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authentichelp-blog · 6 years ago

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Brighten Music: A Quick Tutorial about Its Roots

Baltimore Question any individual, even Jazz gurus or even Jazz musicians as well as they will get quite different definitions to express the background music, or they will certainly tell you in which understanding Jazz is not possible. The idea is of course quick to discover when anyone hear it despite the actual selection of the variety. It is a home, United States born tunes featuring its birthplace credited in order to Brand-new Orleans and the idea is highly of this particular Southern region.

Baltimore

To understand how diversified the genre of Jazz like music can be 1 has and then view a number of of its subcategories: Bebop, Ragtime, Dixieland, Amazing Punk, Hard Bop, Modal Jazz music, Free Jazz, Latina Brighten, Post Bop, Heart Jazz like, Swing Jazz, Punk Running, Jazz Funk, Simple Jazz music, Acid Jazz, and also Dick Jazz, and many some others. Your message "Jazz" is while hard to specify seeing that the music itself. The foundation of the word possesses been intensely researched along with the American Idiom Culture named it the particular "Word of the Twentieth Century" because of the issues in finding the foundation and original use associated with the expression and typically the amount of research containing gone into understanding often the concept. Despite the new music being enjoyed many decades before the use regarding the term "azz" to be able to describe it, use started to be common in Which you could all-around 1915. The first reliance on the word found is truly in the baseball article through 1913 and it had been not associated with everything having to do using music, instead ?t had been some sort of form of slang typically listened to on the Western world Coast, still it quickly became a fashionable term intended for the unique in addition to individual music to become recognized as Jazz music. Many of them claim to have initial completed it to describe the actual music genre. Exactly where the particular origin, it is one particular of the most known terms to describe a new songs genre despite right now there being several that could define it completely. The actual music just defines on its own without words having typically the ability to totally accomplish it justice.

"Individual as well as unique" are very fine phrases to describe Brighten. The Jazz like artist is usually often considered to always be rendering, rendition, interpretation the music any time they play. It will always be liked live more than noted due to the potential of the musician and performer for you to individually interpret and also participate in the music differently during performances. This is the unique property or home of Punk music.

Precisely what has also been commonly known as often the "Jazz Age" is the actual time period from the 20's to early 30's this included the climb involving speakeasies" where an adult technology regarded the new audio played in these golf clubs because immoral. It has been so degraded by numerous that were endangered by simply the new wave connected with music, that they possibly held accountable Jazz as obtaining brought on a heart episode of one tunes céder. The music persevered prior its critics and shortly there were standout Jazz music music artists that were generating a name on their own which would keep them since famous figures. Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and Fight it out Ellington became well acknowledged and respected artists along with helped bring far more supporters to Jazz new music.

Brighten has been described while "moving, passionate, and good songs influencing the intuitively feels in the body and soul". For folks that discover a enjoy for their distinct manufacturer of Jazz, it gets to be any sought after audio for times during the relaxation, reconstruction surgery, and festivity. For individuals that have yet to completely discover all that Jazz like Songs has to present, visiting a are living Punk concert, or a Jazz music festival can be some sort of very informative and satisfying experience. Due to popularity associated with Jazz and its Usa roots, there are several opportunities somebody to expertise the music live throughout night clubs, concerts and situations along the United States.

A single of the most famous Brighten Festivals on the particular east seacoast of typically the United States is often the DC Jazz like Festival, or perhaps lovingly nicknamed the "DC Jazz Fest". It unofficially kicks off the summer months time for those that are generally familiar with the expensive vacation event. The item takes place this season coming from June 1 by way of Summer 13 and may include more than 100 activities at above 45 spots across the area. This is the largest tunes celebration in the State's Capital. The particular festival presents a wide variety regarding Punk music types in addition to top rated musicians from most over the globe. There isn't a better place to help get a true tutorial in Jazz Audio.

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blogstreet94 · 4 years ago

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Make A Beat Drop On Garageband

Learn how to make a Crazy DROP in Garageband in Minutes in Garageband on your iPad or iPhone!Follow me on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1gwjjVWrSPh.

To mix a beat in Garageband: 1) Drop all VU meters to -15dB. 2) Adjust each VU meter so it sounds good without clipping or passing +0dB. 3) Use Compressor, EQ, and effects presets. 4) Add Automation and Panning. 5) Export the Track as a.aif file. 6) Drag it into a new project for mastering.

In this tutorial today, I’m going to show you how to make a quick hip-hop beat in Garageband. Will it be the most sophisticated beat in the world? No, it will not, because, I’m not the greatest producer, and all I can do is show you how I do things. Hopefully, you can learn something from me.

In which I make a progressive house drop in Garageband, and accidentally make a tutorial on EDM production basics in the process.Subscribe for more electroni.

Assuming you’re an absolute beginner, this tutorial should save you a fair amount of time in terms of avoiding common mistakes, like not turning off the Auto-Normalize function in Garageband’s preferences (my tutorial on that). I’ll give you a brief summary of how to make a beat, and then we’ll explore a more in-depth way, so how would you go about making a beat in Garageband?

