The Human Touch: A Note About Playing EMPIs Like Various Traditional Music Instruments
The Human Touch: A Note About Playing EMPIs Like Various Traditional Music Instruments
I see the drum pads on my Akai MPC 4000 (and MPC One) drum machine/sampler/sequencer the same way a guitarist sees the strings on his guitar; or the same way a keyboardist sees the keys on his keyboard; or the same way a drummer sees the skinheads on his drums. I don’t merely program my MPC, I play it. This is the same way that most seasoned sample-based beatmakers feel. As Rsonist, one half of the production duo The Heatmakerz puts it, “The MPC is an instrument! Regardless… If I put 10 sounds in 10 pads and I gotta arrange it into a melody, I can do that. I don’t know like… this is a C chord, or whatever it is. But at the end of the day, I know what’s on key, what’s off key, what’s right, what’s wrong…”4
Beatmakers (producers) are not simply clever electronic music production “programmers”. They are also performance artists, much in the same vein of traditional musicians. But what distinguishes beatmakers (producers) from traditional musicians is the fact that beatmakers represent the whole band! Beatmakers are not responsible for just one instrument in the same way that one-instrument-capable traditional musicians are. For every beat, most beatmakers (producers) are responsible for playing (or providing) the drums as well as the string and wind instruments. So EMPIs, like the Akai MPC, represent for us a multi-instrument — an instrument that, in effect, allows us to play and tap into the essence of any instrument that we want. One moment a beatmaker (producer) can be crafting the drums; the next moment he can be laying down bass lines; and the next moment he can be flipping a sample or making a melodic synth phrase. This is one of the most liberating aspects of the beatmaking tradition. Because of this aspect, beatmakers (producers) have the potential to be much more versatile music producers than the average traditional musician.
EMPIs double as music instruments and production hubs that give beatmakers (producers) endless instrumental and musical possibilities when choosing instruments and sounds. And because EMPIs are both instruments and computers, beatmakers (producers) who use software-based setups should be careful to remember the “human touch”, because you can easily become more programmer than musician if you focus more on computing and less on composing. One area to safeguard against this is to use an EMPI with pads (for example a MIDI controller with pads) for triggering sounds; this gives off the feeling of playing something rather than just programming something. And note:
One major characteristic of the Black (African American) music tradition, and all of the music traditions that stem from it, most notably rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, and funk, is that all instruments, particularly the bass guitar, are played in a percussive manner. Thus, playing samples and other sounds on drum pads harkens back and pays homage to that tradition.
Notes:
4. Author interview with Rsonist, The BeatTips Manual, 4th Edition (2007).
