perfect is the enemy of great

[@TonyBlackNYC]

Lots here, if you can get into it...comments are always welcome, it helps me to know if I'm too far out there. Have a great weekend and be sure to watch this 1000's of times.

[@1337murk]

Always a good day when you upload 🔥

[@poweredbyWatts]

Thanks for showing how the sausage is made at a high level. As much as I enjoyed Pensado, it seems the populous have taken flavor and choice to a whole other dimension besides suggestion. Like your previous comment about Neve VRs as opposed to everyone’s creamsicle 1073 that is cloned a billion times.

[@kingvintage2227]

Facts …. To many care about the wrong thing in hiphop

[@johnkeeler3762]

Agree 1000% the glitches are what makes it golden. Perfection is the killer of spontaneous creativity and can choke the life out of art

[@soupforare]

Legal pad is the protip- Get a legal pad or black&red or mini composition book, anything WRITE WRITE WRITE Ideas, notes, settings, musings, feelings, what you had for lunch, anything. On going by ear, the MPC500 is under, sometimes well under, $200 these days. It's a complete zen box, no waveform display but with modern niceties, 32-voice, 128MB RAM, CF, and a hell of a lot easier to use than an old Mirage. I wholeheartedly suggest it to anyone interested in the old school workflow that doesn't want to roll the dice on ancient kit.

[@RitualFlip]

The 500 is super underrated, love that thing

[@jameshamley7304]

new favourite channel. don’t overthink it too much, the stream of consciousness reveals so many gems

[@ItsTheFuzzMan]

Young MC, Delicious Vinyl, The Dust Brothers, Paul's Boutique....This is a hip-hop channel.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

clues

[@ItsTheFuzzMan]

@TonyBlackNYC Red Alert at 1520 Sedgwick with a pair of PL-15's

[@johnringopowers4527]

I STILL use the ASR-10 to sample and put together my joints. I know about using your ears to find , sample and chop...its loose and never exact, just the way I like it. Love these videos good Sir. Thank you

[@JamBurglar]

Talking about with sample chopping by ear ... this is one of the reasons it's so fun to make beats on the SP 1200. The whole workflow on that machine is slow, but its also intuitive and fun.

[@RunOfTheHind]

@@JamBurglar It ain't slow. Computers are too fast. No time for contemplation and no need for meaningful decisions.

[@bizon33obroty]

Thanks Tony for your honest opinion about our track.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

very welcome, keep up the great work!

[@VinylBliss]

You are not too far out there. Keep the flow going , much appreciated and very informative on the mixing theory:)

[@VibeWeaver88]

A different world, but I'm trying to get into producing progressive/melodic house. I've been having these amateur blocks of trying to just perform what others would consider routine, and the side orders of perfectionist behavior have not been helping. Your videos have really been helping with with some perspective, i really appreciate them.

[@neonvandal8770]

100% agree with this and this goes right back to the blues. Modern blues music recorded in super pristine studios with expensive guitars just does not have the same feel as blues recorded from the 70's and back. Budweiser advert blues is just bloodless. Its the dirt and mud where the real magic is. Same with Hip Hop.

[@mikesierra1872]

When you said ‘Low end theory’ my brain said ‘Tribe Called Quest’

[@TheDoppelgangaz]

Torturing us? ha! 18 min has never gone by faster. MORE MORE MORE MORE! 🔥🔥

[@TonyBlackNYC]

thank you...I will attempt 19 mins soon

[@pazol123]

Even though aiming for complete perfection is a losing battle, it's not entirely fruitless but still not worth getting completely sucked in. Some of the targets that you shoot at while striving for perfection may ultimately be what make or break your record, and sometimes that's a risk worth taking. There's a quote that I like too, "attention to detail is the difference between good and great"

[@The_Sonic_Ally]

lookin forward to the musical institution v hiphop video. darker the better. i myself notice that no amount of traditional sonic advice really equates into anything near what hiphop achieves sonically.

[@soysos.tuffsound]

Many folks in my area (Pittsburgh) in the early 90s used the ASR-10. My trick was dropping the end time of the sample all the way down and then raising it up till I heard the click of the attack on the 1st part of the sample I want, skootch back a bit, slide sample start all the way up to hit end time and then move end time up. Nowadays I use Koala Sampler for most of my sampler needs and Ableton Live as DAW and performance core.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

thats a clever trick

[@soysos.tuffsound]

@@TonyBlackNYC the thing was, I was operating a mostly hip hop centered studio out of my parents house and since most producers used the ASR 10 they just had to bring their floppy discs. I'd have them load up their songs and then I'd save it to one of my zip discs. People would be so amazed when they see the save and load times on that thing, 100 mg!! The other thing was, I'd have them play their MIDI sequences into my Mac SE30 running Performer and I'd have their songs on the screen for further editing after the vocals had been tracked to tape.

[@clemcusato]

The Tascam Model lineup allows you to make music like you said, no timeline but a super small screen showing you pinching points and cues. You also don’t need a pc to work it around, just your MPC maxed out and a condenser mic. This is the reason why I bought my Model 24 and Model 12. Anyhow, my dream console is an SSL AWS 948 Delta.

