Corry BanksLast week or so, May 31st, 2016, I was able to finally release SynthBap Volume 1. Many of you may already be familiar, that is if you follow me on IG (many many IG beat vids like alls the time). At any rate, this has been a project long in the making. I wanted to drop something that would showcase what i love most about making music and music production etc. If you know BBoyTech, you know I love tech, hiphop and synths (well, drum machines, samplers, vintage gear, modular synths, coffee… etc.). So, Synthbap is sort of a mashup on display. This is where I go when I’m in that space where beat making and tech exist at the creative crossroads.
SynthBap is the culmination of experimentation with synthesizers and boombap instrumental-ism. Volume 1 was made with an authentic hiphop and boombap aesthetic in mind. The big hard hitting mostly analog drums are from the Analog Boom Bap Vol. 1 drum kit, which is available for you to purchase / download on BeatPPL.com.
All tracks were written, produced, recorded and arranged by yours truly, Corry “BBoyTech” Banks for release on BeatPPL.com.
The mission as of late is to push the limits of hip-hop instrumental-ism while keeping the authenticity in tact. With that, Synth Bap is the first in a series of Synthesized Boom Bap projects meant to launch BeatPPL.com.
As for BeatPPL the label… The larger goal is to launch BeatPPL as niche market boutique digital label for minded producers and artists looking to contribute to and advance the culture by way of slightly non-traditional music production. So, on that particular note, reach out to me if you need a home for your next release.
Circling back to SynthBap, the production toolkit of synths used on Synthbap is an ever evolving group of synths ranging from Moog Minimoog Voyager and Arp Odyssey to the Elektron Analog Four and Novation Bass Station 2. Never one to discriminate, there is some scattered use of a few software synths as well.
The center of the lab is the MPC Ren which acted as the conduit to bring it all together. Sequence after sequence and song after song, the formula remained simple, bangin’ drums and no samples besides the actual synth lines and melodies created within the session… synthesized boom-bap.
Once the songs were completed, every bit of synth parts were sampled into the Ren via an old vintage analog mixer. From there the tracks were recorded to reel to reel tape and finally recorded from tape back to DAW for a bit of old school tape saturation. From DAW the tracks went to mastering.
SynthBap is hiphop instrumental-ism with a heavy synthesizer influence. The premise is boombap elevated to a level of soulful synth filled experimentation. No frills. No fancy hocus-pocus. These are simply banging beats.
The Analog Boom Bap drum kit used on 90% of this project is available at Beatppl.com and hiphopdrumsamples.com.