feels so real

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Tapehead Bangers

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/love-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead.
Vocals from ‘The Love Song Remix Acapella’ by Da Bush Babees, Mos Def and De La Soul.

Visuals: https://youtu.be/JskhIFkB-Hk

This beat was LONG to flip, took me multiple days of working on it for 8+ hours until I was happy it. I’d sped up the sample on my turntable to flip it around 90 BPM (originally it must have been 70 something), and based on the way I chopped it, it was looping at around 94 BPM. It was just one of those samples where it was from a more freeform part of a song which wasn’t necessarily constricted by one BPM or time signature, so even though my chops were looping at 94 BPM, certain notes and areas were out of time, which just took absolutely ages to fix. Essentially I had to listen to the track over and over across several days, working out which chops were out of time, and then chopping them up into one, two or even three more pieces depending on the issue, so I could sequence it myself and slightly adjust the timing to match the BPM and time signature of how I wanted to flip it. It was definitely worth it in the end, I was really happy with how the beat turned out. 

After the length of time it took to flip this beat I was mad grateful that the first acapella I tried over the beat was this one, I had a feeling it would match the tone of the sample. I have no real knowledge of music theory, so it’s always a nice surprise when the key of an acapella happens to be the same as a sample I flip for a beat. This is definitely the best that’s ever come together for me, it feels like every note Mos Def hits in the chorus is in key with the note of the chop which is playing in that moment, I’m just glad I happened to buy the record with this acapella a few days before I sat down to mix and master this beat, which kept it in my mind as a possibility to remix. I think it came together really well, as well as the acapella matching the beat tonally, I think the whole atmosphere, vibe and lyrical content that Mos Def went for perfectly blends with the beat, making it sound a bit less like a remix and more like an original song, which is always mad.

I’m also too happy with how the visuals turned out. There isn’t a video for the remix of The Love Song, so I initially tried using the video to the original, but it didn’t really fit because Mos Def actually spits a completely different chorus in that. This forced me to be more creative, and I was just watching other Mos Def music videos on mute with my beat in the background, seeing which ones fit the vibe best. I ended up choosing the visuals from UMI Says, which I chopped up in Davinci Resolve to play over my remix in a way that made sense. I think this really leveled up the visuals, its mad how well they both work together, but it does make a lot of sense given the themes of both tracks, I’m just happy to have been able to put this together.

Love

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/dont-mind-me-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Money Folder Acapella’ by MF DOOM

Visuals: https://youtu.be/a81-toGlUWk

Back when I first flipped this sample I put the acapella from ‘Strange Ways’ over it cause I thought the beat fit DOOM’s style. Looking back though it’s clear that the vibe of the beat doesn’t really fit what DOOM’s talking about on that track, so I switched up my approach for this rework. I thought ‘Money Folder’ fit it way better, DOOM has a sort of carefree attitude on that track which I think goes with the beat, has a sort of go with the flow kind of vibe. I’ve been wanting to make this one for a long time now, I actually first put the Money Folder Acapella over this beat at the very start of the year when I was working on my first DOOM tribute track, and then left it for time as a rough concept idea. Now after spending this year really dedicating myself to music, I felt crazily motivated to revisit this idea and do it justice. I really am too grateful and humbled by all the support I’ve been getting throughout the year, and I’m now more than dedicated to keeping on and growing/improving as much as I can. To me this beat gives of that vibe of contentment and focus: knowing what you want to do and being in a blessed place doing it. It makes sense to me that I set up the ideas for this remix at the start of the year with that focus and grind to music in mind, and am now revisiting and releasing it after spending the year doing what I set out to do, if that makes sense. 

Peace and thank you for all the support and feedback, hope people enjoy the vibe of this one!

Original version: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/same-game

Don't Mind Me

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘One Love Acapella’ by Nas and Q-Tip

Visuals: https://youtu.be/0CaM6Wp8zDY

I was considering dropping this last Sunday when I hit 1K subscribers, but it wasn’t quite ready, so I decided to leave it until this week. It’s given me enough time to properly arrange and mix this remix, which I was intending on dropping as a thank you to celebrate hitting that milestone, so it was actually nice to have a whole week to work on it after having hit 1k, cause that really put me in the zone to finish up this idea properly and do it as well as I could.