[@OfficeSonatine]

I had "RB" type engineers in the 90s tell me my samples were off key or label my sounds "bad snare" on the tape. Didnt stop it from being an "underground hit". My favorite RZA beats are filled with mistakes. John Grisham once said "In every critic's desk drawer is an unpublished manuscript."

[@TonyBlackNYC]

great quote...there were/are a lot of those type

[@dannyvetrano5801]

Been watching your teaching awsome helps me allot

[@jamarwashington6419]

I get the point. I often think about how dry with no ambiance 90s vocals were especially after hip hop made it trendy. The early 90s had 80s style digital reverbs but by mid 90s, most everything was unrealisticly dry compared to how we normal perceive vocals being in an actual acoustic space. Digital reverb didnt get big in rap music til well after 2010 which i found interesting after so many years without it(which sounded imperfect but made boom bap era rap sound raw & great...mind you real room ambiance was often imperfectly heard in those vocals which oddly worked to help the vocals sit in the beats & sound one with the song in a glued together way).

[@TonyBlackNYC]

lots of good thoughts in this...I'll be bringing a lot of it into my next video. thanks.

[@EricJohnson-fh8zj]

Man its so good to hear a storied professional say this...because "rough around the edges" is how I prefer my music in general, especially hip hop. I'm a lover of "rebel music" at heart, and hip hop is one of the quintessential embodiments of that concept. I wasn't supposed to be super polished. It should have a hint that "made in the basement/garage" kind of sound. Wich, when you think about it, the equipment you were using back then when compared to what is available now, can (in some ways) be likened to the difference between a state of the art studio and a basement studio with a little outboard gear and a 16 track cassette tape portastudio back then lol. Plus it really feels true that creativity is enhanced thru limitations and nessecity.

[@GenocidePanda]

yess brother! The sampling technique mentioned around nine minutes can be seen in action from the legendary producer, Kev Brown; Many videos on youtube will show him dropping the needle, catching a moment and rewinding the record. very useful to do on a sampler like the sp404 with its lack of a screen and destructive chopping.

[@BillyBatsonMarvel]

Yea. Seeing with your ears is my golden rule. A creed that I live by.

[@StevenSampsonMedia]

the character is what makes it interesting, unique and more like 'art'.

[@BuddahHead]

Always appreciate the videos Tony, you’re the man

[@Think1stAct2nd]

Nah man, I really enjoy these vids man. I thoroughly enjoy discussions about low end mixes and the science behind making spaces for what needs to stand out. But the breakdown on how we couldn't 'see' the sound back in the 90s, is so real! I used to have a ASR-X and there were no waves...just numbers to represent where you were trimming the sample. Honestly, I made some amazing music on analog gear.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

on playback I'll purposely switch to the mix screen...sometimes I can see the other person in the room squirming because they can't watch the timeline

[@Think1stAct2nd]

@@TonyBlackNYC lolololol.... genius I tell ya!

[@storyteller34]

Thanks for theses jewels please keep them coming....

[@the.elsewhere]

Thanks for the video! I would like to expand a couple details that I hope folks will appreciate. TL;DR close your eyes when you chop samples. : ) I am a designer, a sommelier and a beat maker. My senses are all over the place, but I had the chance to study the domain of perception. Vision is dominant with ~80% of our sensory intake, difficult to quantify but with a bandwidth around 10Mbps. 10 million bits per second flowing into your brain every second! For this reason it is computationally very demanding for our brain. It is susceptible to all sorts of perception biases and, also, it's the most exploited. I personally try to avoid vision when I chop samples, smell&taste food and wine. When you turn off vision a set of magical things happen to the other senses: you enhance sensitivity to intensity and complexity, you discriminate better (distinguish nuances of sounds and aromas), you use more your memory functions. For sounds, better spacial awareness, and this one was for me one of the most surprising.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

interesting!

[@LOGIKBOMBX202]

Dope Episode and 100% Factual! Nothin like that Raw Hip Hop. - LOGIKBOMB

[@tomblaze2]

Great Video

[@peoplelikeus123]

The best music production videos on KZbin

[@BrainTraumatizer]

Thanks for the quotes, Tony. Both are very good, and I won't soon forget them, especially "sharpness is a bourgeois concept". As a socialist, and filmmaker, in addition to being a musician/producer, I find that particularly appealing. Its rebellious... punk rock. Voltaire, Bresson, and music production...this is becoming my favorite channel.

[@RC_991]

funny how a lot of those platinum selling Death Row & No Limit albums were just rough mixes done during the session.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

didn't know that

[@RC_991]

Death Row had slightly more quality control , but I know Makaveli wasn't mixed.

[@luketj]

just made a beat today. the mix wasn't "perfect" but that's kinda what makes it good lol. sometimes when stuff sounds a little off, it sounds just right.

