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Most aspiring producers envision the story of their career unfolding like Premier’s or Blaze’s. Working in the studio, recording emcees, banging out an accompaniment on an MPC. However, while the respect and prestige of an accomplished music production career is highly motivating, it can overshadow other profitable niches. On such niche is Read more

To mix a song correctly, and to build your audio mixing skills, there is nothing more important than a quality monitoring system. At Hit Talk, we’ve stressed this important truth over and over. Yet with today’s technology, we’re not just talking about aural monitoring. Coupling with visual monitoring can only improve your mixes. An ideal professional monitoring Read more

Out of the hundreds of reader questions we have answered during Hit Talk’s first year, perhaps none is more persistent than how to attain a hotter, better-mastered mix. It’s a persistent question because attaining a bold, big sound requires inspired production wizardry and skill at every single stage of the music-making process - from recording Read more

A few months ago, in one of our Reason production tips, we wrote about how to use mixing gear (or the Reason mixer) to transform mono sounds into captivating stereo images. Since then, many of our readers have asked privately how to replicate that effect using a standard software DAW such as Audacity, or Pro Tools without having to route through a Read more

Rap and Hip Hop music is full of chopping and sampling. Many Hip Hop producers - like Chuck D, J Dilla, and DJ Premier just to name a few - construct mixes by slicing out one-shot samples from existing third-party loops and songs, extracting brief sections of audio, and re-combining them into a remixed collage of sound. Audio editing software like Read more

Classic, timeless Hip Hop music is built on a solid foundation of soulful, yet addictive rhythm. So far, at Hit Talk, we’ve addressed many melodic production concepts, taking rhythm and basic beat-making skills as given. Still, many readers have asked for specifics in creating compelling rhythms and beat-making. In this tip article, we get busy revealing the Read more

If you want to produce Hip Hop - in particular, if you want to produce crunk or grime - you’re gonna to have to master synth skills. Crunk music in particular makes widespread use of classic synth timbres, using clean sine, triangle, and square waves for melodic leads, while reserving harsh, overdriven sawtooth sounds for basslines. Grime is slightly Read more