To make a beat in Garageband, choose a melodic Apple Loop by clicking on the Loops icon that looks like a hose on the right-hand side of Garageband. Then, use the command, ⌥ + ⌘ + U, to bring up a Drummer Track and use one of the Hip-Hop drummers, Dez, Anton, or Maurice.

This is undoubtedly the simplest way of quickly creating a beat in Garageband, however, I’m going to show you the real way of going about it – the way that it’s actually unique. This is my way of making a hip-hop beat using my own individual style. It may not be your style of music, but maybe it’ll help you understand how people go about making songs. Before we begin, I’ll give a brief explanation of what I consider to be hip-hop as well as some of its parameters.

by the way, I have a list of all the best products for music production on my recommended products page, including the best deals, coupon codes, and bundles, that way you don’t miss out (you’d be surprised what kind of deals are always going on).

Features Of Hip-Hop

Hip-hop, like metal, rock, and many other genres, has a ton of sub-genres and dynamic differences between each other.

Therefore, in my opinion, there’s no point in saying that it has to sound a certain way – because it doesn’t.

In the past, there were many beats that had kind of a major/happy sound and there are many minor sounding beats of varying stylistic characters such as jazz, soul, funk, country, and even rock.

Moreover, hip-hop utilizes a ton of soul and funk samples from the 1960s and 1970s like James Brown, Funkadelic, Parlament, and so on and so forth.

Perhaps my favorite example is Kanye West’s song, “Touch The Sky,” created by Lupe Fiasco, which uses Curtis Mayfield’s legendary soul tune, “Move On Up.” You can do the same thing with Garageband’s sampler too as I’ve shown before in my article and in the short video down below:

The great part of hip-hop, like rock music, is that it’s versatile, so as long as you have a melody and a rhythm section, a rapper can probably spit bars over it. To get good at it, follow some of the tips in my songwriting article.

Before continuing, make sure you’ve downloaded all of the available sounds. To do that, just go into Garageband’s Preferences, and go to “Sound Library,” and then choose the option, “Download All Available Sounds.”

Without further ado…

How To Make A Hip-Hop Song In Garageband

The first thing that you want to do is open up Garageband.

1) Open up Garageband.

2) Select the hip-hop template.

The first thing that shows up is the Trap Door template, and the drummer’s name apparently is Dez. Personally, I hate the sound of the Trap Door pre-sets, so I avoid it at all costs.

It can be doctored to sound good, in my opinion, by decreasing the complexity of the fills and also choosing the “Simple” setting by dragging the little yellow ball to the left, or changing the actual kit of the pre-set. Another amazing tool to have for making beats is Initial Audio’s 808 Studio II (from Plugin Boutique), which is obviously a bass synth/808 tool.

Around half of the instruments that Garageband gives you sound good, with the “Steinway Grand Piano,” Deep Sub Bass,” “808 Bass,” “Vox Box Lead,” and the “String Ensemble” being the most important and useful, although, there are many others for hip-hop as I’ve pointed out before.

If you’re using iOS Garageband on the iPhone I recommend the most from Amazon, there are even more sounds to choose from, but either way, the “Arctic Noise Lead” is definitely a popular choice.

3) Go ahead and choose the “Flute” option under “Vintage Mellotron,” the “Jazz Organ,” the “Scream Lead” from the synthesizer section, as well as the “String Movements” from the Soundscapes option.

Also, choose the “Beat Machine” drum-kit under the Electronic Drum Kit section.

4) First Melody (Chord Progression) – (Jazz Organ)

For this particular track, “Spaceship Underwater,” the very first thing is that I made the chord progression with the “Jazz Organ,” which is just a C Minor with an added 9th and an Eb Major with an added 9th.

You can give the final track a listen here:

Cmin9 = C, Eb, G, D

Ebadd9 = Eb, G, Bb, F

Both of these chords belong to the Key of G Minor.

Here are all of the chords of G Minor (relative minor of Bb Major):

i – G Minor – G-B-D iiº – A Diminished – A-C-Eb III+ – Bb Major – Bb-D-F iv – C Minor – C-Eb-G v – D Minor – D-F-A VI – Eb Major – Eb-G-Bb VII – F Major – F-A-C

In case you haven’t seen the scale degrees before and how they look, know that the lower-case roman numerals., “i,” mean Minor, and the upper-case numerals, “V,” mean Major.

***To learn more about theory, go over to Music Theory’s website, or pick up Mark Sarnecki’s book on theoryfrom Amazon as well as the answer book which is equally as important.

The “+” means augmented and the “º” means diminished.

If these words are scary don’t worry about it. Just pay attention to the letters of the chord, “GBD.”

Check out the diagram I created of the “Musical Typing” below if you’re totally unfamiliar of where the notes of the Piano lie, but if I were you, I would eventually get a copy of PianoForAll from their site because it’ll help a lot as well.

