Listen To Way Beyond Wrong Hip Hop Song By StaticNomad At Looperman.com

Thanks for the comment.

This is certainly, as you said elsewhere, an explosion of flavours.

This is right up there as one of my greatest ever tracks. It's relatively short for me, especially considering the many changes.

I actually have a slightly better version (same length and structure) that I'll upload sometime. Just a bit better mixed and mastered, I like to think.

Thanks again.

Hey, thanks for checking this out.

Most people I recommend tracks don't bother.

This one's a bit of a special one for me and I wish I could make one like it every month. It's got a crazy amount of variety in it but it seems to flow nicely and not be too long. Lots of audacious genre switches too.

"the constant upping on the intensity in the track"

Yes, I do that a lot though I've got other tracks that go crazier, heavier and more extreme.

The banjo's a weird, brief touch. Shame I've lost my microphone because I haven't been able to record that instrument for about 10 months.

"drums are wikkid they sound live"

Yes, live sounding because I have good drums software (Superior Drummer). It has well recorded acoustic kits and also loads of good real drummers' performances in MIDI file format, which are then extensively edited and layered by me as I try to come up with a distinctive drum sound for each track I make.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks.

I don't do a lot of hip hop but I'd like to do more.

You can probably guess from all the other genres I merge into here that I'm better at those than hip hop. Rock, funk, blues and deep groove stuff is more my natural home. But I've always loved hip hop for its mid-tempo beats as that's the kind of tempo I work best with. Once I've got that cool sort of groove down, I find I can happily switch to double tempo, as in this track, and I'm not lost.

Dobule speed something that has a good groove seems to work well for me whereas if you start me off with something fast, I can be a bit overwhelmed.

This track definitely is out of the ordinary. Let's just say that the banj-metal-hiphop-jazz genre is not likely to catch on anytime soon.

My favourite section here probably is the final return to the hip hop at the end. Feels like the track's coming home and it's quite sparse, which seems to work well in contrast to the much busier sections.

Thanks for your thoughts.

More hip hop related tracks coming in the next few months.

Until then, you might get on with one I made called The Shit. That's got some hip hop in it, especially in the second half.

Hi. It tends to be me doing most of the typing on my tracks in my replies. I usually give long answers and answer any questions in quite a bit of detail.

But a few people have also given some good detail for this one.

"2 or 3 ways you could've done this guess"

More like 2 or 3 thousand! It's an endless challenge when you're dealing with so much material and so many parts and genres. Shall I have lots more d'n'b? Shall I start off with metal then go into hip hop? Shall I leave the jazz until the end? And many more related questions...

What people will probably never really know is that I make multiple tracks on the same timeline so I move parts inbetween them so I'm often composing a few tracks at the same time, which gets really complicated. So many decisions to make and you never know if you made the best one!

I suppose that's partly why I keep making more and more music. Got to try to 'perfect' my style and come up with the best thing I've ever done. And then do it again!

Thanks for the interest.

Sorry for the late, late reply. Wanted to make it good.

Fixed tempo:

What I need is almost certainly Ableton Live. With Cubase (also running Reason simultaneously) I have the big problem of not having the audio as elastic audio where the sequencer can just change the tempo and everything remains in time. Ableton is the one if it really does function as I've been told but I can't really be bothered to switch though I should progress beyond this fixed tempo problem sometime. Could make my stuff sound just like a live band with all their tempo nuances.

My compositional method is based around needing to move any part anywhere in a piece. So, I can't have a 12 BPM tempo change, record guitar at that tempo and then realise I'd rather hear that part earlier in a track section which is playing 20 BPM slower. I basically just play instruments over a good looped section and then make more and more sections out of what I get. And that's why it's fixed tempo.

If I were going to have all these tempo changes, I'd have to plan them all out beforehand ie fully compose the structure and arrangement in advance. And that's not how I work (because I don't have that sort of organised imagination). I jam and see what I get and then do interesting things with those parts and add more and so on.

I know what you mean about putting terrible stuff online. I've never put anything awful up though I have put many things up that I've since hugely improved.

Probably only a couple of my tracks on Looperman to avoid (because I can make them much better and haven't worked on them in years).

No particular ones I need you to listen to though 28 Levels Above Top Secret is a pretty stunning journey through 9 squillion sounds and riffs.

And A Month Of Mondays has received very little attention.

Otherwise, check out whatever you like. I still think most of them don't sound much like anyone else. And I mean anyone at all, not just people uploading to this site. Not the best music ever made (whatever that is) but a unique body of work, I'd say. In my hugely biased opinion...

