Tough choises
#1-beat 7
#2-beat 10
#3-beat 3
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Yeah that’s fine @monquixote I only realised the deadline myself today and I was the one that suggested it 
It probably wasn’t a great idea suggesting a date so soon after New Year’s Day so a couple more days grace is fine of course.
we’re still waiting on three more votes not including myself so let’s see if we can get them all in by the end of this weekend/monday and hopefully we can get a new battle going for the following weekend.
Thanks to everyone getting their votes in so far.
9 Likes
Good idea to postpone, maybe it helps to tag the people who havent voted yet? Some might’ve forgotten about this battle because of all the champagne consumed during new years eve 
7 Likes
Incredible standard this month.
Very hard to pick a winner. I’m not doing HMs because frankly everyone deserves one.
Per track comments:
Detailed Comments
1 - Really atmospheric intro - Very strong beat with a great groove. sold transition into something a bit dubbier. I really love the thunderstorm samples.
2 - Like the deep walking bass. A dark vibe, has a Dazed and Confused feel.
3 - Head nodder, the bass is locked in.
4 - Punchy snare, atmosphetic textures, I like the chopped up dark vocals
5 - I like the crunchy artifacts on the intro guitar. Nice percussion groove. This is nasty and crunchy in the best way. I’d love to know what you made this with it’s ditry and lofi and it sounds great. - 2
6 - Rainy atmosphere and some sharp cuts. Lots of space in this track. I like the “in the rain” section
7 - Sneaks up on you with some buzzy bass. Surprising transition into the guitar. Some nice crackle.
8 - Lots of crazy cuts
9 - Like the bit crushing on the vocals, drums are punchy. The piano brings in a nice atmosphere
10 - Great vocal sample, the beat is good and wonkey, some nice atmopherics in the background.
11 - Very smooth, solid bass, the strummed guitar sits in the pocket very well. Quite a simple track, but everything well executed.
12 - Wow this is viscious! Everything overloaded and wonkey. It’s brutal, but in a very enjoyable way. - Whoever wrote this I want a breakdown! - 1
13 - Nice chunky snare and groove in the pocket.
14 - Dark vibes and some atmosperics
3 pts to 12 - Crazy in the best way
2 pts to 5 - Crunchy and punchy. Filth!
1 pt to 10 - Dark and dirty, hypnotic
12 Likes
I always say it’s hard to narrow it down to 3 but that was extremely true this time around. But here are my top 3:
My top pick: TRACK 7
I really liked the sonic character of this one, I like the fuzzy bass; everything felt very balanced. I really liked the emotion the second part had.
My second place: TRACK 14.
Strong, dread atmosphere and a track that takes its time. Something about that slow, restrained beat. Kind of had a seasonal vibe to it too, those horns.
My third place: TRACK 8
I loved the samples in this one. Really collagey in the best way. Very music concrete but funky. Great middle eight section.
HMs:
TRACK 12. Loved this one. I wanted to use this sample and couldn’t get to work, so this one made me smile like a demon. Great bass sounds, too. A little lighter touch on the FX would’ve put this as #3.
TRACK 4. Another great spooky vibe. I liked when the ride came in. I really enjoyed the sound design and the use of the xylophone sounds.
12 Likes
first, second, third:
13
14
1
Incredible playlist. Everyone deserves to win.
12 Likes
That’s great we have them all in now except for my vote, I’ll do that shortly.
After that… bear with me while I sort out renaming the tracks on soundcloud and tallying everything up but it’ll be done this afternoon.
It’s such a good selection of beats and really makes a great coherent beat tape so well done everyone that took part and looking forward to hearing what you used to make your beat.
We can use the same soundcloud burner account for the next battle if everyone is ok with that, so I’ll send the next host the email and password when I’ve sorted all the other stuff
7 Likes
Here’s my votes.
Beat 3
3 points, sounds like an early 90s track that I’ve rediscovered, I liked it when I first played it and it’s grown on me even more over the last couple of weeks.
Beat 7
2 points, like the first section and love the second part, I sampled the same guitar on my first beat attempt which I abandoned and it didn’t come out as good as this.
Beat 2
1 Point, Lovely filter sound and nice head nod feel to it, kind of beat you’ll never get bored of.
Shouts to everyone else, every beat adds perfectly to a really great beat tape i hope you all take part in the next one!