When I build beats, I pretty much always start with the melody and then I build the drums, bass, and everything else afterward.

5) Second Melody – (Screamlead Synth)

Because I know that I’m in the Key of G Minor, there are certain notes available to me that will sound “correct.” They are the following:

G, A, Bb, C, D, Eb, F.

The relative Major of G Minor is actually Bb Major, which means they are the same notes, just played in a different order and having a different root note or tonal center.

Here is the Bb Major scale:

Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, A

asically, after I built the chord progression, I loaded up an instrument that sounded cool and started playing around with it on my MIDI Keyboard.

I usually start with an Ehru, Piano, or another instrument with a sound I love. The reasoning for this, as an artist, is for the inspiration.

In this case, I chose the Screamlead instrument, which you’ll find in the Lead subcategory within the Synthesizer section.

Here’s an image of how the second most important melody of the song looks in the MIDI work-space:

Tip: Always use instruments, plug-ins, arpeggiators, and other tools that inspire you to play.

That’s what being a musician is all about, frankly. It’s the same thing with playing the guitar or another instrument. You have to buy a piece of equipment that actually inspires you to play.

After I built the second melody using the “Screamlead” instrument, I went into the Software Instrument’s settings and messed around with it until it actually sounded cool.

At first, as I said before, it was the Pipu, but I couldn’t use that because I already made a track using it recently and I didn’t want to get too repetitive.

I turned it into a Screamlead, and then adjusted the settings of it.

In the image below, you can see all of the different settings for it, including, Glide, Sub, Shape, Depth, Harmonic, Overdrive, Delay, as well as a bit of Reverb.

The part I changed the most was the “Glide” option as well as the “Shape.” That’s what gave it the sound that is completely different from the stock version of it.

Another big change I made was with the “Harmonic” option. I turned that bad boy all the way down.

5) Third Filler Melody – (Delicate Bells)

For the third melody, I simply used it as a filler, a way of filling out the rest of the track and adding a little bit of “Body” or character to the sound.

I used Delicate Bells, and I copy and pasted the track from the Screamlead and dropped it into the Delicate Bells track.

It was a one-two process, and I turned it down fairly significant so as not to take too much attention away from the rest of the more important instruments.

I also EQ’d it a little bit as well. For this section, I implemented a Low-Pass (a concept I’ve explained before), so in other words, I eliminated all of the highest frequencies. This EQ setting looks like this:

6) Fourth Melody (Flute)

Perhaps the most important melody of this song was the flute, rather than the initial chord progression and melody.

The flute is the part that repeats through the entirety of the song, and I loved the way it sounds. I think it was a nice touch, however, the flute you get through Native Instruments’ Komplete 13 from their website is way better than what comes with Garageband.

The funny part about the flute melody here is the fact it’s simply three notes but played at two different octaves. It’s easily the LEAST sophisticated part of the entire track.

It goes to show that sophistication is not necessary at all, in fact, this plays into improvisation as a musician as well. It’s easy to get caught up in all of these incredibly convoluted details, but frankly, there’s simply no need.

A good question to ask yourself is: does this make the music sound good? Does this contribute to the entirety of the song?

Moving on to arguably the most important part of a hip-hop song: the drums and the Boutique 808 pattern.

I think, perhaps, a crucial detail to add here is the fact that the drums and boutiques are actually the most important part for music producers but not for the listener.

Listeners don’t care about EQing the snare as you do, they just want to hear a great melody and beat.

7) Drums (Kick, Snare and Hi-Hats)

Obviously, music producers have different ways of going about this. Many actually “draw” their music, by adding individual notes and so on and so forth in the “Piano Roll.”

To begin drawing in the Piano Roll, double-click (right-click) in the workspace and select the option, “Create Empty MIDI Region.” This will make a file in which you can start dropping notes (more on the piano roll in my guide).

Truth be told, I don’t do this.

I find this kind of thing to be, actually, annoying and not that fun.

I played guitar for my entire life before I started using a DAW, so I’m all about playing from the heart and improvising on the spot.

What I do, is I open up the Musical Typing (Garageband’s keyboard – Command + K), and I just start jamming on the Kick and Snare, trying to come up with a pattern that I’ve never used before but also sounds very good.

Usually, the Kick and Snare is loaded at the C3 level on Garageband’s Musical Typing, so I just hammer on the “C” and “D” note, or as it says on the actual laptop Keyboard, the letters “A” and “S.”

If you’re using a MIDI-Keyboard, it’ll likely be the very first C and D on the left-side of the Keyboard.

After I’ve built a cool sounding Kick and Snare pattern, I usually begin adding the other details.

8) Shaker

I’ve been actually using the Shaker function quite a bit lately. I feel like it’s a nice touch to the sound.

And for the most part, I either add the hi-hats on every single beat, or I add it about half-a-beat after the Snare Drum. I think it sounds cool.

I use the shaker – and this is a great thing to keep in mind for producing all kinds of drum-centric music – to keep the beat at a more consistent pace.

