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all right you sing it now show you how
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my voice Would Have Made It unbelievable
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[Music]
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Donuts is the second and final solo
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album from one of the most influential
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hip-hop producers of all time Jay Dilla
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so influential that papers have been
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written on it and his techniques picked
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apart and analyzed countless times with
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a ton of Mythology surrounding its
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creation and it's arguably the base
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inspiration for the Lo-Fi hip-hop genre
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today we're talking about this
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intricately constructed beat
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[Music]
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so what made J Dillard the archetype for
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hip-hop sampling heralded by his peers
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influencing entire genres and future
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Generations let's find out
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[Music]
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Series where we take a closer look at
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some of the coolest sampling techniques
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we've come across while making our
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sample breakdowns dive deeper into the
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historical context surrounding them and
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show you how you can use these
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techniques to expand your own sampling
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toolkit James do it Yancey better known
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as J dilla was born in Detroit Michigan
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his mother Maureen ma duk sansi was a
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former opera singer his father Beverly
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duet Yancey was a jazz bassist his
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mother would go on to say that Dilla had
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Perfect Pitch and Harmony at only a
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couple of months old mimicking intricate
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sounds from songs perfectly early on J
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dilla would form the rap group slum
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village with his high school friends
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[Music]
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gaining a reputation for his funky bass
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lines offbeat drums Innovative sampling
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techniques and complex Jazzy harmonics
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While others would sample cool Parts
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they liked until it will manipulate his
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samples to do what he wanted them to do
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almost like he could speak through them
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like in the slum Village track where he
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changes the word
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[Music]
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to sound more like
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or in this beat where he rearranges the
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ending of the Grease soundtrack
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[Music]
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or when he layered a six count sample
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over a four count B and made two
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different time signatures work together
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somehow
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[Music]
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or this beat where he took the baseline
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from well you get the point to his peers
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this was like witchcraft like Jimi
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Hendrix guitar was his instrument the
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sampler and the Wreckers were dilas his
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production instrument of choice was the
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MPC 3000 which he would use to craft
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Timeless Classics for a lot of artists
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Like A Tribe Called Quest De La Soul
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Erykah Badu common The Roots just to
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name a few
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which brings us to donuts donuts is a
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beat tape and instrumental album unlike
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any other it was so special because it
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was a complete departure from its
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previous Styles it was like he had
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invented something completely new
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the album was released on the
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anniversary of Dylan's birthday February
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7 2006. unfortunately he would pass away
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three days later
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album was being worked on by J dilla
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while battling a blood disease and a
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disease called lupus finishing up the
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album from his hospital bed it's
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definitely his most well-known project
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we'd like to think it's because of how
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musically groundbreaking it was however
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a large part of its popularity has to do
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with the story surrounding it how he
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made it from his deathbed and how these
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songs were the last messages to his
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loved ones how truthful that story is is
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Up For Debate but the fact remains he
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did speak through his music and he did
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work on these tracks while battling the
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diseases that would ultimately take his
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life in his last interview that Jay
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Dilla granted to Scratch Magazine in
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November of 2005 he would briefly speak
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on the album it's just a compilation of
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the stuff I thought was a little too
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much for the MCS that's basically what
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it is you know me flipping records that
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people really don't know how to rap on
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but want to rap on there's a bunch of
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that and one of the most unique beats on
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the album and perhaps one of the most
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impressive beats on the album from a
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sampling perspective is Donut's 18th
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track don't cry let's take a closer look
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[Music]
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dyla is essentially deconstructing the
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record with surgical Precision at
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different points along the entire
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original composition instead of looking
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at a certain Loop or section of the
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record he's zooming out and looking at
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the entire record as a canvas
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[Music]
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please
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[Music]
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the same way a painter spends time
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crafting their palette of colors to
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paint with Dilla extracts portions of
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the sample along the entire timeline to
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piece back together like a puzzle it's
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this puzzle method that makes this track
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so unique the other special part about
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this track is how Dillo manipulates the
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chops to form his own Tempo and groove
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the sample is slower than dilla's final
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track
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[Music]
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which means that normally if you picked
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anything other than eighth notes your
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chops would sound out of sync since all
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the drums will be hitting too late
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foreign
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but because he does eighth note chops
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he's forcing the sample to adhere to his
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new speed
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[Music]
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pick and snare now hit where they're
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supposed to and the added bonus to this
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is that everything after each Kick and
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snare hits just a little bit late by
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doing this and not resorting to quarter
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no chops he's more able to finely tune
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the groove and Tempo also by focusing on
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eighth note chops he's able to make the
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puzzle pieces connect quicker creating a
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tree as the chops and textures jump in
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pitch and Melody between one another now
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that we have the blueprint let's put it
