic idea first. With a melodic idea in place it can be easier to envisage the sort of drum sound to perfectly compliment the music. You can then program the drums so that they fit perfectly with the melody. The key is to remain flexible and be willing to reprogram either the drums or melodic content until they both sit perfectly together.
Sample Chopping Good Practice
When slicing up a sample focus only on the sample start points. Leaving the remaining sample to play out in full. Then when playing back the sample select the function that makes the sample stop playing as soon as you release your finger from the pad or key. You can make any necessary adjustments to the MIDI note length once you have recorded in the MIDI information. Click here for a detailed Ableton sample chopping guide
Multiple Chops
When chopping up a sample don’t be afraid to create multiple slice points. Most samplers allow you to chop samples manually, by transient or by a selected regular beat-based interval. Listen to the entirety of the sample and take as many interesting pieces as possible. You don’t know what bits might come in handy.
Sample Jamming
The joy of sample chopping is you often don’t know how a chopped sample will sound until it’s been dissected and played back over a beat. When chopping up a sample don’t be afraid to create multiple slice points. Most samplers allow you to chop samples manually, by transient or by a selected regular beat-based interval.
The joy of sample chopping is you often don’t know how a chopped sample will sound until it’s been dissected and played back over a beat. Once you have all your samples sliced up on separate pads/keys let the drums play and jam away triggering various combinations of chopped sample. Wait until you hear something working. Then record it into your sequencer/DAW. It is best to record small sections at a time and build up the sequence rather than trying to formulate complete chopped arrangements.
Fine-tuning the Tempo
A useful tip when reprogramming your chopped samples is to increase the tempo slightly once you have created a sequence. This helps to disguise any tiny gaps between chops and helps to gel the chops together. Just experiment with subtle tempo increases once your samples are in place. This can apply to both drums and melodies but works best when the samples have been chopped/played back in similar lengths.
Boom Bap Drum Libraries
Building bespoke drum libraries of your favourite sounds is a fantastic way to speed up your workflow. As Boom-Bap drums are so heavily reliant upon phat-characterful drum sounds, having an arsenal ready to be deployed at a single drag is invaluable. For optimum effectiveness build separate banks for Kicks, Snares, Hats and Percussion.
Drum Layering
Layering is the key to truly phat drums that cut through with much punch and welly. This is especially the case when using old vintage drum breaks. Often old breaks are oozing in character and vibe but they may lack some of the frequencies necessary to make them hit hard on a big system. For instance, if the kick is lacking in low frequency layer a nice sub-heavy kick. Snares can also benefit from layered percussive sounds such as hand claps or finger snaps. If you have followed the previous step and created dedicated drum banks then auditioning drum layers is quick and easy.
Melodic layering (MIDI files and/or extraction)
It’s not just drums that benefit from layering. By stacking complimentary instruments on top of melodic samples you can create that expansive full sound associated with top producers. Producers such as Just Blaze, Kanye West and Dr Dre are masters of this technique. It is one of the reasons their beats sound so rich and full. Many sample packs and construction kits feature MIDI files. Use these MIDI files to add additional instrumentation such as keys, bass or orchestral elements. If you don’t have the MIDI files and are not a keyboard wiz experiment with audio to MIDI tools. Check out this guide for more on this useful technique.
Parallel Compression
Finally, a quick way to phatten up Hip-Hop drums while retaining the drum’s full presence. Parallel compression involves heavily compressing your drum track and then combining this “wet” compressed signal with the original unprocessed audio. The resulting sound provides all the rhythmic punch and attitude of compression but without losing any of the drum’s original body and weight. Play around with the dry/wet ratio until you find the perfect balance.
Summary
Hopefully this guide to all things Boom Bap will inspire you to get busy on the beats and create some head nodding bangers. You don’t have to have thousands of pounds worth of gear to get started. Just a sampling device and a good ear. The main thing is to study the genre intensely because it is the subtle nuances that set it apart from many other styles. Understanding what makes for a ‘DOPE” sample is key. And once you have identified such a nugget it’s crucial to manipulate the sample in a way that sounds fresh and authentic.
Experimentation is crucial so read this guide, then rip up the rule book and bring your own flavour to the game.
Keep Bouncin’.
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