Many producers use the Kick, Snare, or the Hi-Hat as a way to keep time.

For me, using the Shaker is good for that, because it’s not too intrusive or obstructing. In other words, it doesn’t take too much attention away from other sounds, instruments, and melodies.

A snare or kick can be quite aggressive.

9) Bass

This is arguably the most important part of hip-hop production, and frankly, I’m not the greatest at it, so you may want to check out another person’s tutorial to figure out how to make great Boutique 808s and bass-lines.

As I explained in this article about Boutique 808s, there are many different ways of drawing/playing bass-lines, as well as EQ-tactics and methods for making it sound good.

Make sure to check out the article at the above link to see what I’m talking about.

For the sake of this tutorial, however, I’ll outline what I did for “Spaceship Under Water.”

The first thing that I do when I build a bass-line is I usually think about the chord progression and melody, that way I can draw a bassline that is actually on-key.

Many producers struggle with building a bass-line that’s on-key due to the limitations of the human ear. It’s pretty hard to hear the lowest frequencies, so a good way of getting around it is the following:

Tip: Try making a bass-line with the Bass turned up 1 or 2 octaves, that way you can find out if the bass is truly in the proper key signature.

Another thing that you can do is treat the bass as if it’s a melody of its own, and create maybe a piano melody, but then change the software instrument track into the Deep Sub Bass synth or the Boutique 808s.

Moving on…

I typically outline the notes of the chord in order to create the bassline. For example, I know that in this track there are two primary chords that lie as the song’s foundation: Cmin9 and Ebadd9.

These two chords, as I mentioned above, belong to the key of G Minor, where these are the following notes of the scale, G, A, Bb, C, D, Eb, and F.

Cmin9 = C, Eb, G, D

Ebadd9 = Eb, G, Bb, F

If I’m going to make a bassline, I would focus on the C note and the Eb note, just as a starter to see how that sounds. C and Eb are the root notes of the aforementioned chords.

After that, I’d play around with the G Minor scale, whose notes I listed above, and I’d see if I could make something out of that. However, usually I crave a little more out of the bassline, and most other people do as well.

Most people would argue that the main purpose of the bassline, whether it’s Boutique 808 or a bass guitar, is to hold the rhythm down of the song, so to speak.

It’s a way of solidifying the groove and flow of the track. It’s like strengthening its backbone.

Without bass, the song wouldn’t have the same “fullness” about it. It would sound likely more empty and hollow. Those lower frequencies really complete and warm-up the song.

In this case, I was struggling to come up with a bass-line that fulfilled that role, so I ended up just outlining the notes of the chords and keeping it very simple.

Sometimes, simplicity is where it’s at.

The final thing to note is the fact I copy and pasted the notes of the Kick Drum into the Deep Sub Bass track, that way I had a reference point for when the Kick and Snare hits.

As I wrote about in my 808s article, if you want your bassline to hit hard, which is arguably the most coveted aspect of hip-hop production, then it’s essential that you line your kick drum with the Boutique 808s or Deep Sub Bass Synthesizer.

You can check out the image below of the Deep Sub Bass to see how I did that:

11) Volume Control

One last final thing to note before we get into the next section: I did a volume fade at the beginning of the song for the flute section.

How To Make A Beat Drop On Garageband

In my automation tutorial, I explained that In order to do that, you hit the ‘A’ button on the track for “Automation.”

You’ll notice right away that the yellow automation lines will pop up.

By clicking on the line, you’ll drop automation points and then you can drag the line around according to how you want to adjust the volume.

Check out the picture below to see what I did for that particular track.

Moving on to the Exporting, Mixing, and then Mastering stage…

12) Export As AIFF

Now that the song is pretty much completed, we can move on to the easiest stage: the “exporting stage.”

For this part, make sure that absolutely none of your tracks are clipping (going into the red), otherwise, it’ll sound terrible later on.

Make A Beat Drop On Garageband Roblox

As a general rule, you want your volume tracks to be going into the yellow only during the loudest parts of the song. It’s cool if the tracks ride in the green the entire time.

Also, turn down the Master Volume to +0.0. I haven’t heard anyone say this matters at all, but for me, it absolutely does.

Make sure the Master Volume is at zero, otherwise, your track won’t mix and master properly.

Make sure there are no plug-ins running on your master track as well.

To do that, go down into the Smart Controls and click on the button that says. “Master,” among the other two options, “Track,” and “Compare.”

You’ll see the list of the plug-ins, and make sure they’re all turned off.

It’s ok if you have plug-ins running on the individual tracks, but you don’t want any on the master channel, from what I’ve been told anyway.

At this stage, your track is nearly ready for export. Listen to the whole thing and make sure all of the instruments sound good, and exactly as you want them to.

Keep in mind, when you go to master the track, some of the other sounds may sound accentuated. For that reason, I typically turn down the sound of the hi-hats, shakers, and other high-frequency instruments.

