Hip Hop Production Quiz

Hip Hop Production: Creation of Hip Hop Music in a Recording Studio

• Hip hop production refers to the creation of hip hop music in a recording studio.

• Hip hop producers may be credited as the record producer or songwriter and supervise recording sessions.

• Hip hop instrumentals are colloquially referred to as beats or musical compositions, while the composer is called either a programmer, songwriter, or beat maker.

• The Roland TR-808 drum machine was introduced in 1980, which was an analog machine with a step-programming method.

• Sampling is using a segment of another's musical recording as part of one's own recording.

• Turntablism spread widely in hip hop culture, and the Technics SL-1200 remained the most widely used turntable in DJ culture for the next several decades.

• Synthesizers are used often in hip hop production for melodies, basslines, as percussive "stabs", for chords and for sound synthesis, to create new sound textures.

• In hip hop, a multi-track recorder is standard for recording, and DAWs such as Apple's Logic, Avid's Pro Tools and Steinberg's Nuendo and Cubase have largely replaced Digital ADAT tape recorders.

• Generally, professional producers opt for a condenser microphone for studio recording, mostly due to their wide-range response and high quality.

• During the 2010s, many chart-topping hits revolved around music producers using digital audio workstation software (for example FL Studio) to create songs from sampled sounds.

• The most widely used drum machine is the analog Roland TR-808, which has remained a mainstay for decades.

• The use of synthesizers was popularized by Dr. Dre during the G-funk era, and in the 2000s, Jim Jonsin, Cool and Dre, Lil Jon, Scott Storch, and Neptunes continue to use synths.Hip Hop Production: Equipment, Techniques, and Producers

• Hip hop is a music genre that originated in African American and Latino American communities in the United States in the 1970s.

• Hip hop production is the creation of hip hop music in a recording studio. While the term encompasses all aspects of hip hop music creation, including recording the rapping of an MC, a turntablist or DJ providing a beat, playing samples and "scratching" using record players and the creation of a rhythmic backing track, using a drum machine or sequencer, it is most commonly used to refer to recording the instrumental, non-lyrical and non-vocal aspects of hip hop.

• The equipment used in hip hop production includes digital audio workstations (DAWs), samplers, drum machines, synthesizers, turntables, and microphones.

• DAWs and software sequencers are used in modern hip hop production for the composer as software production products are cheaper, easier to expand and require less room to run than their hardware counterparts.

• Live instrumentation is not as widespread in hip hop, but is used by a number of acts and is prominent in hip hop-based fusion genres such as rapcore.

• Throughout history the drum set has taken numerous identities and live drummers contribute to modern-day hip-hop much more than what meets the ear.

• Instrumental hip hop is hip hop music without vocals and gives the producer the flexibility to create more complex, richly detailed and varied instrumentals.

• In contemporary hip hop production, the title producer has become a catch-all term that could indicate one or many types of contributions to any particular project.

• Some of the different facets of the contemporary hip hop producer include the executive producer, the recording engineer, the mixing engineer, the mastering engineer, and the beatmaker or track producer.

• Popular DAWs include Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Pro Tools, Cubase, and Reason.

• Some of the most influential hip hop drummers include Questlove, J Dilla, Ahmir Thompson, Clyde Stubblefield, and James Brown.

• Notable instrumental hip hop artists include DJ Shadow, RJD2, J Dilla, Pete Rock, Large Professor, MF DOOM, Nujabes, Madlib, Damu the Fudgemunk, and Wax Tailor.