New Spice 1, D Blake ( DJ Quik's son), Winfree and Oncl' Syl'

[Laidback Sounds]

Wassup,

Another new song from the Laidback Sounds camp, hope you' ll like the clean production.



Peace out

[doggfather]

aint like that french part...

[abusive]

Dope. The mix/master is a mind F#ck.
 

[Safe+Sound]

Sounds like something D Blake should be producing instead of rapping on.

[Soopafly DPGC]

Sad that these foreign producers are making beats that sound more Westcoast than our own Westcoast producers.

Love the beat, tight song.

[abusive]

I could hear Bruno on this.

[Laidback Sounds]

Dope. The mix/master is a mind F#ck.

Thanks Dude, its done with very little equipment, I d do even better in a real vintage studio but covid is locking me down on limited ressources but its hip hop we do with what we have haha

[Laidback Sounds]

Sad that these foreign producers are making beats that sound more Westcoast than our own Westcoast producers.

Love the beat, tight song.

Thanks a lot Soopafly, dont be surprised though, half of my family is in the USA, so i might be a foreigner but doing this shit since 1999 haha.
Also you have 2 kind of producers, the ones who found their "luv" musically (g-funk for me) and will always refuse to switch to the trend and don't care to stay relevant in the game and those who want to adapt to the always evolving (i hate this word lol) hip hop sound to make bucks basically. Im in my mid 40s i would look dumb making skinny jeans music but seems some ppl don't mind. To each its own i guess haha.

[⠀]

Could you tell us a little more about the production? What you used? If you mixed down in the box? Workflow? Inspiration? All that good stuff.

[Laidback Sounds]

Could you tell us a little more about the production? What you used? If you mixed down in the box? Workflow? Inspiration? All that good stuff.

Oh yes for sure.
On this track for example , i programed all drums using Dazzie Dee (the OG from the lench mob) drums , he released a pack not so long ago and I demoed it as well on his website for him, real round sounding drums.
Created the full beats with different vsts synthwise, i love Diva vst for example, the triton vst and roland cloud (huge fan of roland sounds i used to own so many of them back in the days). I come from analog but switched to all in the box lately, i love to add live guitars too. For the mixing and mastering my style is not to overcompress things i liek the natural feeling in general, and use lots of analog emulation like in the 90s (waves vsts, softube mainly and fabfilter are my go tos), the difference being is i love the very clean sound neither too bassy or too treebly (high frequencies). Some ppl say sometimes its too clean for hip hop almost rnbish but thats my style hehe we all have to have our own touch.

For the talkbox i called my bro Winfree on this one, he an og playing it since the 80s he is the first wave doing it just a few years after Roger. He is doing a dope verse on one of my other songs here, as you can see i love to do live gfunk using a bit of live instru feeling

[⠀]

Thanks, your mix has the analog warmth that works so well, is essential even, for that westcoast sound.

Whats your favorite album from a production POV? Same when it comes to mix and once again for performance. Can be one or three separate titles, up to you.

I'm guessing Battlecat is your main influence with a sprinkle of Quik built up on the everpresence of Dre. The first for vibe, second for layers and third for mix.

[Laidback Sounds]

Thanks, your mix has the analog warmth that works so well, is essential even, for that westcoast sound.

Whats your favorite album from a production POV? Same when it comes to mix and once again for performance. Can be one or three separate titles, up to you.

I'm guessing Battlecat is your main influence with a sprinkle of Quik built up on the everpresence of Dre. The first for vibe, second for layers and third for mix.

Thanks a lot. So to answer your question, i would say i'm more a disciple of DJ Quik, i also really love Daz productions. They are essentially my 2 biggest influences, Battlecat is a legend too and he's an absolute genius on the prods but his groove has more that delayed motion on the drums that i dont have, he really has his own groove signature drumwise that a lot of indie producers try to reproduce but i dont do that, if you listen to Quik way of grooving its a bit more linear drumwise like funk or pfunk music ( kick clap kick clap with regular hit hats sprinkled with nice percussion sounds like triangles and flexatones for example). BC has a more church background and you can hear it the way he plays them keys as well (he likes to throw chord shops like gospel chords ). The best way to define it would be Quik does G-Funk with p-funk influence, BC more g-funk from soul influence. Maybe im wrong but that s the way i feel it. For Dre he used to be my influence too but he is heavy on the samples , i think i did maybe 5 beats with sample in my 20 years plus of indie producing. Samples are an essential part of hip hop of course but i dont know, i always felt when you sample a full track that contains already all (guitar, bass , keys etc) its a bit like not really making the song or not "owning it" in a way (its only me though, not bashing the sampling art some ppl do it very well).