Explained in another way, If you plan on using compression and an EQ boost, some of the higher frequency instruments, such as the hi-hat or cymbals, tend to make that hissing sound.

For that reason, consider turning the volume down on the individual tracks.

a) Click on the option, “Share,” in Garageband’s Toolbar at the top

b) and then click the option, “Export to Disk,” from there,

c) hit the AIFF check-box,

d) name your track

e) and then export it on to your desktop that way you can simply drag and drop it into the DAW.

From this stage, we can actually drag and drop the AIFF file right back into the DAW among all of the other software instrument tracks.

f) Hit the “Solo” button on the track that looks like a pair of headphones to isolate the song.

The reason for this is that we’ll check and see that our track isn’t clipping it all, and we give it a general test to see what it’s going to sound like after we add a compressor, channel EQ, and so on and so forth.

Now that we can see there’s nothing wrong with the track and it isn’t too loud, we’ll move on to the mixing stage.

g) Start a new project.

11) Mixing.

I’m by no means an expert mixing engineer, so just keep that in mind, but for this stage, I actually don’t do a lot to it. I showed more of the process in my guide on mixing beats. In his book on Amazon, Bobby Owsinski and some of the engineers explain that there doesn’t always need to be a lot done to a mix.

I usually add a Channel EQ, a compressor or Multipressor, and then maybe a Limiter as well just in case.

a) Channel EQ

As you can see by the image below, I cut the lowest and highest frequencies, dropped the 205hz frequency by -3.5 dB, and then gave the song a bit of a boost by 3dB or so starting from the range of 500hz to 10,000 kHz.

I also gave it a small boost to around 35hz.

b) Multipressor

For the multipressor, I just used the “Final Hip Hop Compressor” pre-set which dropped the gain by around -3.6dB.

I really like the way the multipressor sounds. I find it gives the track quite a bit of punchiness.

*In the YouTube version of this song, I used a compressor instead of a multipressor, but on my SoundCloud, I used the multipressor version.

c) Limiter

As I wrote in my article about limiting, the limiter acts as a compressor with an extremely high ratio, or in other words, it’s a “brick wall” in which no frequencies can pass through.

Using the limiter, we’ll boost the overall volume of the track by +3.0dB, and then we’ll set the output level at -0.2dB.

How To Make A Beat Drop On Garageband Mac

The gain is best increased by just 1, 2, or 3 dB because then we’re not pushing it too hard.

Regarding the Output Level knob, technically, the point past 0dB is the point of distortion according to what I’ve read.

If we have it set at -0.2dB, then we don’t have to worry about the song exceeding that point and thus, creating distortion.

Because of the way the limiter works, a lot of people like to use it as a volume-increaser at the end of the mixing process.

Make A Beat Drop On Garageband Free

However, it’s much better thought of as a tool that we can use to ensure no undesirable sounds are heard in the mix.

12) Final Step

Ensure the volume of the track is consistent with other music you’ve created.

If you have an album on your phone and you hook it into a Bluetooth speaker at someone’s house, you want the tracks to be the same volume as each other.

That way, you won’t have to continuously come back and turn the volume up.

For this point, I would try and match the volume of, not other artists on YouTube or SoundCloud, but your favorite artists and their professionally mixed and mastered hit singles.

If you’re going to try and make a song, you might as well get used to trying to match the amplitude (volume) of their music.

I usually choose the volume to be around +1.6dB on the Master Volume channel. In between +1.6 and +2.0 dB, depending on whether I’ve used a compressor a multipressor.

13) Export

Now, if you want to export your music, thankfully, Garageband comes with a convenient “Share” function on the top toolbar that allows you to easily export music to either SoundCloud, iTunes, or YouTube.

Before doing this, however, make sure you do this one last thing if you haven’t already.

a) Go into the Garageband Preferences.

b) Click on Advanced.

c) See where it says, “Auto Normalize – Export Projects At Full Volume?”

Make sure this box is unchecked, otherwise, Garageband will export your music at a level that is far too quiet, and the competition will just outshine you like crazy.

Moving on…

With that said, try to avoid making your tracks too loud.

I’m not an expert on this topic, so take notice of this warning, but some people say that making your tracks super loud is a part of what’s called the “Loudness War.”

It’s up to you whether or not you want to engage in this. If you’re curious to read more about it, I recommend this article here.

Some people might argue that an artist/audio engineer has to do whatever they can to get noticed, and that includes exporting music at too high of a volume.

Others will hate you for making your music so loud.

It’s up to you as to whether you want to annoy other producers and audio engineers. I guess you have to ask yourself though, “am I making music for myself, other people, or other producers?”

Anyway, I hope this tutorial was helpful to you. As I said before, I’m not a Billboard-topping artist, so I can’t tell you how to make the illest beat you’ve ever heard. I can only show you how I make them.

Enjoy.

Do me a solid and share this on social media.