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to use in our own beats
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all right so to recreate this technique
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we're going to come into tracklib we're
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going to go over the tracks and to
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narrow this down we have filters up here
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I'm just going to actually use the like
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mid 60s to late 70s I'm also going to
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narrow it down by genre so I'm going to
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use the r b and soul genre as well it'll
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filter out the entire library and
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catalog on track live and now I'm able
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to browse each track and one cool thing
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we can do now on tracklib is change the
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pitch
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now to accomplish The Dillard technique
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we're not so much looking for something
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that inspires Us in terms of like a
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section or a four bar Loop we need to
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look more for textures we're looking for
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Kick Drum hips snare hit strings that
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might sound like pads small guitar lines
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maybe a lyric or two so I've actually
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found the track that I want to use
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already it's by the fabulous Waller
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family I'm gonna download this track and
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import it into my Daw so let's listen to
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the entire track and isolate what we
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want
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so immediately I heard a couple
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different things right I heard a kind of
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bell chime sound within here
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that itself is a pretty cool sound
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and then the word baby
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baby baby
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so with the word baby you get that piano
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hit in the back
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[Music]
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when the vocal is held out this long
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it's basically acting like a synth that
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point because you can take the beginning
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of the vocal chop or you can take a
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section within that held note because
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now it's going to sound like a sin
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right so now you have a sound that isn't
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necessarily a word it's not a lyric it's
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just a sustained note that you can
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utilize that's essentially what we're
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talking about when we're talking about
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textures so these are the types of
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things that you start listening for in
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the record and I'll show you guys how to
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chop it up so that you can do the eighth
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note sequence so that things start
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making a little bit more sense as you're
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putting them together so let's just take
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this one section right here
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you can do this uh with any Daw but
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essentially I would take this into
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somewhere where I could slice up the
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samples with my controller right I can
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trigger it from my pad or I can just
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trigger it from a midi note but I use
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the the Ableton push
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there's the actual chop that I want
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right here it is in the actual track and
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then here it is me trying to slice it up
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most producers when they chop up you
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would do a quarter note chops you would
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count quarter notes in your head
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two three four you have one two three
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four right
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[Music]
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essentially you can just play those four
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chops in order or you can rearrange
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those chops but what Dilla did is that
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this top would actually move to the left
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here so he would have eighth note chops
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so now I have twice as many things to
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hit in the melody so he would do
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something like this
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you can jump from this section of the
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record at 53 seconds over to this part
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of the record at 57 seconds if that's if
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that's how it sounds good to you in your
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in your head right and that's
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essentially what you do you're you're
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basically looking for the chops that you
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want now I'm gonna go through the entire
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record and do what you just saw there
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all right so now that I have these chops
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I'm actually just gonna go ahead and try
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and figure out how to piece them
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together now one thing I like to do I'll
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just drag in like a a drum Loop now this
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is just to generate ideas because I have
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a backing track to actually go to so
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let's see what we come up with here so
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what I'm going to do is I'm going to
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come over to my Ableton push and
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essentially what I'm doing is just
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triggering different elements and I can
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show you guys how it gets printed to
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MIDI afterwards but
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for this part really all I do is play
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throughout the chops see if I can find
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like a four bar Loop and then from there
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I just let my imagination take over
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[Music]
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as I'm repeating things that might not
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make sense there's certain parts of
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those elements that I like that I'm
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trying to keep so I'm trying to remember
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those parts and then take out the one
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chop that I don't like
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[Music]
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I think I kind of like that so I'm gonna
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I'm just gonna go with that for now
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[Music]
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and I just created a two bar section
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here uh you know one part was a little
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bit repetitive and then the second part
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was a different section that I repeated
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Villa kind of evolved his track that's
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essentially how he was doing it right he
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found one section that worked really
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well together and then figured out how
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to uh meld that into the second section
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so let's take a look at the chops I have
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here so you can see all this is doing is
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basically triggering these slices that
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you see down here in my Daw so you could
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actually just come in here in MIDI and
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play around you can use a keyboard for
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this you don't necessarily need a push
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controller or an NPC or anything like
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that you can do this with any software
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as well that second chop right here
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that vocal choir that comes in I don't
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like that part so here you can literally
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just take the midi and move it around
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right you can just play around with it
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that's the beauty of midi now is I can
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go here and change that chop to whatever
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I want actually that sounds better than
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the the chop that was there before
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essentially you can put these puzzle
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pieces together in any way shape or form
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this is how I chose to do them and this
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is how I recreated the the Dilla
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technique
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[Music]