9 Likes
Looking forward to hearing how you all worked on this one 
Here’s the results…
1st @Sleepyhead
2nd Yabba
3rd Joint third place with @sleepside & @schoolbabyboy sharing that place.
Well done again to all involved and our winner Sleepyhead, fantastic beat.
looking forward to the first concept for 2026.
11 Likes
Congratulations @Sleepyhead pride of our city! 
And ofcourse congratulations to @Yabba , @sleepside & @schoolbabyboy!
What a truly epic battle!
9 Likes
My Track was number 8
I decided to take the theme one step further an sample 4 tracks one for each season: Spring Again, Summertime, Autumn Leaves and Winter.
Usual workflow of Bitwig + Serato.
Drums were Bitwig built in 808 emulator, Sublab and Diva for the bass.
The vocoded vocals were Minimal Evoke which is a fun plugin although a bit tricky to get sounding how you want.
For some reason it came together super quickly I had the whole thing done in an evening and mixed it the next day.
Great to be participating again. I think probably the highest quality playlist so far.
Would love to have a breakdown on number 12 from @schoolbabyboy that thing is a monster!
9 Likes
Man, I feel honored and humbled, didnt expect to win because I was sincerely very impressed by every single one of these beats and feel like everyone could’ve won this!
Shoutout to @Yabba for being a great host and being in the top 3 (as usual ).
Congrats to @sleepside and @schoolbabyboy! Great tracks. I have some vague ideas for the next battle, does one of you want to join me organizing/hosting it?
I missed doing these battles not just because of making beats myself but mainly because it’s always very inspiring to hear what other people are able to do with the exact same samples. You guys motivate me to try out new techniques every time. Would love breakdowns on all of your tracks!
About my track:
I made two tracks with the samples in the thread and because I coudn’t choose I just used em both . Both are made on the Isla s2400 using that lovely aliasing it adds to samples.
For the second track I chopped up the guitar sample, and recorded some of my own guitar playing into the looper tracks of the s2400 to add layers/variation. The idea was to make these layers sound like they’re part of the original sample, but my mixing still needs some work to really achieve that.
I added some scratches and minor stabs/sprinkles from other tracks shared in the thread to add some character. Had a lot of fun making these beats!
10 Likes
Thank you to @Yabba for being a gracious host and to all of you who participated. This is the first time I’ve ever done any sort of group battle and I’m so glad I did!
My track was #4.
I tried to not get carried away like I usually do. I have Tom Waits’ Raindogs on cassette. Three copies actually. So I sampled it in to the SP-404 MkII from the WAR Walkman, and cut it up. Mostly I used a couple of the accordion notes pitched down with the lofi filter multiple times. I took a couple of the hits and tweaked those. The bass sound was accordion I think as well. Piano sound was from one of the other songs y’all posted. Drums were samples I already had. I sampled all that back in to the DTII for the programming and tweaked the sounds a bit more. The vocal samples are from Ted Lasso when Keeley asks Rebecca if she wants to get really drunk and rob a bank. I over did it on the delay, which I manually tweaked the time to get the different pitches. So I didn’t use any synths to make melodies or noises. Just mangled samples (sorry if that word triggers anyone). WAR walkman, SP-404 MkII, and DTII.
Thanks again for letting me join in on the fun! Y’all are wicked talented!
9 Likes
My track was number 3. For this one, I went old school with the MPC2000. Well, I cheated a little. I started by isolating some parts using Stemroller, then uploaded everything to the SP404, where I chopped up the samples I wanted to use. After that, I sampled it all into the MPC2K.
Every sound in the track comes from the video samples provided, including the rap vocals. Once the beat was sequenced on the MPC, I tracked the stems into the Octatrack, where I mixed, added some FX, and dialed in compression.