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blkwidowsweb · 8 years ago

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Chicago Spotlight: A Conversation with DJ Emmaculate

"Growing up in the Chicago area, Emmaculate was exposed to the sounds of Classic House & Disco as a young teen. That along with the Golden Era of Hip Hop steered him into DJ'ing and producing tracks in 1990. Emmaculate has been fortunate to rub shoulders with many of the legends of Chicago House Music, giving him an invaluable education. He is a partner in the Aid to the SouLLess label, along with Julius the Mad Thinker, and Mi Casa Holiday alumni. His sounds are eclectic... sometimes hard, acidic, dreamy, jazzy, funky, & soulful... a cosmic slop of organic technology".

I recently had a chance to speak with Emmaculate about his career, his passion for music and his new release, "Do It" featuring Kaye Fox.

Black Widow: How were you introduced to House Music and DJing?

DJ Emmaculate: In the late 80s, when I was in middle school, between ’87-89, I got turned on to house music from friends at school, listening to mix tapes. I grew up in Elgin (a suburb of Chicago) and we had a teen dance club, called “Discovery”. We would just go and dance; I got into dancing first. I just loved the music. I come from a family of musicians. My dad and brother play guitar, my mom is an abstract artist that also sings; my parents were in a band together, and my older brother is in the business so there was art and music in my home. I’m just drawn to it and fell in love with the music and it made me want to DJ. I started buying and collecting records here and there and playing around with it. Doing pause mixes on a cassette deck first. Using one turntable doing pause mixes and stuff like that. Eventually, I got a pair of turntables but it didn’t have any pitch control, you had to speed the record up or slow it down with your finger. It was real primitive. I just loved it. I was always an athlete who played baseball and football every year but quit and decided this (DJing) was what I wanted to do. That’s how I started.

Black Widow: You and I share a similar experience in that we were introduced to house music while we were much younger. We couldn’t go to the club and experience what others did in the 80s. Most of my exposure to house music was through radio or grade school parties.

DJ Emmaculate: Same for me. It was two things, it was my age and the fact that I was in the suburbs. You know I can’t say I snuck out to hear Ron Hardy or anything like that because I was too far. [Laughter] I started DJing in 1990 in between my freshman and sophomore year of high school. I had records but it was more of the popular records being played. One of my best friends that I used to dance with had an older cousin who was a DJ but was in prison. He had an extensive record collection; he had all the hot records from the 80s in crates just sitting there. My cousin was able to give me those records. I went from having a couple of crates of “just alright” records to having crates of “pure heat”, like some real some jams. Once I got that, all I wanted to do after school was come home and mix. That’s what allowed me to learn about those 80s records that were before my time.

Black Widow: There are some DJs who were able to watch and learn from others while at the club. Since you were younger and didn’t have that experience, who were your early influences and how did you learn from them?

DJ Emmaculate: It really was the ones that were from where I’m from. There were two, Andre and Orphie. Orphie was 5 years older than me and Andre was 10 years older than me. I started making mix tapes and my best friend would play my tapes around them and they were like, “who is this kid? We need to meet him”. They turned me on to a lot of information. They would take me to Imports and Gramaphone to buy records. At that same time, they were also good friends with a guy by the name of Armand, who went by the name, Professor Funk. He had stuff out on DJ international. They took me to my first recording studio at 15. They were my direct influences. Then creatively, I was really into Marshall Jefferson, Farley, Larry Heard, Lil Louis and I loved Future’s stuff, Armando, Jack Frost, and Adonis. Those were my creative influences but it was the people I was around, the ones I grew up with that taught me the game and gave me information.

Black Widow: When did you have your first Professional gig?

DJ Emmaculate: LOL…well professional? (Laughter) I started out doing basement parties at 16 and I really didn’t know what I was doing yet. I just got out there and did it. Elgin is a big GD town, for those who are in Chicago they understand what that means. They were the ones throwing the parties and I’m this white kid DJ spinning at all of the GD basement parties around 17/18 years old. That’s how I cut my teeth as a DJ, doing those basement parties. Once I turned 21 that evolved into clubs and private parties in that area.

Black Widow: Playing basement parties for the gangstas! LOL! Did you get flack for being a white DJ playing house music?

DJ Emmaculate: Honestly no. My experience has been different. I’ve never felt uncomfortable being in a party that was all black and I’m the only white person there. I’ve never had anyone treat me badly because I was white playing primarily black music (soul, disco, and R&B, hip-hop). You know I might get the side eye in the beginning, like “oh no…what’s this white boy about to do” but I’m able to win them over after I start playing. I’m a student of music, so once they see and hear me play and they enjoy themselves, then it’s all love.

Black Widow: I think that’s indicative of the inclusive nature of the house scene.

DJ Emmaculate: I agree and I think groups like the Hot Mix Five and Bad Boy Bill that came before me that helped with that and showed that it wasn’t unusual to have a white guy playing real house music.

Black Widow: When did producing come into play?