[@bartboguski635]

Thank You Tony once again❤

[@seanmccaul6006]

rb is such a tool...spouts his opinions as if they are facts. appreciate you calling it out!

[@djray2705]

Tony handsome with the Voltaire wisdom ok ok that’s why he’s the best hip hop channel on YT fr

[@TonyBlackNYC]

that covers everything

[@DojoOfCool]

The way I say the same thing is Perfect is Boring. I'm an old retired guy who worked in audio off and on throughout my life, but spent most time as a musician. I decided I needed something new to exercise my brain and decided to get back into recording. I decided to learn one of the newer DAWs to learn something different. So I signed up for an online class with the big name Jazz school. So were in one of the live classes and he's using for his example tune Use Me by Bill Withers with the legendary James Gadson on drums a classic groove tune. He's talking about how to fix the time in the tune. WHAT!!! He starts quantiving James Gadson drums, taking Gadson laid back groove and sucking all the soul out of the song. I wanted to reach though my computer and strangler the crap out of that instructor. To make things worse the instructor is saying to always quantize so the other instrument all line up. I check the instructor bio and he mainly a DJ and EDM producer. That explains why I'm never been a EDM fan. Perfect is boring or Grids are for kids. Like you point out music had life before people started lining things up on a grid.

[@unc1589]

lol he had a problem with the “use me” break? Who does that? It’s kinda draining to hear new gen criticism. Too many “dude what are you talking about’s”

[@fanusamurai]

A lot of EDM people don’t have their musical backbone in black music and one can tell!

[@dylanotto1675]

thank you

[@xkaliberkane]

If you have the time. Could you talk about filtering samples to make room for instruments in the 90's

[@vendetta2159]

thank you for the knowledge

[@martinaleksandrov7080]

the camera follow thing was annoying! great video again though :D

[@SatelliteSoundLab]

yeah dude

[@jovantrendmaker4722]

Madlib and alchemist still use these techniques thats why they sound so good. And thats why trap sound so generic everything on grid

[@RunOfTheHind]

That's why it's been crap since '95. Computers just can't cut it Vs limited memory, low res samplers. They ARE hip hop.

[@solarbabies9682]

The title of the video says it all

[@TonyBlackNYC]

and yet I went on for 18 mins!

[@solarbabies9682]

@@TonyBlackNYC Haha, you did but it was worth it. Also for what it's worth, The Dust Brothers were big proponents of exactly what you describe in this video. It was vibe over execution or perfection. it all came full circle yet again!

[@ScorpioCoaster]

Good episode, can we just married already. I don’t know what it is about you; seriously lls. Hot guy talking music and loves thrift stores. Winner Winner😍☺️✨

[@TonyBlackNYC]

but then you might stop watching, can't have that.

[@ScorpioCoaster]

@@TonyBlackNYC 🤣

[@justletmesigninokthx]

if you take 'deep house' genre, it's all balanced quite well and layered up etc, but I never want to listen to the final result when im watching a tutorial video of it 🤣its all very 'safe' and just another overly precise iteration of the same thing, which is partly a consequence of referencing similar music i assume.

[@sleepisoptional]

most "hits" come together quickly. seem to write themselves. 90s were great because it was peak studio craft, specialists available for everything, real expert craftsmen. a person with clear ideas could really make things happen. surrounded by experts. one of warhol's best ideas was to do things very quickly. more surprising results. figure out what it is after its made. work unconsciously in a sense.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

and warhol was shocked when he saw how fast basquiat was.

[@roymoxley2587]

I have a copy it’s not promo, Talking about sampling it was done by ear I watched my friend work his asr 10 and boy it was a challenge Yes no computer wave forms for mixing. Your ears are your biggest tool back then

[@TonyBlackNYC]

nice. my copy, which I'm giving to a dj friend of mine, is a "promo copy not for sale"

[@jeffpereira4767]

Thoughts on Dr. Dre? Was his taste to make samples sound perfect?

[@TonyBlackNYC]

different can of worms...I'll get to it

[@jeffpereira4767]

@@TonyBlackNYC oh awesome! I look forward to it.

[@peterpiper0815]

It's written: 'and god saw that it was good' not perfect 😉

[@waveguider]

A lot of there, there.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

it covers a lot.

[@630fairview]

Would you be a chance have any of your hip hop session files from back in the day?

[@TonyBlackNYC]

probably not anything sexy.

[@slowflowlowlow]

What about Dr DRE?

[@TonyBlackNYC]

to be continued

[@dornie_donko]

Nuance is memorable. Perfect is clinical and organically unnatural. Even a perfect body has imperfections which make it beautiful. Beauty is slight differences between what you conceive as perfect in the mind and what is presented by the artist-God being the ultimate one. Also, perfection is far from fun. Fun is loose. Finally, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary is one of my favorite books of all time.

[@gilliatt57]

Tony: here I was thinking that the phrase was actually "Perfect is the enemy of the GOOD," rather than "great." Oh well, back to mediocrity...

[@TonyBlackNYC]

I never said I was perfect!