Thanks again for the interest.

Hi. Thanks for the praise and interest in my music. Quite a few people on the site have asked about downloading my stuff or buying it or when I'm going to release an album and so on.

No, I 've never released anything but am working hard(ish) on changing that and have been assembling some 8-10 albums for the past couple of years. A couple are nearly ready to go except for proper mastering and artwork. Then I'll probably just release them for free on a site such as Bandcamp.

I just keep putting it off as I fiddle with mixes as I'm improving all the time and have made great leaps in the last couple of years after getting a much faster PC and great drum software (Superior Drummer). And I've got much better at using EQ and mixing in general. I'm glad I didn't release anything a few years ago as I've improved all of it.

"it just constantly evolved itself to cover so many different genres whilst still maintaining a certain feel and style"

You make a good point. There are a number of things I do to achieve this. First, all my tracks are fixed sequencer tempo. I could spend a while talking about the drawbacks and that I would like to have more tempo variations but would probably need a sequencer such as Ableton Live to make that happen. Anyway, it can also be a real benefit as it means that any audio material can be shifted to anywhere else and will remain in time.

Despite the fixed tempo, I do a lot of either double or half time drum stuff in my tracks. So, hip hop gets double timed into d'n'b or swing jazz or whatever.

I work very closely with every instrument and make changes and try to spin as much as I can out of each part. I change one or two elements in the track while keeping others the same as this helps ease one section into the next. The main bassline in this starts off being presented as hip hop, with jazzy acoustic drumming adding the jazz feel and then d'n'b drums (double time funk drumming) playing over that same hip hop bassline (which is now played on a classic house bass synth sound).

The second (fast) metal section features the same sax playing as before but put through different delays to make it more frenetic to fit the uptempo heavy vibe. I just keep recycling elements throughout the track as I try out applying different effects to them.

Not sure if that explanation helped or made much sense but these things take a lot of words to describe. And there's a 3,000 character limit so I can't do it all here and now.

Thanks again for the interest.

Cool. It's easy to name a few genres that are present here (as I have) but there may be some other incidental ones that are a bit more difficult to exactly pin down ie some sort of electro funk.

Anyway, I'd say this is truly unique. I'll be very interested to ever hear another track that incorporates this sort of collection of sounds and mood swings.

Thanks for taking my advice and checking it out. You really have to when you see the term 'banj metal'.

I Googled that term and this is one thing I found:

http://www.nocleansinging.com/2010/09/21/banjo-metal/

Thanks. It was fun to do and quite a crazy journey through all those genres. But I've tried to mostly ease into each one so that the considerable changes aren't too harsh or abrupt. I could have packed them all into just a few minutes but I like to hear a decent amount of each one and return to previous themes and hear them presented in different ways. So, 7.5 minutes seems about the right length though I could have gone on far longer.

You get that sax coming in again in the second heavy (and fast) section but this time it's got different delay on it so is a lot more frenetic, which suits the uptempo metal behind it.

I move into any genre I feel like at any time in a track so tend to make different tracks within the same project ie on the same timeline. If you would like to hear the track that used to be joined with this one, check it out here:

Low Key Love

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/152913

It's a big exploration of different types of jazz but there's also rock and hip hop and more in there. It shares many of the same instruments with those in Way Beyond Wrong and is the same tempo. But no d'n'b - sorry!

Thanks again for taking up my suggestion and checking this out. I have loads more mad trips on the site. 28 levels Above Top Secret, Zero Per Cent Proof and Shapesmith are some other crazy journeys that are much longer.

Word up, Shatner. Yeah, the changes in this are pretty mad when you sit back at the end and think about how much has been thrown at you.

But I try to make them logical and make sense and ease into each one. So, I use repetition of one element as I change another so changes aren't too abrupt or harsh.

To be honest, and I'm not just saying this because you're a hip hop dude, my favourite part of the track is probably the last 20 or so seconds as it returns back to some minimalist hip hop. Just some of the little fills and variations really do it for me and that section is like a big comedown after the roller coaster, d'n'b, metal etc journey.

Like returning back to the hip hop home! That's a place I know you like to visit...

I like the bass and especially when it changes to the classic house bass synth sound on 2:06.

Good to hear from you.

Sorry for the late reply. I was just putting off dredging up the depressing Ratridge incident. I wondered if anyone might notice that and comment on it. Glad you found it hilarious - I didn't. What happened is that, last year, I gave my one and only 'thumbs-down' review on this site to a track of his, which was his guitar and vocal additions to an interesting electronic version of Sweet Home Alabama. I didn't insult his playing - just mostly said the addition of the guitar and vocals just made it another of thousands of covers of that famous song.

