Hip Hop Artists Developing Open Source Beat Making Software

First time accepted submitter caseyb89 writes "Beat making software is incredibly expensive, and the high price limits usage to those who can afford it. Two professors at UNC have a dream of allowing all artists access to beat making software, regardless of income level. They are rallying the community on a project to create open source beat making software. The two professors double as DJs and hip hop artists, and they recently spoke at Rio+Social."

Comments

Nice Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

But Hip Hop artists just pirate whatever software they need. The only real expense are decent microphones, mixers, preamps and speakers.

full disclosure: I am a sound engineer living in NC who works with hiphop artists.

Re:Nice Idea

[ackthpt]

I thought hip hop artists just ripped off other peoples beats?

Honestly, they're the people, on the receiving end who most embody Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", as they need beats, bass tracks, synth riffs, etc. But try to get them to pay for, or even credit the original artist, ah, that's where they become capitalists.

Re:Nice Idea

[oldmac31310]

I'll get off your lawn. Yours is a really narrow minded view. The fact is, both 'real' musicians and people who can't play at all benefit greatly from the myriad of music software and hardware that have come along in the past 20 years. Using your logic (no pun intended) we should remove technology from music completely and go back to only using our voices, clapping our hands and banging rock and sticks. Think about a piano for example. It is a technological marvel. Should we ban it just because it makes it too easy and the musician doesn't even have to pluck or strike the strings? I consider myself a real musician and I am very happy indeed to make use of whatever tools are available.

Please Define

[CanHasDIY]

"Beat making software."

FWIW, Hydrogen is free.

Re:Please Define

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen is not a pro level piece of software. We tried it, and ended up hiring a drummer instead.

The results are far superior, at least for our style of music.

Re:Please Define

[djlemma]

They are mostly talking about Reason. It's a software simulator for a bunch of real-life studio hardware that musicians used to have to purchase and hook up and find places to put. So, instead of having to spend $50,000 to outfit a studio with keyboards, synths, patch bays, mixers, effects, compressors, cables, etc., you can simulate it all with Reason for something like $450. But to the people in TFS, this is too much money still, and they would like to make a free equivalent. It's noble, but as others have mentioned there are other options that do not have nearly so polished and authentic sounds and interfaces, but are much cheaper or free.

Re:Please Define

[Megane]

I'll accept that when the machines can throw up like a real human drummer.

LMMS

[MrSome]

Is LMMS not good enough?

IMO, that type of music is so generic anymore, I'm surprised some mathematician hasn't created an algorithm to generate hit songs on command.

You know, something like (BPM / Key + Attractiveness of Prospective Performer) = $$$

Why?

[zmooc]

Why the hell does this make slashdot?! So we have people with a dream and they are calling for others to help them... Why would anybody do that if they could just as easily help the guys behind great stuff like Ardour, LMMS, Rosegarden, Miep, Hydrogen and the many other applications that aim to do somewhat exactly what these people dream of?!

Why don't these dreamy people join any of the existing projects?

Re:Why?

[X0563511]

Because those programs you mention are tuned towards actual composition, not hip-hop "beats" creation.

(translation: too complicated)

linuxsampler dropped the ball

[akirapill]

The centerpiece of any hip hop studio is the sampler. There exists a very high quality open source sampler called linuxsampler but they are not included in any mainstream linux repos because of their bone-headed, legally invalid licence. So you have to build it from source, a painful process that I've never been able to do in under 2 hours. There is a lot of high quality foss studio software out there, but as long as developers keep dropping the ball like this we're going to see more reinventing of the wheel like this and not a lot of progress. An excellent foss program for beat-making I would recommend is qtractor, but it does not come with a sampler.

You lost me at "Hip Hop Artist"

[JudgeFurious]

Isn't that like saying "Cheeseburger Physicist".

No, it is not.

[logicassasin]

I've struggled with LMMS for years. I give a try quite often and the end result is torturous. It tries hard to be FL Studio, but "different" but lacks so much that making anything is just entirely too awkward. I've considered contributing to the project but simply don't have the time to invest in it.

I stick with FL Studio and Cubase for my hip hop work (with ProTools M-Powered strictly to send out sessions to studios).

Re:No, it is not.

[logicassasin]

It's free... if you can afford Cubase/Pro Tools. Then yes... use those. But this guy doesn't want to pay... so why would something like LMMS not be good enough to teach someone to make a beat? We're not talking about producing a track for Dr. Diddy, or Jay Snoop.

Why does it seem like, when it comes to software, people don't apply the "beggars can't be choosers" mentality?

"I don't want to pay for it."

"Ok, here you go. I did this in my spare time!"

"That's not what I wanted... this sucks. Spend more of your free time and make it better."

" ... ?"

If's not about whether or not it's "free", it's about whether it's functional or not. Your argument is a typical cop-out whenever the functionality of a FOSS app is called into question. If you've made the decision to write something like this and release it for the world to see, then you need to be prepared to address issues people have with the software. Yes, we could always go out and buy another piece of software instead of using that which you wrote for free, but we're giving your stuff a shot to look for that alternative so being receptive to criticism is part of the process. If the authors didn't want anyone to speak ill of their software, they should have kept it to themselves. Part of the open source process is people contributing to it's usability by giving input like "Hey, maybe you could make plugin selection a bit more obvious to the end user, it's a pain to deal with right now". We all may not have coding skills, but our input on workflow is just as valid.

I've tried Rosegarden under Linux and it works pretty well but several key VST plugins I use simply don't work. Were it not for that, I'd recommend it all day long.

FWIW, FL Studio's basic package costs only $49, with a more functional version at $99. While I understand that some people believe that they can't afford $99, if you're really serious about music you will save for it. Same for Cubase: Steinberg offers an entry level version of Cubase for $99 that's rather well featured for the price (serious music can be made with the "Elements" package). EnergyXT is not only cheap (€59), but also cross platform, working on Windows, MacOS, AND Linux!

For the musician on a budget, there are options. FOSS is one of them if you can find an application you like. LMMS is just not that package for me.

Rosegarden and Buzztard (Jeskola Buzz)

[HalAtWork]

Rosegarden and Buzztard are great for such purposes, and are both open source.

List of available open-sourced Beat / Drum Machine

[Taco Cowboy]

Okay, here's the list that I can find:

Hydrogen
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/?p=main

OrDrumBox
http://www.ordrumbox.com/

OpenBeatBox
Mac
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Audio/Open-Beat-Box.shtml
Linux
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Open-Beat-Box-4095.shtml

Koblo
http://koblo.com/beta

Free Cycle
http://freecycle.redsteamrecords.com/

Anymore?

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