Nas Is Already ‘Halfway Through’ His Next Album With Hit-Boy

[waynep]

I'm not the original guy you asked, but it's both an issue with mixing as well as the way he layers sound. Instruments get pushed way to the back, drums way to the front and vocals sit at the center of the mix, always. The main melody is always middy with no warmth, drums always tinny and weak with his 808 style, or overly fat and over processed with his boom bap style. Vocals always have the drums sitting directly on top of them, and the melody is completely detached with reverb on it which is what makes it sound hollow, and why you don't hear the flow meld with the beat. He cuts out the highest frequencies with his samples which leads to a less warm sound, and completely detaches his mids from his low frequencies. Everything sounds separated which leaves a feeling of space in the middle, and thus hollow.

Listen to these two joints back to back and you'll hear it.

Thun lacks a decent high end. There's high hats and the ESG sample, but the hats are so soft in the mix and the ESG sample is only used sparingly, and still doesn't fill enough of the high frequencies. The lack of high end is why the ESG sample releases tension, but still doesn't feel like enough when it comes in. The whole beat sounds more like a bunch of sounds slapped on top of each other than a cohesive piece of music. The violin is so far away from the drums it might as well be on a different song.

With Quantum Leap you can tell the hear the main melody meld right into the low end, so it fits right on top of the bass. The piano is front and center with the vocals and it's all sitting on top of the drums. The piano doesn't sound overly filtered, no heavy reverb, the full frequency range is present, and Alch brings in a bunch of little sound effects to fill in what gaps are left in the high end.

I fukk with Thun a lot, I think it's the best song from KD3 and one of the better beats, but the mix is off. I would have definitely constructed the beat... differently, if it was up to me.

I hear u but I just listened to both.. Thun is the better beat and the better song.

 

[LOST IN THE SAUCE]

It's also the way he uses the samples...on a lot of his beats you can literally hear the pitch-shift and time-stretching artifacts. I first noticed it on Death Row East and I can't unhear it now. And when I went in FL Studio to remake the Thun beat in my own way, it confirmed it - he pitch shifted and time stretched the hell out of it, making the sample sound really bad and not in a good way.

(The typical practice for speeding up or altering the pitch of a sample is to adjust the speed of the whole audio wave because the pitch will change with it and retain the sound fidelity, and from there you just live with whatever the tempo is unless you slow the sample down so much that you can chop it up and replay it at the key you want it. You do them separately and the quality will falter, though if you don't go too crazy with it, it's not noticeable. But Hit-Boy pitch-shifted the sample 8 semi-tones and time-stretched it on top of it. That fukks up the sound quality something serious.)

As much as I hate to agree with that cac that reviewed Magic for Pitchfork, he did have a critique of Hit-Boy that was somewhat legit - "Hit-Boy’s depthless beats are stately at a distance but chintzy up close, like music played through a mangled iPhone speaker."

I never actually looked into the Thun sample, but listening to it now I don't know if that's what the problem is.

First off, of course Hitboy got the sample from some royalty free music thing called "Free Music Egypt."

It doesn't seem like he did too much time stretching, because if you play the video at 1.25x speed it's pretty similar to Thun already. He probably tried to filter out the little bright sounds speckled throughout and ended up shaving off the top end. He probably poured all the reverb on to it trying to hide how janky it sounded afterwards.

Death Row East doesn't seem like it was super pitch shifted/time stretched either. I think he's just going overboard using a bit crusher, or something like RC-20, to add a "vintage" texture to the samples. I don't really have a problem with that, but it does stick out a lot when he blends clean and sharp synths and/or tinny drums with the stomped on middy samples.

I filter, bit crush, time stretch and pitch shift the shyt out of samples and I can usually clean it up better than he did, and when I can't I lean into the texture and build around it. I'll put a bit crusher on my master track just to get everything to meld better sometimes. It's not something that makes or breaks a beat IMO. Pete Rock stomps the shyt out of his samples and it's part of his signature sound. I think it's just how he decided to use it. I think it's fair to say the sound texture and coloring on his production is just not great,

I hear u but I just listened to both.. Thun is the better beat and the better song.

I agree, like I said I love the song, but it's Nas and the violin sample doing most of the heavy lifting. If a better producer remade the beat it would be 10x better than what it is.

 

[JustCKing]

But you're still misrepresenting the argument, especially Ziggiy's piggybacking off of this with "bUt Q-tIp aNd PrEmO mAdE cOmMeRcIaL sTuFf ToO"

Perhaps the problem is the user you responded to isn't fond of what qualifies as commercial music today rather than simply being anti-commercial on principle? Or simply that what qualifies as commercial music today doesn't play to Nas' strengths?

Or he's suggesting that Nas is only working with Hit Boy for commerce vs working with Hitboy for the art of it. Hit Boy has made music that is commercially successful, but since when has Nas sought out a producer simply for commercial gain?

And I was speaking more so of the attitude of a section of the Nas base and even this forum in general towards certain producers and sounds. If Nas announced a new album with the following line up: Boi-1da, T-Minus, Pharrell, and Timbaland, you can't tell me there wouldn't be this whole idea pushed that Nas was only working with them to get a hit or that he was going for a more commercial sound. Then it would be dismissed as wack before one note of it was heard.

 

[prophecypro]

I mean look, some of us make music or just have a stronger ear - it's not a matter of looking for problems, we're just able to articulate in-depth why something feels off and from the outside it can come off as nitpicky and granular.