DJ Emmaculate: Around the same time in my teenage years I started playing around with making beats. My older brother had a 4-track cassette recorder and he played guitar. He was more of a heavy metal kind of guy. He had a tape recorder and a cheap keyboard and I’d fool around with it making stuff. Then I eventually bought my own drum machine and learned how to program it. It was a Korg DDD-5 and I just taught myself and I never stopped. I was always learning. I was doing hip hop tracks too in addition to house tracks.

Black Widow: What differences do you see when you are producing hip hop vs house music?

DJ Emmaculate: One of the things I enjoy so much about house music in comparison to hip hop is the freedom in the creativity. With house music, I feel like I can be more abstract, more diverse and depending on what sub-genre of hip hop you are doing, hip hop can feel more confined in structure, especially now. Coming from our era, late 80s and 90s hip hop it was a different vibe and there was a different value placed on the craft. If I’m producing hip hop, Emmaculate is not the artist. I’m the producer, so my job is to bring the best out of the artist. That being said, I enjoy that process but when I create house music it’s different. It’s really me expressing myself. It’s just a different context of art.

Black Widow: When you are playing clubs and venues, how do you approach a set? What’s your creative process?

DJ Emmaculate: I usually have an idea of what direction I want to go, depending on the environment. I don’t plan out my entire set but I have an idea of the records I want to play. I always play the music that I love, the music in my crates. I’m never going outside of what I love and my integrity, but I leave myself space to read the energy of the room and the crowd. I have a preconceived notion of what I want to do but I improvise depending on the energy of the room.

Black Widow: How do you balance what the people want with what your musical vibe and style are?

DJ Emmaculate: I think that has a lot to do with the types of gigs you take. If you knowingly allow someone to book you that has a crowd or a night that enjoys a form of house that’s outside your spectrum it’s best to say no to that. It’s not bad or good, it’s just different. Sometimes it’s not a good fit and that’s ok. That’s the beauty of house music. There are so many different subcategories; some things are for me and some things aren’t for me. I try not to put myself in those situations because you are either going to play what you want and bomb because the crowd isn’t feeling it or you are going to have to play something you don’t like. Then you aren’t being true to who you are aesthetically as a DJ. The key is gravitating toward crowds that like what you like and exposing them to new music.

Black Widow: Being selective with the gigs you take?

DJ Emmaculate: Exactly! Absolutely!

Black Widow: So let’s talk about “Do It”, your newest release with singer Kaye Fox. You have remixes by Terry Hunter as well. How did this collaboration and project come about?

DJ Emmaculate: I’ve known Terry for about 15 years or so. We have worked with many of the same artists over the years so our paths always crossed at certain points. He told me back in 2008 to make some house tracks and he would put them out on T’s Box to help build me up and get my name out there. I wanted to do it but I was absorbed in some other projects and didn’t really take the initiative or the time to follow up on it. We stayed in contact over the years and what’s interesting is that Terry also had a long-standing relationship with Kaye Fox. He always wanted to work with her as well. Terry always kept the door open for me to release music under T’s Box. I also have a partnership with Julius the Mad Thinker. We grew up together. He’s like my big brother in real life and we produced stuff together. We started doing some records for his album, Perspective, and in that process, I was playing around one day and just made this beat. Kaye was in LA at the time and we talk and share stuff all the time and I asked her to take a listen to what I made. When Kaye heard it, she said wanted to write to it. So, I restructured it in song format and send it. A few months later she recorded it and sent it to me and I was blown away. I knew I had something special on my hands. That was 2015.

That was around the same time, Kaye wrote “Queen” for Angie Fischer, and so, she had been speaking with Terry quite a bit and I had been talking to Roy Davis Jr quite a bit at the same time. I sent the record to Roy and he loved it. Kaye sent the record to Terry and he loved it. They both are like what are you doing with it, but Kaye and I started on a different project and this track just fell on the backburner. Fast forward a few months ago, Julius and I put out a record that was jazzier and I hit Terry up for some feedback. We had a series of long conversations and he put it out there again that I could release music on T’s box. He said I could do a remix of “Queen” and he’d do a remix of “Do It”. I was like cool…like I’m honored. So, I did the remix of “Queen” and as our conversations evolved, we decided to put “Do It” out on T’s Box because we just felt like “Do It” was special and we really wanted to give it the best possible presentation. It was about presenting it on the biggest possible platform, which obviously Terry has. The energy and timing of it all just made sense. He always wanted to work with Kaye and we always wanted to work together. So, he did his remix which is more soulful, and that’s how it came to be. So far it’s been a great look!

Black Widow: Perfect timing it seems! You know its so much stuff said and negativity, DJ Beefs etc. I always like to combat that image and change the narrative because there are so many awesome collaborations in this scene.

DJ Emmaculate: I can tell you for me being a kid from Elgin and having these records from these big names…you know these guys were like superheroes to me. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of them and in some cases I can call them friends. It can be disappointing to see some of the infighting because I’m a fan first. I think the key is to live by example. There is a great synergy among those of us who work together and support each other and who put out positive energy. As for those who subscribe to the other stuff, I just let them be. I gravitate to those that feel like I feel.

