Why am I proud of this track?

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There are a few things about this track that I am proud of. I am happy with the overall structure; I feel like each piece of the song comes together to make a cohesive whole, and each part transitions into the next gracefully.  I am pleased that the song is not overly complex - there may have been 8 tracks total. I also really like what the vocal samples added, and I am happy with the toms and the scratched kick drum sound.

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How did this song come together

from a technical perspective?

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I created this song with my good friend and frequent collaborator Kabir Vermouth and our process was pretty typical for these types of beats. We started with the sample, "What's Your Name" by The Moments. We recorded the song into Ableton Live from vinyl. I then went about warping it, which is a process in Ableton where the user links the timing of the sample to the Abletons' internal clock. Ableton then stretches the sample so that it conforms to the tempo of the project. We dropped the sample into a Simpler (one of Ableton's built-in software samplers) and used its slice feature to the cut the sample into quarter-note chunks. From there we experimented with playing the slices in different patterns using an Ableton Push 2. Once we had a few patterns we liked, we sequenced the song into a verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure using different slice patterns for the two parts. We then programmed the drum patterns for the verse and the hook. To do this, we first combed through kick, snare, and open and closed hi hat sounds and loaded them into a Drum Rack (Ableton's drum sampler). Through a combination of playing and programming, we came up with drum patterns that worked. From there, we loaded up a bass sound and Kabir figured out a bass line for the verse and one for the hook. At this point the track was 90% done. I had the idea to add a vocal sample saying “Yeah” at a certain point and we combed through a few YouTube videos of Baptist sermons until we found a good one. We also found a short sung vocal snippet from the same sermon and used Melodyne pitch correction software to get it in the correct key. We also added a scratched kick drum pattern to the hook section. To create this we used the same kick drum sound played forward and in reverse to simulate the sound of it a kick drum being scratched on a turntable. We wrote a few tom patterns to add to the hook and created a transition from the verse into the hook. Finally, we took the first four bars of the song and ran it though a lowpass filter and chorus in order to create an intro.