Yeah but there’s also people who make music and beats who say Hit Boy and Nas work together pretty well. Blueprint and illogic here talked about it and if you look at their older videos they were very open on thinking Nas has terrible beats before even laughing about it
So even people who create music hear things differently

Like I’m seeing people here critique hit for using stock/ free samples and not just look at would people still enjoy how the final product come out . Nevermind that we’ve already seen some golden age producers beats fell off cause it was too pricey to clear samples

 

[3rdWorld]

I need cold hard gritty production..

 

[The War Report]

Hit Boy beats are hella mid to me.

 

[King Ming]

I never actually looked into the Thun sample, but listening to it now I don't know if that's what the problem is.

First off, of course Hitboy got the sample from some royalty free music thing called "Free Music Egypt."

It doesn't seem like he did too much time stretching, because if you play the video at 1.25x speed it's pretty similar to Thun already. He probably tried to filter out the little bright sounds speckled throughout and ended up shaving off the top end. He probably poured all the reverb on to it trying to hide how janky it sounded afterwards.

Death Row East doesn't seem like it was super pitch shifted/time stretched either. I think he's just going overboard using a bit crusher, or something like RC-20, to add a "vintage" texture to the samples. I don't really have a problem with that, but it does stick out a lot when he blends clean and sharp synths and/or tinny drums with the stomped on middy samples.

I filter, bit crush, time stretch and pitch shift the shyt out of samples and I can usually clean it up better than he did, and when I can't I lean into the texture and build around it. I'll put a bit crusher on my master track just to get everything to meld better sometimes. It's not something that makes or breaks a beat IMO. Pete Rock stomps the shyt out of his samples and it's part of his signature sound. I think it's just how he decided to use it. I think it's fair to say the sound texture and coloring on his production is just not great,

I agree, like I said I love the song, but it's Nas and the violin sample doing most of the heavy lifting. If a better producer remade the beat it would be 10x better than what it is.

Can Coli producers remake the Thun beat? Yall found the sample already

 

[spliz]

fukk NO

I wouldn’t mind a Nas/Al album. I think it would be dope. But I’m not thirsty for it over Hit cause Nas got chemistry with Hit.

 

[spliz]

I hear u but I just listened to both.. Thun is the better beat and the better song.

Whoa. We not gonna compare my 2 GOATS like this. Both tracks classic. lol.

 

[ItWasWritten]

God

It’s your humble servant Written

Please free us from the demonic grips of Hit-Boy
That we may once again have eloquently mixed and talented production. That we may once again hear from originators and not cheap imitators. Please free us from the wicked spell that has come over my people (Nas super stans), who seemingly overate this whole 5 album run.

In the mighty name of the Most High, Amen.

 

[waynep]

Whoa. We not gonna compare my 2 GOATS like this. Both tracks classic. lol.

Wasn't nothing crazy about it to me lol

 

[King Ming]

 

[Piff Perkins]

I get the complaints about the lack of texture or warmth in his production but my issue moreso that sometimes he sounds more like a beatmaker than a producer, and you can also tell some things are being rushed. Not just the pitching that was mentioned but the vocal punches are extremely obvious and jarring on some tracks, especially Magic 2. Not to bring up Premo but...when he talked about working on that last track they did for the EP, Break Beats, he said it took some time to get Nas to redo some vocals. It was mentioned simply in discussing the creation of the track, not to shyt on Nas (iirc it was a scheduling thing so he had to wait for Nas to get back to the studio to complete the track). But I guarantee you whatever vocal performance Premo wanted him to redo would have been kept by Hit Boy regardless of whether the tone matched the previous punch.

And perhaps that's part of the allure of working with him, and the chemistry. Not being told to re-do a bunch of stuff and being able to record multiple songs a day, as Nas has mentioned before, sounds like a good deal if you just want to knock projects out. My issue with fans/stans is when you say you'd be fine with King's Disease 10...why? Like, why would you want an artist to be comfortable or working the same way over and over. Surely most artists would say feeling uncomfortable or challenged is the key to unlocking creativity. And while I'm sure someone is gonna say "you don't know if Hit Boy has made Nas re-do vocals"...I'm sure he has, fine. But when you can literally hear lines stitched together with different tones/takes that's...not good. It gives parts of the albums a mixtape quality. That's a mixing issue which goes to the engineering but end of the day, the producer is in charge.

 

[THE 101]

I like your break down ….. what do u mean his beats sound hollow?

It's hard to describe....it's like when someone like Madlib flips a sample you can almost hear the dirt of the original vinyl. There's a texture to it that seems missing in Hit-Boy's production. It's like he takes that sound and sands the edges down. He can make soulful beats that don't feel soulful. He can make grimey beats but they don't hit the way an Alchemist or Havoc beat would. His beats have a flatness that I don't really like.

 

[Supa]

Or he's suggesting that Nas is only working with Hit Boy for commerce vs working with Hitboy for the art of it. Hit Boy has made music that is commercially successful, but since when has Nas sought out a producer simply for commercial gain?

And I was speaking more so of the attitude of a section of the Nas base and even this forum in general towards certain producers and sounds. If Nas announced a new album with the following line up: Boi-1da, T-Minus, Pharrell, and Timbaland, you can't tell me there wouldn't be this whole idea pushed that Nas was only working with them to get a hit or that he was going for a more commercial sound. Then it would be dismissed as wack before one note of it was heard.

Makes sense since they're commercial producers. If the line up was Muggs, Conductor, Camo Monk, and Daringer everyone would assume he wants the Griselda sound right?

You're mistake is saying that everyone would say the music is wack. Would I be excited at the lineup, no but I'd still listen and judge it based on what I'm hearing because I've liked plenty of music from those producers even though that's not my go to style of music. Y'all think it's impossible to like Premier and Pharrell at the same time and that's bullshyt.