How Mellotrons Work and What Makes Them So Special
You know the sound from songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever” but now, dive inside the Mellotron and discover why it’s incomparably unique.
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Alap Momin (Third Culture Kings, dälek) on Recording His Entire Album on An iPhone
Welcome back to Soundfly’s new interview series, Incorrect Music, curated by guitarist, singer, and composer Lora-Faye Åshuvud (of the band Arthur Moon). In this series, we present intimate conversations with artists who are striving to push the boundaries of their process and craft. Alap Momin (dälek) and Jan Johansen (Glorybox) are the team behind the newly minted Third…
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The Musical and Sociopolitical Evolution of Kanye’s Use of Soul Music Samples
+ Learn the nuances of producing beats, arranging tracks, and creative sampling, drawing on the rich history and influence of hip-hop in Soundfly’s acclaimed online course, The Art of Hip-Hop Production. Between the old-school sound of his debut album, College Dropout, in 2004 and the ultra-synthesized feel of his most recent album, 2016’s The Life Of Pablo, there…
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Using Velocity to Improve the “Humanness” of Your MIDI Strings
If you’re always looking for ways to make your MIDI strings sound more real, tweaking the velocity could be just the thing you’re missing.
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Take These Words Home and Think ‘Em Through: The Legacy of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy
In the years since Mobb Deep‘s 1996 hit “Shook Ones (Part II)” was released, the song has attained legendary status among hip-hop listeners due to its many unique attributes, such as its darkly timbral, sonic world full of police sirens and impossible amounts of lingering reverb, and its equally rugged linguistic play, equipped with menacing threats…
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Paranoia in the Key of P: “Mac 10 Handle” — Prodigy’s Anxious Classic
+ Learn the nuances of producing beats, arranging tracks, and creative sampling, drawing on the rich history and influence of hip-hop in Soundfly’s acclaimed online course, The Art of Hip-Hop Production. By David Abravanel Mobb Deep built their reputation on heart-pounding stress raps. Whether it was their breakthrough single “Shook Ones Part II” or tracks where even…
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Orchestral MIDI String Libraries Compared
As a composer, finding that string library that can do everything you want can often feel like a never-ending quest to find the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. New libraries pop up every month or so, all professing to be the best and urging you to press the “buy” button as soon as they’re…
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How to Make an Instrumental Track Shine with Vocal Samples
+ Bridge the worlds of theory, improvisation, and jazzy hip-hop, and improve your piano chops with Grammy-winner Kiefer in his course, Kiefer: Keys, Chords, & Beats. Tons of producers making instrumental electronic music today scour YouTube and other online forums to find “vocal samples” to add to their tracks. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve googled…
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Unsung: In Praise of Rap’s Studio Musicians
Rappers used to say, “The real backbone of hip-hop is disc jocks.” Nowadays, though, the real backbone of hip-hop is ostensibly the virtuosic studio musicians dominating the most heralded releases of the past few years. In leaving their indelible marks on records by award-winning artists like Chance The Rapper and Kendrick Lamar, instrumentalists like Nico Segal (a.k.a. Donnie Trumpet), Robert…
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6 More Rising Artists on Soundfly Right Now
It’s only May, but we’re already pretty sure that 2017 is going to be our favorite year ever! This year, Soundfly has nearly doubled our repertoire of available courses and partnered with some of the world’s best instructors. But best of all, we’ve been continually inspired and excited by the work that student artists have shared with us.…