So, he proceeded to check out my music, leaving a bunch of straight insults/ intelligent constructive criticism on three or four of my tracks, including this gem of a track review:

"After your extremely demeaning comment you left on my track, I expected you to be some kind of musical prodigy. WTF?"

Since having to deal with his childish, spiteful insults (including speculation about the size of my head) I've decided to essentially never again give a 'bad' track review on here. If I don't like something, I don't comment, even though I might even have some useful suggestions. I just can't be bothered to deal with unpleasant losers who can't take even mild criticism.

However, I have since commented on some other Ratridge tracks but only said good things and made, for instance, no mention of not liking his vocals. I have indeed heard his backlog but it didn't make me zzzzzzzzzzzzz. My way of dealing with childish people is not to come down to their level (doesn't always work). I've had to deal with someone much more unpleasant on this site though he seems to have given up on insulting me.

It's ironic that Ratridge chose to leave his deep and insightful 'too repetitive' analysis on a track with so very many changes.

"an over-sized cranium"

Maybe. I'm just an odd guy who thinks a lot, especially about music, and is bored by so much conventional stuff so have to work out how to combine things that I like in ways I've never heard before. I have huge musical limitations so cannot combine anywhere near as many sounds and styles as I would like. I do what I can, which is still a fair bit.

"a hill-billy in a tornado"

That could work nicely for a music video to this track. Maybe the metal band are out in the open and kicking up a tornado with their playing. And the tornado drops a hillbilly with a banjo into their midst and then whisks him away after his 30 seconds are up. I like it but then it is partly my idea so no surprise there.

Yeah, I think the jazz comes from the acoustic drums and the keyboard that starts on 0:47. That keyboard also features in the d'n'b section and there are some interesting connections between jazz, hip hop and d'n'b.

Metal is taking things out a lot further, in terms of genres with things in common, so the keyboard doesn't feature in those sections.

6:32 there is jazz metal as the metal guitar keeps going for a bit and the jazz drums return.

If you'd like to check out another jazz epic of mine (much more jazz than this), try Low Key Love

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/152913

as it's also from the same project as this track so shares some of the same sounds and instruments etc and is the same tempo.

I haven't updated that in a couple of years and don't really care about it though maybe I should say a bit more, just in case anyone's interested (like you).

Thanks for the interest - the much better and more up to date answer is below.

I've used the same main, cheap electric guitar since 1996 and also use two electro-acoustic resonator guitars for all my slide guitar playing - something I do a lot (but not in this track).

" ill be looking forward to hearing more!!"

I'm always uploading new stuff and am preparing a new mega epic psychedelic rock dance track for possible upload today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, there's a hell of a lot of other very detailed and lengthy stuff for you to check out.

Hello. Most of my tracks are a fusion of quite a few genres, as you'll see if you check out pretty much any one of the many I have on this site.

I started off in Cubase in 1999 and then, in about 2001 got Reason, which I absolutely love. Since then I've run the two of them together, essentially as one sequencer, with most of my recorded audio (guitar, bass, banjo, vocals when I can get them) in Cubase and 90% of the synths coming from Reason. Reason is also used for drum loops and hits.

I have the excellent Superior Drummer for my quality acoustic drum kits, which runs in Cubase. And I have most of the EZ Drummer expansion packs so lots of different acoustic kits. I think I use about 3 of them in this track plus the hip hop hits that are in Reason.

My much older stuff contains Korg Z1 synth parts but I haven't recorded any new parts from that synth in many years but still have it and use it as my main controller keyboard.

Then I have a just a few other plugins in Cubase such as Effectrix by Sugar Bytes and I also like dbBlue's Glitch effects unit and use that quite a bit on banjo and guitars.

Oh, and I have quite a few sampled audio instruments that I use in Reason eg things like tambura, sitar, bano etc.

There's a bit more to say but that's really most of it so a fairly comprehensive answer.

Totally agree about lack of editing and second replies.

Extremely frustrating and means I have to carefully compose my reply (sometimes in my head when I'm walking about the house doing other stuff) so that I don't forget to answer a question (though I get very few of those) or mention my own point.

That's why I do such long replies but then I also do long reviews. And long tracks so that's just how I am: I have lots to play and lots to say.

I don't really like Mixposure as it's too complicated and awkward to use and you only get 5 tracks with a free account and there are no featured tracks (used not to be here but I think it's great and allows me to follow people and see their progress and not miss their new uploads).

