Good Music Production Is Key to a Great Track Urban Styles April 2021

0:00 We are the sons of the desert

We are the sons of the desert. If you don't know anything about Laurel and Hardy, then you probably think I'm an absolute nutcase. Well, in fact, even if you do know a lot about Laurel and Hardy, I am a nutcase. Don't care. Right, so I've got some of the beats releases from Citypool April 2021. I'm going to play for you the tracks, but also what I want to do is talk a little bit about production. Now, recently I made a video about me explaining that I think this is my personal opinion, alright? This isn't something... No one said you've got to say this. It's just my personal opinion and we're entitled to that. I said I truly believe personally that the top 40 UK, well in fact generally the top 40s around the world are dead. They're gone. They're finished. They don't make any sense anymore because...

What you're given now is basically fodder. You're given this manufactured crap. The same artists, the same sound, the same shit, time and time again, and it's just getting to the stage where it's like, come on, let's just go outside and do something real instead of listening to that crap again. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to really rile on in this video, but let's be honest. Let's just look at fact here. Absolute... Fact. Modern day radio stations that are well known, that attract a lot of listeners, will play the same tracks time and time again because those are the ones they want you to listen to. And by definition, the more you listen to them, the more likely you are to buy them and so on and so on. And it just goes, does my head in. Anyway, what I'm going to do here is I've gone through the entire selection.

CDPool April 2021 The Beats releases, also known as Urban. And I've chosen some of the tracks that I feel have got a lot of good production. Now what I like about the releases of this month is there's a lot more sort of UK garage in there. But what is production? Now first of all, before I play any tracks, I'm not saying you need a good ear for this. What you have to do is, when you listen to a modern day track, and if it's got some rapper mumbling on about his mum's just not giving him some pocket money or something like that, or maybe he's just, I don't know, someone scratched his ride, then... And that's all there is with a beat that goes... And then this bass line that goes... But that's what it sounds like all the way through.

2:47 You're right, we've got 20 minutes, yeah we can do it

Then that is a track with not much production. In other words, the producer and the artist have gone, hey listen, you know, we need to really go down the off-licence in the next half an hour, otherwise it's going to close. Let's just put together that massive tune that the company will promote for us and we'll make a million. You're right, we've got 20 minutes, yeah we can do it. In fact, 20 minutes, we can make 7 tracks! That's bad production. On the other hand, there are a lot of tracks out there. Where the producer has spent, producers have spent a great deal of time to make the tracks. Alright, so I'm going to play first of all, they're all in alphabetical order, Ancient Astronauts featuring Blaze V. My son's name's Blaze, what a good name. I like this one. Now first of all, the introduction, alright? They spent time putting the introduction together. Now again...

A lot of people seem to think, oh you don't like modern day hip hop and stuff like that. It depends what it is. Listen. This is the shit. This has got it. The sounds in the background, the energy, the feel. There's depth to this track. There's a feeling to it as well. This is good production. Alright, and then I went to track three. Oh, we might have a problem with copyright issues on this. Turn that down. This is Leave the Door Open Main Mix. I'm probably going to get a hell of a load of shit from playing this but I'll try and play a little bit of it. Okay, again, there's production here, there's feeling to it. You know... It's almost, you can feel as though there was a real drummer here. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a real drummer and a real keyboard player instead of the producer just playing some, hitting some keys on the laptop and copying and pasting it, which is what happens. And again, I'm talking a lot over this so YouTube doesn't find out that I'm playing a tune and block this video because there's quite a bit of time that takes, or quite a bit of time put into these videos for you, okay?

5:08 Quick tip here as well

That was Leave the Door Open. Then I went into track number seven, which is When I Go Back. Okay, so this is the original mix. Now again, like I said earlier, there's a lot more Speed Garage, UK garage style in with this selection and it's really good, very vibrant. I'm going to show you a quick tip here as well now. Now even though this... Track. This doesn't sound as though there's much going on. There are many layers to this track. What do I mean by layers? Well, you've got the vocal, the sample, you've got the beat, you've got the melody, and then you've got that vibrant kind of underlying feel, alright? Whereas a lot of artists or producers, they'll just say, right, I want a beat, I want a bass line and a melody, leave it at that, alright? Right, you listen to this.

