I definitely knew after we made this that
Logic would definitely like this, but I didn’t
think he’ll go the direction that he went
on it.
I was making this on some, “Ayy. Let’s go.”
It still has that vibe, but he’s saying
really really awesome, important stuff on
it too which for me it’s great.
It’s like the best of both worlds, and this
is one of my favorites on the album for sure.
I literally met Logic probably two, three
weeks after I started making beats yo.
On U Street in D.C. they would have these
beat battles.
It was the one-year anniversary of when they
started doing it, and I won that beat battle.
And what’s so crazy about it too is that
they had local rappers open up for the beat battle.
That’s kind of how poppin’ it was at the
time.
I remember seeing him and being like, “This
dude is tight.”
And he hit me up on Twitter and was like,
“Yo I heard you killed it. Let’s link up,” Whatever.
We did like two records, three records that
first day and he was like
“Man when I get on I’m ‘bout to bring you on.”
For some reason he fucks with the vision,
or something and now here we are.
So “Take It Back,” I think the first thing
I started off is with these drums.
As you can see in the mixer, there’s literally
nothing on it.
I like to keep my kicks dry, ‘cause sometimes
when you put compression on it it kind of
loses that edge.
So I just keep it super dry.
Just making sure it’s knockin’.
Super simple snare.
And I like my snares punchy too.
Don’t really use claps that much.
I just like snares super punchy.
And then even on this, nothing on it.
Literally nothing on it.
Just super dry.
But then the cool thing is the hi-hats,
that the kick isn’t playing.
It’s just normal hi-hats.
I put this thing called the Fruity Standard.
F.L. Studio. Fruity Peak Controller.
And make sure you unmute it too.
And then put that on the kick.
And then you put your hi-hats, right click
the level on the mixer and then you can link
it to the controller, meaning link it to the
kick drum.
So you literally loop the hi-hat to the same
plug-in as the kick drum.
And then what’s really cool is that you
invert it, meaning the volume goes to zero
when the kick happens on the hi-hats.
And then you accept that, and then you can
hear it.
You can even look at the mixer.
Super simple, and then with the snare.
Kinda gave it that little bounce.
And I love putting my hi-hats to the right
on the grid, meaning they are not perfectly
quantized. On beat.
‘Cause sometimes when the hi-hat is too
on beat it sounds too robotic.
So I got a little space on it.
A little breath.
You can even see if I open it up.
I got a little room on there at the end.
That makes it sit on the kick a little harder
too.
Sometimes I notice if the hi-hat is too on
point, it makes the kick sound kind of wack.
So if I slide it to the right a little bit,
it’ll sit nice on the kick.
And then open hi-hat.
I actually pitched this one down 400 cents,
which is 400 semitones.
I can play it normally.
It’s kind of higher up and it’s longer.
But what I did is shortened it, and pitched
it down .
And then so the next day I had these, went
to the studio with my man Bobby Campbell.
Shout out to Bobby, he helped me co-produce
this record “Take It Back.”
We were just going through sounds, and he
had this one crazy loop.
And it fades out.
And that’s kind of what we had and I was
like, “I made these drums yesterday.”
So I chopped it up, I pitched it down and
it kinda went to like….
Slow it down a little bit.
I pitched it down like a semitone.
It kind of gave it a raw feel as opposed to
the higher one, kinda faster.
So I had these right, and then with these
drums.
I was like, “Okay, this kinda has a nice
little bounce to it.”
Still pretty simple.
Let me add this, ‘cause I feel that vocal
kind of sets it off.
The way Logic was rapping on it, it kind of
answered what he was saying.
This is my favorite part, when I did the 808s
man.
Super simple, but I like distorting my 808s
too.
Just to make it sound a little different.
Super “saw-y.”
And then what’s cool about this too in F.L.
you can put this thing called portamento
or like glide.
It can make it sound like it’s gliding almost.
Just at the very end, you know?
And then once I added that…
And honestly man, this beat took me like 15
minutes, 20 minutes man.
There’s brilliance in simplicity.
You can always add a lot of stuff to a beat,
but I think if you make every sound super
important to the beat, you don’t need to
add a lot of stuff.
If you take out one of these sounds the beat
isn’t the same.
So I think that is where I like to…everything
is important to this.
You know what I’m sayin’?
Man, I get so excited when I get to go see
a show because I love, first of all seeing
the crowd love and react and appreciate something
that I just made by myself in my room hoping
people would like.
Going to the shows and when they hear it,
they’re singing every word.
It’s amazing man.
I feel so blessed and grateful I get to experience
that.
But it’s also that, it’s amazing.
And second of all it’s a learning experience
for me too because I’ll be in the front
of house trying to enjoy myself, but in my
head I’m like
“Man, this snare isn’t poppin’ right now."
"I gotta pan these hi-hats better.”
So it always keeps me pushing too.
‘Cause I’ll hear other people’s beats
on the same system, and I’m like, “Damn."
"These beats go harder than my shit!”
So I’m going back to the lab.
So it’s inspiring too.
It’s super inspiring.
I love it.