"That octave effect is sooo damn unique"

Not sure what you mean. It's really just adding bass to any audio signal. A cool guitar riff may not need a separate bassline - perhaps just needs to have the low end added to it. That's why I sometimes use it. Gets messy if you add it to chord-based guitar playing but I don't play many chord-based riffs.

"I replayed this awesome track for 20 times(was hooked to it)"

When I upload my tracks, I usually listen to them quite a bit (out of the studio so different perspective) and I also get a bit hooked. Sometimes I just have to listen to the whole thing, even when it's a really long one. I often find each section joins onto the next in such a way that I don't want to press stop (which is exactly my intention).

"Its like no track is complete here until you give your genius feedback."

Glad you appreciate my comments. There have been just one or two people on this site who have not (one twice left insults on this track, see below, the other has been much more unpleasant) but it's best not to worry about them. Perhaps I'm slightly wasting my time giving extensive feedback when most people give very little. But there are a few people who do the same for me and make suggestions and get me thinking about things in a slightly different way.

"YOU HAVE AWESOME VISION FOR MUSIC."

Maybe but I'm really just a music obsessive so have lots to say about it. And, as I love music, make it every day and think about it much more, I don't find it hard to quite quickly say lots of things about a piece of music.

I will comment on the track you suggested as I like it and it has an interesting waveform!

You definitely get the kind of thing I'm into. Thanks for quite a few words about it.

"you really love to play with it and experiment with it"

That truly is all I do - in an admittedly self indulgent sort of way. It's just my belief that any good genre can be mixed with another. But I don't really think of them as genres. I just try out sounds I like that happen to fall in different genres and try to combine them in ways I have never heard before. I think I achieve that though that doesn't necessarily make it amazing music (but definitely interesting).

"Saxophone is awesome"

This is the only proper track I've ever made featuring another musician. Shame that he's not at all interested in the track, though that's something I can't really explain.

"Audio Effects are perfect."

While there are all sorts of effects, check out the guitar in the d'n'b section 2:28 to 3:04. It's very cut up and I very, very carefully automated different delays on the guitar which wasn't very good and I made loads of mistakes so had to piece together all the best bits. It's come out sounding pretty dark and weird so quite unusual.

An effect no one would ever notice is that, 3:36 to 4:27, the only bassline is the metal guitar riff. I just add an octave effect to the guitar part rather than adding another bassline. So, it's 100% tight. Not sure how many people do that but it can be cool.

Ye, I guess I add some Indian fusion. I don't acrually have a clue how to play Indian or Middle Eastern music but I manage to get some of those elements in quite often though I never do full Indian tracks (because I don't know how).

So, my Eastern sections often occur just briefly in my tracks. Would take too long to give you all the time references so will just recommend my following tracks that contain Eastern elements (either instruments or scales/playing or both):

Circular Motion (tambura), Lord Of Misrule, Right Place Wrong Century, An Early Morning Appointment With God, Shapesmith, Immemorialis (sitar), Zero Per Cent Proof (tabla), Fly Yes Land No (tabla), Things That Should Always Be, The Fatness(sitar), Thousand Ball Blues (harmonium), Three Miles Late, A Month Of Mondays (sitar).

I love Indian music and would like to get more of its great instruments into my stuff. But I have big limitations such as only playing a few instruments - mostly guitar, bass and banjo though I sometimes use a sitar sound on my Variax electric guitar eg on the track Immemorialis.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

That's not a comment on this track so please either stick to that or don't comment at all. And certainly don't just leave straight insults as they're no use at all.

Yes, extremely repetitive...apart from the constant changes. I'm not sure if you actually listened past the first couple of minutes (which do indeed have the same bassline running throughout).

For anyone who does, they will find that in 7-odd minutes the track moves through hip hop, jazz, drum 'n' bass, metal and even banjo metal. And that's banjo playing an Eastern sort of melody merged with metal guitar and hip hop drums. And there are other electronic elements and lead saxophone.

This is all a huge amount of variety and extremely unrepetitive. That bassline that I said goes on for a couple of minutes then continues into the d'n'b section. However, it changes to a house bass sound, which gives it such a different feel that it almost seems like an entirely new part. So I'd say that's being creative with repetition (which is sometimes necessary, especially when you want something to sit so that other parts can have a solid anchor to work off).

See also one previous reviewer's comment that this was one of the most creative things he'd heard on this site ("I think this is one of the most creative tracks musically I have ever encountered on this site"). No problem if you didn't like it but I think just dismissing it as repetitive is way off the mark and certainly no form of constructive criticism.