As soon as I started chopping ‘Love’ vocals out of this sample, I had a feeling I’d be remixing ‘One Love’ over it. Honestly, it might be my all-time favourite Hip Hop song, without a doubt top 5, and every time I remix it I want to go all out and make it as emotional as possible really, cause that’s what always stood out to me about this track. The last remix I did called ‘Watch Me Speak’ ( https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/watch-me-speak ) was a remix of the 3rd verse only, and for this one I decided to do the opposite and remix the 1st two verses. I didn’t actually intend this when I made the beat, but I also ended up chopping a melody that used the vocals ‘day’s have gone’, which in the song was talking about a relationship ending, but obviously translates to what Nas is talking about here too, in the sense that being locked up means you’re wasting days that are essentially gone, so it’s cool that it ended up working out like that cause it makes the remix more convincing and effective imo.

There’s a lot of layering in this beat, so much that it definitely won’t fit into a 1 minute short, so when I do a Behind The Beat for it that’ll have to be a normal video, so I might just go in on that one and go in depth on everything to really show the whole process, including drum layering etc. I was so motivated to flip this sample because it had so many nice melodies which were separated and very brief, so I wanted to combine my different flips to make new melodies out of the new melodies I already made and properly extend the parts of the sample which I thought were way too crazy to be so brief in the original song, it’s difficult to write down but hopefully when I show what I did it will make sense.

Peace and thank you for listening! I hope people enjoy this one, I’ve got a lot of music releasing over the coming weeks, including a 4 track EP which will be out on the 18th of February – One Love!

True Love (From The Heart & Soul)

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Wrong Side Of Da Tracks Acapella’ by Artifacts

Visuals: https://youtu.be/J-sYmg7qlEk

Like the ‘Ill Street Blues’ remix I uploaded recently, this is one of the first remix concepts I put together back when I first started producing. I was too happy with the flip of the sample, and it immediately brought this acapella to mind, so I layered it on top and was mad happy with how they sounded together. Back then I didn’t focus on drums or have any real mixing or mastering experience, so it was very rough and not put together well, but the idea always shone through to me. I actually reworked this beat last year, but pitched it down and only had the Artifacts hook over it because there was so much resonance in the verses, and I had no idea how to mix vocals back then. Now that I’ve been mixing vocals for over a year it felt like a good time to revisit this one and finally do a full rework of the idea, so I decided to have the normal pitch to start and then lower the pitch for the second verse. I also went all out filtering this one, cause to me the sample always stood out for the warm vibe the low end had, and I wanted to really focus and exaggerate that by filtering and boosting those frequencies in this mix.

Original rough mix: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/wrong-side
2020 rework: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/wrong-side-1

Peace and thank you for listening!

Wrong Side

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/top-illin-instrumental

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from ‘Gazzillion Ear Acapella’ by MF DOOM

Visuals: https://youtu.be/xXRrNEMQA6o

This flip took a while to get right, I was trying to be more creative with the way I flipped the sample. It was crazy on it’s own (and I kept longer chops to use with the vocal flip that comes in second), but for the main flip I wanted to make a melody from chops in-between the vocals, which is always fun and gives the beat a very different vibe to the original sample. It also took a long time to layer both the flips I made, but I'm definitely glad I persevered with it.

I felt like the finished beat ended up having a cartoonish vibe with an upbeat melody, so I immediately went to DOOM acapellas which I thought could fit over it. I chose Gazzillion Ear because DOOM is really having fun on that one, loads of cool punchlines different flows and switchups, which I thought would work well here. It just feels like the kind of beat made for an emcee to show skills over without being too serious, just demonstrate some lyrical skill and technical flows. It was long to get the acapella to fit over the beat though cause of how abstract and varied the flows are, so I had to chop it up into loads of different pieces (basically for every line), just to get it to fit in the right places over this beat. I think it was worth it though, I can’t really imagine many other artists over this kind of beat, and I always love remixing DOOM.

Hope people enjoy this one, thank you for listening! Peace

Top Illin'

ifeellikesonic

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from 'Stakes Is High Acapella' by De La Soul

Visuals: https://youtu.be/YZfMoaqeJVE

Nearly scrapped this beat when I just had the loop with the saxophone chops - it had a nice vibe but wasn't enough on it's own. Had to persevere with trying different chops to layer on top, and was eventually able to add weight to the track with some nice chops that added a lot of atmosphere and vibe to the beat.

Leant pretty heavy into the sadder side of this acapella for this remix, very very heavy stuff being spoken on and I thought this beat brought out the pain and frustration being vented in the lyrics. Seems like a lot of these problems haven't changed and arguably have gotten worse, but without question this track is dope for even pointing out all the problems and drawing attention to it for those who listen. One of the best most positive uses for music imo. Hope people enjoy the remix, thanks for checking it! 