Black Widow: It’s so much competition sometimes it can get ugly.

DJ Emmaculate: You know… Having a competitive spirit is good. Iron sharpens iron. When I am working with Terry and watching what he does and hearing the stuff he creates, it’s inspires me. If I hear someone doing something great or hear something being played that’s unreleased that’ inspires me to go out and create. It makes me want to constantly elevate my game and my craft. You can be competitive and be positive spirited. When people start hating, it’s a form of insecurity. There’s no need to hate on someone doing good, it should inspire you to do something good.

Black Widow: That’s how I look at it and I love to see DJs and artists, producers collaborate and link up. It makes it a more enjoyable experience for me as an artist and as a music lover. The party experience and listening experience is more enjoyable.

DJ Emmaculate: Yes and honestly there are so many like that…like for example, take Terry Hunter. There’s no reason for Terry to embrace me, put me on his party at ADE and allow me to showcase my work through his platform. He’s already Terry Hunter. He has his records, his gigs, his labels and his remixes and such. That’s love… he reached back and I respect that. He wants me to be successful and he’s willing to help me in that way and I think a light should be shined on that because there are people here in Chicago helping others “climb up”. It’s not just a bunch some guys sitting around like “Ok we already on… playing in Europe and overseas all the time… we want to keep you guys down cause you are threat to us… nah…it’s not like that. I think the more good stuff we do as a community the more it helps everybody.

Black Widow: Absolutely and it’s a good look for our entire city. I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s about changing the narrative.

DJ Emmaculate: You know you can look at it as a war against one another or you spread love and get love in return. People that come together that are like minded. You know people like (DJ) Peace, Kaye (Fox), Timmy (Triplett), Terry (Hunter), Julius (Mad Thinker); those are all guys that embody that. It’s probably why we have that kind of chemistry and work well together. They are just rays of positive energy and good things happen to them because of it.

Black Widow: I always say collaboration can be a double edge sword. When you get a group of creatives together it can be magical or it can be like mixing oil and water. What makes a great collaboration?

DJ Emmaculate: I think part of it is just compatibility. Some personality types clash and some are compatible. That’s just a universal principle in all relationships. I think creative relationships are the same as personal ones. As you get older and mature, you understand how to listen and consider someone else’s thoughts rather than being too aggressive. I think people that are confident in their ideas can be aggressive sometimes. The key is to know when to be assertive and when to allow someone else to have an idea and humble enough to know you don’t always have the best idea. To work well with others, its’ a give and take. Sometimes you must check yourself and your ego…be open and respect other people’s creativity as well.

Black Widow: What does being a Chicago artist mean to you?

DJ Emmaculate: I’m proud to be from the mecca. I’m proud to have friendships and the opportunity to meet some of the people who created this genre and this movement. I feel fortunate because it’s so saturated right now. Its so many great producers and DJs throughout the world that it’s very easy to become a needle in a haystack. One of the benefits of being a Chicago artist for me personally is that I have a great relationship with a Terry Hunter or a Roy Davis Jr. Having the work that those guys have put into for so many years, has allowed me to cut through the noise if you will, and that’s because of the legacy of our scene here. And that’s part of the value…that’s part of it. I think Chicago has a certain soul to it. Just from the soul, gospel, blues and jazz music that comes from here and that edge. There’s an edge that’s here in real life from the streets that we’ve been around and lived in for so long. That gives us a certain sound and energy in the music we create and you can’t replicate that. Other cities have their own but Chicago is the only Chicago. There’s a unique feeling, edge, and soul that we bring to the music from here that differentiates us. I think some people feel like they must detach themselves from whatever negative stigma that is associated with Chicago to be accepted by the global dance community because of some of the negative perceptions of our city. I look at it differently. I don’t feel like I have to detach from my city in order for me to progress on the world stage. I look at is as a badge of honor that should be celebrated. We come from the place that created this form of music. This started here and that’s something to be valued and respected. I respect the people that came before me that started this thing and inspired me to do it and continue to open doors for me to continue to do it. I think value is perception. To me, I choose to perceive it as I choose to perceive it. Forget the negativity; I think it’s a beautiful thing to be a part of this scene here.

Black Widow: And rep where you’re from. I love that! What an awesome way to end this interview. Thank you so much for speaking with me and congrats on the single as well!

DJ Emmaculate: No doubt

You can catch DJ Emmaculate on social media and on the Groove Sharks Radio Show which airs every 2nd and 4th Weds at 5pm CST at www.dancegruv.net.

Instagram - @djemmaculate

Twitter - @djemmaculate

FB - https://www.facebook.com/djemmaculate

Mixcloud - https://www.mixcloud.com/djemmaculate/

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/djemmaculate

Until next time, See ya on a Dance Floor!

Black Widow

#Blk Widows Web #Black Widows Web #Chicago House Music #DJ Emmaculate #Traxsource #Ts Box Records

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