For the mixing /mastering the important part is to feel the track more than engineering it only like a technician with a cold mind. I mixed the last vynil of Dazzie Dee a few years back and i was being technical with it and he told me he liked the original feel of the premix of the track more and wanted me to reproduce that feel even if it was not as surgical as my mix. He told me something then that resonated , mentioning a day when he was working with George Clinton who told him sometimes even if the track is not mixed with the most clinical way it can sound better if you focus more on keeping intact what vibe the artist wanted to display in his song. As long as you keep a general warmth and balance you don't need to be Bernie Grundman to obtain a satisfactory result basically So  use your ear more than the plugins, i d say the most important is to know your frequencies very well, compressing only if needed and for g-funk not burrying instrus and vocals in tons of delays and reverbs i would say are the 3 top rules. A bit of automations as well allows you to not have all instruments occupying the same frequency range or space which is important for gfunk as its probably the hip hop genre with the more instruments per song, or lets say the most melodic kind of hip hop so arrangements can be complex at times. Its also why modern hip hop sounds so loud they can push it to the max with so less instruments and vocals nothing is really clashing, you have to be careful with gfunk it can get easily crowded with mixing. Like i always say G-funk style is not for the lazy ppl, it can take up from 10 to 20 hours to mix /master only one song.

And finally speakers and soundcard are important to hear everything, id even say room first, a very well treated room helps even more and both are a killer combo. With covid though im in my home studio and its not the best situation in an apartment but we try to do the most we can with what we have hehe by referencing on different mediums (multiple headphones like sennheiser hd650, beyer dt880 which are studio staples) but also studio monitors and of course to finish the famous car sound check like a lot of 40+ years old like me still do up to today haha. Im sure even Dr Dre still doing this car check crazyness, it sounds in the car it sounds everywhere haha

Top mixed album to me : DJ Quik Rythmalism, Tupac All Eyes On me, Bruno Mars -24 carats

[Soopafly DPGC]

So i just found your youtube page and listened to your other stuff....man really great work!

I love that song So Good by The G-Funk league!  Is that a group?  do they have any more songs?

That Cali Life song is tight.

Vibes is an amazing song.

Evolution is great too. 

Aika Zabala is great on these hooks I hope she does more, but i'm not feeling her solo song she's got up on the page.  And your boy Winfree kills it on the talkbox, we need more songs with his talkbox in the chorus.  Not really feeling that MARV guy's couple songs.  Not sure if he's in your camp or not. 

These are the kind of songs that are going to get me through the summer, already have them downloaded on my phone.  These are the smooth summertime vibe songs i've been missing for so long.  Please tell me you have more songs like these coming out soon.  I have to have more songs like this for the summer.  A whole album of songs like this would be so bomb. 

Are there any more producers you know of making tracks like these?  I need more.  I found DS455.  Really good beats too, but all Japanese lyrics. 

[Laidback Sounds]

So i just found your youtube page and listened to your other stuff....man really great work!

I love that song So Good by The G-Funk league!  Is that a group?  do they have any more songs?

That Cali Life song is tight.

Vibes is an amazing song.

Evolution is great too. 

Aika Zabala is great on these hooks I hope she does more, but i'm not feeling her solo song she's got up on the page.  And your boy Winfree kills it on the talkbox, we need more songs with his talkbox in the chorus.  Not really feeling that MARV guy's couple songs.  Not sure if he's in your camp or not. 

These are the kind of songs that are going to get me through the summer, already have them downloaded on my phone.  These are the smooth summertime vibe songs i've been missing for so long.  Please tell me you have more songs like these coming out soon.  I have to have more songs like this for the summer.  A whole album of songs like this would be so bomb. 

Are there any more producers you know of making tracks like these?  I need more.  I found DS455.  Really good beats too, but all Japanese lyrics.

Thanks a lot man for all the reviews i always appreciate when ppl take time to listen and of course yes you can not like everything totally understood
Funny you mention DS455 i met all their camp in Tokyo a few years back, really cool dudes
I actually release a song with Two J (known Japanese rapper) next week it feats as well OG Daddy V from compton and a rapper from Ireland. Its a summer anthem, beat super groovy.My thing is really to put ppl from all around the world on my gfunk. GFunk league is a group i formed but only one song so far, it regroups ppl from san diego, compton , philippines, japan, europe etc, really worldwide stuff. I ll let you know when we release more take care there