Peace

High Stakes

cain

Animosity

Beat was initially a throwaway but revisited it this week and thought this blend worked well. Sometimes a strong acapella can really take centrestage and I think this one defo achieves that. Beat defo has the party vibe which is why I was struggling with what the remix I think, not too many Hip Hop acapellas that fit this vibe, but Camp Lo defo have that style going for them. Mad underrated group I think, their debut album is crazy. Highly recommended. 

Mad focused on my next album atm, will be new beats and lyrics from me, so lots of the new beats I've been making are ending up on that project. Very excited about it all, feels great to be writing again too, been too long. Hoping to get that done and released sometime after summer.

Beat, mixing and mastering by Tapehead
Vocals from 'Disco Tec Acapella' by DJ Honda and Camp Lo

Visuals: https://youtu.be/E3wumdw-8Ws

Feels So Real

WHOLEWORLD

academy shit

Yoooo 200K streams thank you all!!!!!

Debut Album Out April 26th!! https://linktr.ee/tapeheadlinks

50 Cent Remix Album: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/tapehead-remixes-50-full-album

MF DOOM Remix Album: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/doomsday-tribute-tapehead-remixes-full-album

Full Length Crime Side Album Out Now! https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/tapehead-enter-the-crime-side-36-chambers-remixes-full-album

Extended Version: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/crime-side-extended-mix
Crime Side Remix: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/tapehead-crime-side-remix

Behind the scenes of how I made this beat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOv3jo2zljI

Thank you so much for 100K streams: happy to say that the instrumental is now out on Spotify (and other streaming services):
https://open.spotify.com/track/7E7XrsH9croPa5CCiRy0DB?si=e9841bdf0b7a4d96
https://music.apple.com/us/album/crime-side-instrumental-instrumental-single/1577843527?uo=4&app=apple+music

Beat by Tapehead
Vocals from 'C.R.E.A.M.' acapella by Wu-Tang Clan

Instrumental now available:

https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/crime-side-instrumental

Crime Side

Instrumental out now on Spotify and other streaming services:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4HXXXVWoRG9ubvDXklIvzs?si=fbfd3fedb20b446f&nd=1
https://music.apple.com/us/album/just-zone-instrumental-instrumental-single/1578517704?uo=4&app=apple+music

Remixed and Remastered.

Instrumental: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/just-zone-instrumental

Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krt3oKLg0-I&lc=Ugzs4B0w07jS99VzL8Z4AaABAg

Original upload (2018):
https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/just-zone

Memories of making this beat are mad vague and hazy. It was either late 2016 or early 2017, and I was too excited over the sample. Being a very old beat the drums were terribly done, so I've added news drums and balanced out the levels on the sample a bit better.

I've always loved how the Shootouts acapella sounds over this beat, especially this verse, so I've kept that the same, but added the chorus at the start and the end of the track. I don't know why I didn't use the chorus before, because it sounds dope, but then again I was bugging back then. The decision to put Shootouts over this beat was a dope one though, and I'm glad I've got the track to a place where it now sounds a lot better.

Peace.

Just Zone

Beats, cuts, mixing & mastering by Tapehead.
Vocals from 'When I Flow' Acapella by Walkin' Large, ft. Jeru The Damaja.

Youtube:
https://youtu.be/17VDUetILkg

This acapella is taken from one of my favourite songs, from a group who I think are mad underrated. I first heard it on a Stretch and Bobbito tape, and was blown away by it, from the lyrics to the production, everything was crazy, and Jeru's verse was mad too. The original beat is mad bass heavy, so as soon as I had the 2nd flip down I instantly thought of putting this acapella over it, because it just fit the vibe of the track too well, and I was really happy with the outcome.

The opening lyrics really hit me when I was working on this remix, so I decided to put them over the smoother intro, because the lines 'With all these sick influences from the world outside, I guess I have to be dead to be myself, and take a ride, to somewhere none of y'all can find me, sit beside me, cause I chose my brain to guide me', are a crazy introspective look on the world, and then as the harder, bass heavy beat hits, the song really starts, and knowledge gets dropped.

The 'Whatchu gonna do, when, I, flow' chorus isn't actually on the acapella, so I had to record that over my beat from the A side of the 12", turning the bass and treble down on my mixer so the drums weren't too loud. This ended up sounding really good, and I was able to have fun scratching the snare before the chorus dropped, which came out sounding mad nice in my opinion. I'm not good at scratching by any means but I love when I can incorporate it into my music, even if it's just a few cuts like in this track.

Sick Influences

Beatmaker / Emcee
Contact: tapeheadloops@gmail.com

<--MPC2000 Classic                     

Underground Airplay

Trying to give something back to Hip Hop - really appreciate any comments or feedback.

Peace