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Showing posts from December, 2011

About The New Beatmaker

Hi!  I'm Lee.  Welcome to my blog.  Here we talk music: news, reviews, interviews, tips, tutorials and more.  I'm also working on the upcoming podcast  Influenced  as a guest, writer and researcher alongside music aficionado Mark Williams and friends.  Watch this space! I have been a lover of music for as long as I can remember, an amateur lyricist for 25 years, a music writer for 15 years and a hobbyist musician and blogger for almost 10 years. My tastes range from jazz to house to hip hop and I love helping artists from all genres develop their sound. My music, videos, reviews and interviews have been featured in a variety of magazines and websites, including: B-Boy Tech Report Gimme That Beat Humanhuman Audio Skills Dream House Beats Where Did the Road Go Beat Tape Co-Op Push Power Promo Drum Magazine You can find my music on Bandcamp: Monkey Mind Sounds AKA LeeTNB And you can find me on Facebook: The New Beatmaker page Lee's personal page

The Best Hip Hop of 2011

While 2011 will not be remembered as hip hop's greatest year, there were a number of noteworthy releases to celebrate.  These include the following: REKS: 'R.E.K.S.' LP Boston MC REKS proves that tenacity and talent will pay off in the end.  On this eponymous album REKS' rapid fire, intelligent flow is complemented by a stellar line up of producers including DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Alchemist and REKS' Boston buddy Statik Selektah.  Guest MCs include Freeway, L-il Fame and fellow Boston lyricist Terminology.  With such a diverse cast of contributors it would be easy for this album to become an inconsistent compilation.  However, the consistency of the album is one of its strongest points.  There is no fast forward material.  Indeed, plenty of tracks demand rewinds.  This is the album that REKS was destined to make.     The Roots: 'Undun' LP The words 'concept album' would have many hip hop fans running away in fear.  However, The Roots yet again provid

Make Music at Home: Installing VSTs and Loading Multi-Samples into REAPER

Make Music at Home: Installing VSTs and Loading Multi-Samples into REAPER Getting Virtual Instruments and Samples into REAPER. Previously, I discussed soundcards, Virtual studio technology instruments ( VSTi's ) and samples ( here ).  We have also covered how to install REAPER on your computer, here .  Now, we're ready to go one step further, installing VSTi's on your computer.   Part 1: Installing VST's in REAPER. VSTi's are one of the most popular and easy ways to start making music on your computer. By and large, VSTi's are often easily manipulated, easier than say, a sample can be, due to the fact the sound is being made through very complex maths which can be tweak by, say, the tune of a dial, or by flicking to another preset.    Downloading and installing VSTs can seem complicated at first, but videos like this one below, from youtube user Mark Spencer make the process much less daunting.  I found this video really useful when learning how to install VS