Corry BanksIf phonetics is defined as the study of the articulatory and acoustic properties of the sounds of human language, then its safe to say that the Boom Bap Phonetics drum kit is certainly the drum sample equivalent of boom bap articulation.
The Boom Bap Phonetics drum kit is packed with over 170+ drum samples. Each sound was designed from the vinyl up to give your production that good ole boom bap feel and appeal. I’d say to it’s creators at Producer’s Choice “Mission Accomplished!”
The first thing I noticed when auditioning these sounds, even on my computer, was that the sounds were fat and thick. Without making beats with this nicely dirtied up kit yet I still was able to tell that they would be good food for my MPC to munch on with some vinyl sample together as the perfect meal.
Inspired by the sounds and sample techniques of boom bap extraordinaire, Kev Brown, and the late great beat making demigod, J-Dilla, Boom Bap Phonetics is packed with blunt kicks, slappy snares, crisp hats, one shot bass samples and loads of other percussion all neatly packed away into folders labeled by instrument. I know this seems like not much of a feature but, really, and unfortunately, not all drum kit makers keep their kits so nicely organized. This makes my life easier as I aim to keep my library orderly.
I took a bit of time to load the Boom Bap Phonetics drum kit into my MPC 5000. I auditioned all of the sounds and threw together my own pgm. Not that you have to create a pgm to get rolling quickly, the kit comes with a “pgms” folder with 5 preset pgm files (DrumKit, DrumKit2, hiHats, Layerkicks, & TomsNShakers). Its simply force of habit for me to build a kit then get started. At any rate I then proceeded to make a few beats. Here is the outcome.
Made with Boom Bap Phonetics by bboytechreport
So how is the Boom Bap Phonetics drum kit inspired by Kev Brown and J-Dilla, you might ask? Well, the makers of the kit did their due diligence and research to not only find and/or dig up a good crop of one shots that summons the spirit of these two beat makers but they also used the same gear that Kev and J are known to use in their own production. That’s right they actually went thru the trouble to create the kit by using the same filtering techniques, creative EQ & compression, and drum machines. Employing similar technique with the exact same model machines and groove boxes allows the Boom Bap Phonetics drum kit to speak the boom bap vernacular rather well.
The equipment used to create the kit are as follows;
- Akai MPC3000
- SP-303 Sampler
- P-505 Sampler
- Technics 1200 Turntables w/ Dirty Vinyl Drums
Here is a bit of the work flow, if you will, of the processing chain that it took to cook up the Boom Bap Phonetics drum kit… Each sound was recorded from vinyl record and split tested through different chains to get the perfect boom bap sound:
1200 → Preamp → Sp 303 → Product
1200 → Preamp → Sp 505 → Product
1200 → Sp 303 → Product
1200 → Sp 505 → Product
1200 → Preamp → Sp 303 → Mpc 3000 → Product
1200 → Preamp → Sp 505 → Mpc 3000 → Product
Num → Preamp → Sp 303 → Mpc 3000 → Product
Num → Preamp → Sp 505 → Mpc 3000 → Product