That works. This is what you do to give a track more balls, alright? It's so simple. It's the simplest thing in the world, but you know what? I'm going to make this track now just have so much more energy and vibe. You're going to go, it's that easy. Right, I'm going to put that now to wide. Yep, the wide feature to 100%. I'm going to keep master tempo on. The original speed of that track is about, let's have a look, it was about 125. So I'm going to put that up now to 145. Alright? Now check this out. Here we go. This is the shit! Seriously, listen to it. See? What have I done? I've made it go faster. I've given this track just balls and energy. Whoa! But I kept the master tempo on. If I disengage that, it sounds like Mickey Mouse. No. There. See? Okay, a simple tip for you. Okay, Thief in the Night. Check this out. Check this out. Okay? These sort of tunes, you could probably have put those together. Harmonically, they seem to work really well. Now, this is already quite fast. This is 132 BPM, so do you see what I mean about the speed sometimes?

8:15 Speed, crack, cocaine, amphetamines, anything

It works, not with all house music, but it definitely works with UK style speed garage. Speed up a bit more. So much more energy, but it's really important to make sure that you keep that key lock on, also known as master tempo. If you disengage that, then it's going to sound like Mickey Mouse on steroids. Speed, crack, cocaine, amphetamines, anything. Right, okay. Hi there, hi there, it's Mickey here. Look. No, I haven't. It's first thing in the morning. Mind you, I'm on my second cup of coffee. Put that down there. Right, okay, where are we? What was it going to do now? Number eight. I want them to go to 16. 17. Nope. 16. Again, what I'm doing is finding the tracks that I feel have got loads of production. Very good quality. Let's listen again. This one here is Rain and Sunshine, the original mix. I'll tell you what, there is some good shit with the Urban this month.

Seriously. Now again, it sounds very empty, but that overlying melody in the background, there's a lot of time being taken putting that together. I love it. Do you know what? If you were on the beach now somewhere really hot and you had your Bluetooth speaker with you and you played this, I doubt it very, very much that people would complain near you about you playing music. This is listenable. This is the sort of tune You know, auntie, uncle, nephew, niece, cousin, grandma, granddad of however old, aged between 90 and dead would listen to and they'd go like, this is relaxing. This is a summertime tune. Definitely. Rain and sunshine. Okay. Right, what am I just going to do? Number 20 now. So let's look at track 20. This one here is Time To Change, the original mix. Here we go. You see now, if you listen to that right...

10:34 It comes in, boom, not just a beat

It comes in, boom, not just a beat. It comes in with the beat and the melody. It's already there. It just goes, you know what? It's not like someone going, excuse me, can I come in? It's like, here I am! I'm on a one today, aren't I? Yeah. Time to change the original mix. Put it forward a bit. Big badass. And that really, that bass line, it wraps it all together. I can imagine on a big sound system, this will blow people away. Okay, track number 21, and that would have worked as well. Just a transition, one, two, three, boom, straight to the other one. This is body-to-body. Again, same kind of thing. They just said, listen, let's just start the track, you know? We don't want to tease people, we just want to go, here it is, boom. Liking it. Just that melody in the background. There's quite a few layers to that melody.

One melody, there's a couple overlapping each other there. Keys in there, there's a bit of guitar, really nice vocals. Not too sure about the male vocal though, but there you go. I mean, come on, you can't have everything, can you? Alright, so once again, Urban Releases, also known as Thieves for April 2021. There is a link in the description to CDPool, and if you are interested in taking part in CDPool, then drop them a line. And if you're a newbie, you will get 50% off your first two months of downloads. Now terms and conditions apply, it's not for every single download, but... You can always ask him and see what you can get. Fill your boots. Why not? Thank you for watching. Don't forget, if you're watching this video and you haven't subscribed, hit that subscribe button. It doesn't cost you a penny, but it does help me, alright? I'm a bit wacky, a bit strange, and I do make random videos including on cryptocurrency, riding a bike, and stroking pussycats. Of course, the black fluffy ones that go meow!

Don't go there. Thank you for watching, practice and enjoy.

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