So yeah — technically a chain of three samplers and a computer, but still MPC2000 at heart and in spirit 
10 Likes
wow, very surprised to have placed! thanks for the votes and words about the track, im glad it worked better than i expected. @Sleepyhead thanks for offering a co-host spot but im about to be very busy the next few months so ill have to decline. ill be looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
so i was track 12, i made it on the op-xy and the only sample is from Tom Waits - Rain Dogs, heard the accordion and knew i had to use it. this was a fairly unusual process for me, i typically have way more pattern variations across the different tracks but this one was fairly limited. i chopped the sample up on the xy and made four variations of chops. i also used one xy synth in there for the little impact drone thing. i pretty much just made a few variations of drum patterns with the different chop patterns and mixed and matched the different elements in scenes. i pushed the master drive and compression very hard, the clip parameter was maxed out. then fx did a bunch of heavy lifting, i organized the scenes in song mode, recorded it to the 404 while doing some punch in fx on the xy, then did some more effects on the 404 and did the typical cassette/303 vinyl sims.
thanks again yall, this was a fun time and i always love taking part in a mixtape with the greats!
9 Likes
What a great battle and mixtape! Definitely pulling out the notebook for this one. And thank yall for the kind words on my beat. And I would be willing to help organize the next one if you want, @sleepyhead
For this one (#5), I did rough chops in Audacity, then built the beat and did all processing on my Dirtywave M8.
- Guitar from “La saison des pluies” by Serge Gainsbourg. I stumbled on the main loop just playing with chops and spent a long time not knowing where to go with it. Lowpassed with some sample rate reduction.
- Glass Harmonica from “Raindogs” by Tom Waits
- Bass from “Stormy” by Gabor Szabo. Lowpassed, even more sample rate reduction, and used as one-shots to make my own basslinr
- Drum fill in the second half: “Linda Lee” by Brandee Younger.
- Hum in the second half: “The Wind” by Diablos. Pitch bend added, but otherwise kept the same. I wanted to use this more extensively, but it just sounded awful repitched
- Kick and Snare are 808 emulations
- Sci-Fi Hats were my one synth, a stack of three ring-mod oscillators, with tweaking for open hats and chirps
- Sleigh bells from the Wikipedia page for “Sleigh bell”
- Crash from Samples from Mars’s Private Reserve from Mars
Another music jam group I’m in had a “lo-fi winter” theme at the same time as this battle, so I had some additional tweaks post-battle, including recording the second version direct from boombox speakers with an SM58. I’m posting both below, battle version first, post-battle second.
9 Likes
Not much to say. I made number 6 and I think that it’s a good lesson to prioritize addressing issues with your mix early on and to give your ears a rest from time to time so that you can stay objective while you work instead of letting things trainwreck and then making it worse by trying to quick-fix the structural integrity of your piece at the last minute.
The high level of competition really demonstrates what a talented group this is and I’m glad to have had a chance to enjoy all of your tracks.
Thanks
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Congratulations to @Sleepyhead and the runners up and everyone that took part. Great collections of tunes. Big up to @Yabba for the hosting and idea, nice one! Great to take part again after a long break from these. 2025 was a sparse year for me with the music making so felt good to make and ‘finish’ something (probably like the 4/5th thing all year!) and always inspiring to hear what everyone makes.
Mine was track 2 done in Ableton, sent through the 404mk2 for the low pass filter and cassette sim. Lots of stem separation of parts which I think contributed to the watery/not great sound a few commented on. I think sometimes you can get away with one element with stem separation but maybe not loads. Main bass line, drums and some key parts from Summertime, vocals and a chord from the Diablos, guitar sound from Let the Sunshine In and scatterings of the Drumatics and Leon Thomas.
9 Likes
Congratulations to all for this incredible battle, and big up for the theme that was very inspiring!
I’m track 11.
The main sample comes from La saison des pluies by Gainsbourg, I added a sound FX from In the Rain by The Dramatics and a vocal chop from Etta James on Stormy Weather.
Bring on the next one! 
7 Likes
Congrats @Sleepyhead! I agree with @flipinfantile, pride of our city 
Well deserved win, as are the the top 3 spots for the others. Also, awesome to see that a lot of tracks got at least one vote, mention and/or supporting comments.
My track was track 13. I actually made the basic idea quickly (I went for a menacing Onyx/Mobb Deep kind of vibe), but didn’t have the motivation and/or energy to finish it into something with more polish and variety so I wholeheartedly agree with the feedback I got.
I used Vivaldi and Tom Waits for samples (bass and stabs), the drums are a loop from Ableton chopped up and layered with some drums from a SP1200 sample pack. All made in Ableton.
Looking forward to the next one!
9 Likes