Ohhh. Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.
I’m gonna guess beatmaker 3 for obvious reasons but I wouldn’t be surprised if he made it with some janky abandoned software like the first mpc app or something knowing his history
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Like the first Imaschine app
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The main things that gave the old sp’s kind of a magic sound was the resampling, the fx and the convertors.
Resampling instead of sequencing gives everything a loose groove, and really glues the sound together. After resampling a loop for the 20th time through those convertors, all the elements sound like they belong together.
The resampling and fx are still there in the mk2, but to me, the sampling sounds more transparent, and less glued together in a way. Only had it for a couple of days, so my opinion might change the more I use it.
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weird thing is that he said he used the iPad for stuff that was done 12 years ago… I don’t believe it.
Why? There are definitely tracks of his where you can hear that he’s using an SP-1200 like the old Lootpack stuff. And there are definitely tracks where you can hear that he’s using either a 303 or a 404 because of that weird pitch shifting But for a lot of it, I don’t see why it couldn’t have been made on basically anything.
For starters, the iPad hasn’t turned 12, yet! 
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it was just the way he made the comment. I agree with you that it’s possible I just think it’s highly unlikely… I think when he first made the comment he was just trying to make the point that you can make music with anything and that it doesn’t make any sense to put people down because they use iPhones /ipads or whatever and of course I agree 100% on that… and he even stated as much in later comments, but I think like a wild fire people started jumping on the comment as if it was him endorsing the use of an iPad, and when Freddie Gibbs was asked about it he really didn’t know what to say and clumsily just started to say yeah, and now he’s more comfortable with the question and answers like he’s ready for it…
but my thing is this , I’m familiar with all of the iPad apps and 12 years ago the apps that he would have used would have made it unlikely that he went 100% iPad way back then… and you know his style of production, he doesn’t do much mangling or manipulation,… to go that route , (keep saying 12yrs ago but it’s more like 13yrs ago). would have been an uncessary headache as opposed to just using what he usually used for the task…
course I could be wrong, but it’s just unlikely
I believe this is why neither he nor Freddie ever mention the name of any apps, cause then people would know for sure what was going on 13 years ago, and on a side note Freddie can’t keep his story straight about whether he just got a bunch of beats on CD a long time ago, which is Madlibs known methodology, or whether they got together in the studio making history etc… he tells both stories…
but in the beginning when they first put out music they both admitted that Freddie had just bought a bunch of beats that were on cd and not only the first album but the second album as well were in the collection of beats that he bought… so that tells you that the beats were more than likely made at the same time period…
It’s kind of funny to me how madlibs comment in which he tried to say it doesn’t really matter what gear you use, turned into an entire online debate about… what gear he used
I love madlib and get what he was trying to get across: people really romanticize his use of the sp303 and use it because of him, whereas for him it was more of a weird gear choice which was probably mainly inspired by its portability. It led him to make really original music, but mainly because he wasn’t trying to imitate someone else. Using gear because someone famous used it is the opposite, and would probably lead to imitation rather than new/original music.
The general notion that it doesn’t matter what gear you use is something I disagree with wholeheartedly though. Certain gear leads to certain decisions or creative solutions or a certain sound. Pete rock was way better on the sp1200 than on the mpc2000. The whole 9th wonder microchopping soul sample-style wouldn’t have been there without the ability to use mute groups in fruityloops/the mpc 2500 etc.
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yep, this is the point I was trying to get across, but regarding the issue of whether it matters what you use or not… I don’t think we are talking about the same thing… of course it matters what you use to each individual who uses whatever they use… what I meant, and what I believe Madlib meant is that 'it doesn’t matter what you use because whatever is right for you is what’s right for you, it could be an iPad, and iPhone, an sp303/404, an mpc or whatever…
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Yeah I completely agree with that, and people shouldn’t be buying stuff because they think they need it to make good music.
I feel like the most important thing is finding gear which clicks with your own sound/way of working/character. If for some people thats an iphone with some apps it will probably inspire them to make their greatest music.
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Nah, I never said that he went or claimed to have went 100 percent ipad 12 years ago or at any time. I even said that on some beats you can tell what piece of harware he was using by the way the beat sounds. Thuggin, for example, has that weird pitch thing going that probably comes from him using a 303 or a 404.
All I said was that I heard that he had used an ipad for a lot of Gibbs’ last record and that for a good chunk of his beats, they really could have been made on pretty much anything because they were mostly about the samples he chose.
But word to the point that it’s kind of nonsense to say that gear doesn’t influence how you make music. Buying the things I use won’t make you make beats like me. But my beats sound the way they sound because of what I use. I generally use the Digitakt or the Circuit Rhythm and I know that the choice of device influences the choices I make.
It’s why I was interested in the 404 in the first place and why I follow this thread even though I don’t see myself getting one any time soon.
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I wasn’t saying that you said he uses the iPad 100%
he said it.
for all anybody knows 13 years ago he might have been keeping an crate library on an iOS device and been sampling from that lol…but to actually craft the beats imo it’s just unlikely … the export options were horrendous back then, anybody who was using iOS music apps remembers… I just don’t think he crafted the beats, exported them and put them on beat cds to hand out 13 years ago… he doesn’t even like stems I have serious doubts that he has the patience for the 13 years ago iOS platform
I don’t know man. Having never used an ipad for music, I just don’t buy that it would be all that hard to hookup whatever you’ve got your headphones plugged into into an audio interface or whatever. He was definitely two tracking anyway.
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maybe he did it, but 13 years ago, the apps weren’t like today.
hey Madlib I know you’re listening, what app was it that you used back then 
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Maybe he was really big on the MPC Fly
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Plenty of apps back in the early days of iPad. All you needed was Beatmaker for beats, and Garageband for everything else. I did an album about 11 years ago on the iPad. Mostly used Garageband, Auria, Beatmaker.
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maybe so… the funny thing is that a long time ago both him and Gibbs admitted that all the tracks for both of Gibbs albums piñata and bandana were all off the same old cd…, but now Freddie likes to spin the story a bit… personally I think they just had no idea how both of those albums were gonna blow up… and so now they want to spice up the story a little, but those beats were old before Freddie got them, he wasn’t even the first one to get them.
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exactly… and of course this is subjective but I remember the hoops you had to jump through back then, and Madlib did it even earlier than that…
omg just thinking about what I went through with auria gives me a headache… garage band not so bad, Beatmaker from then to now 
but I made music on all of them
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Yeah, Beatmaker 2 was a big jump in usability compare to the first one.
I also remember the Gorillaz did an entire album on the iPad in 2010. Exciting times.
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