OK. I don't make music to make music to post on Looperman. I make music for other reasons and have tracks on a few different sites. So I will post an external link if I think it's relevant. People can follow it or not, as they choose. As I said, most of the stuff I make is far too long to fit on Looperman.

Yes, it was clear before that you thought the song was very good. Good luck to you too...

Glad you liked it so much. I'm a bit addicted to it too and its weird how the time does fly by. Probably because there's so much going on but there's still quite a bit of space in there for things to breathe. I have to be very disciplined to not put too many elements into my work and am getting better all the time at reducing track length. This one is like a pop single for me as I regularly do 12 min+ and even go up to about 19 mins. Yes, the sax is cool. I partly applied the FX because I didn't have enough varied playing from someone who couldn't be bothered to come back to add anymore. So, I had to use FX to make the notes I did have move about more. I still think the intro sax sections are a little long and repetitive, though I do vary the drums to keep it interesting (making it quite jazzy). The very end 20 or so seconds may actually be my favourite section (along with the first hip hop metal section on 3:36). It's just pure hip hop and I spent ages trying to work out how I could do small things with a few elements to work those rather simple bass and drums. You may be interested to know that the second bass part (lead bass, comes in on 13 seconds and at various other points) is my bass playing chopped up as a REX file and laid out across the keyboard keys. Then I replay the notes from the keys in a way that I wouldn't have done on the bass guitar itself. I should really do this more often, haven't done it in ages. It's such a fun technique (though takes a while to cut up that REX file).

OK. Glad you liked it. Not sure what you mean about the house bass being "left behind". It's just the same bassline as before in the d'n'b section but using a classic house bass patch. Maybe you mean it's not quite loud enough so perhaps I need to turn it up. Yes, basic sax but made more interesting with carefully applied effects. I wanted more sax in there but sax player isn't interested in doing any more so I had to make do with what I had.

As regards not mentioning other sites I have tracks on, why can't I do that? I mention them occasionally when relevant because I can't have all my stuff on Looperman because the limit is 10MB per track and many of my tracks are at least 15 minutes long and I don't want to compress them below 128K MP3. What is the problem with me linking to music elsewhere? If you're going to tell someone not to do something, it's best to say why.

Glad you liked the realness. The sax is pretty much the first instrument appearance by another musician on one of my tracks in the 13 or so years I've been making recorded music (I wish there were more). It's just a guy I know doing an evening session into a Shure SM57 mic so very basic. The banjo is played by me and just recorded into that same mic, then just a bit of delay added to it. Various FX at certain points to make the sax do more (eg a retrigger effect to make it sound like he's playing more notes than he is as well as the obvious delay at certain key points). Guitar is pretty sparse for me on this track as I usually play a hell of a lot more and have different intertwining guitar layers. Good fun merging all the various genres and moods but I think I've made them fit and there's nothing too weird or drastic. I cannot think of any banj-metal I've ever heard, can you? When I got the banjo a couple of years ago I decided I must do banj-metal, just because it's a funny word. I also decided I must do drum 'n' banj, for the same silly reason,and I've also done that (track not yet online). My best quality stuff is not on this site but, of what there is, I'd recommend next going for Knee Deep In The Cosmic Overwhelm or Circular Motion. Happy listening and let me know you make of them as feedback really helps me improve and feel a bit better about what I do.

Thanks, man (or woman) - you totally get it. I just love so many styles and find it so easy to move from one to another (just change the groove, add distortion, whatever) that I can't help doing it. I spend so long trying out all manner of stuff and 'genres', if you like, that the track could go in with just the same notes that I then end up having to use them all (and then vary the notes). What takes ages is making it flow and not being too long (most of mine are above 12 mins, quite a few 17, one even 19). Yes, could definitely have lyrics and pretty much be a straight hip hop track. But as I have no vocalists, I just had to take it everywhere else I could think of with my instruments. Here's a related heavy track. No hip hop but there is jazz and a lot of heavy, rocking slide guitar playing and metal drumming. It's not as eclectic between genres but still goes in a lot of different directions. You can leave comments on the track itself. Debt Black Hole http://www2.mixposure.com/Static_Nomad/song_focus_24417.php

Glad you like this motherlover as I had fun making it. It does indeed morph into various shapes. Would have liked more sax but the sax player is apparently not at all interested so don't think I can get him back. Had to use careful editing and FX to stretch the playing I had as far as I could. Would have been good in the main metal section, perhaps to go with the banjo.