Beat This! Competition - January 22-23, 2025

The next competition will be from January 22-23rd! See the information below.

Signups

The signups will be on January 22nd at 12pm ET/EST, and end around 8pm ET, or until we have enough contestants (whichever comes first - depending on the theme).
Voting will be for one day, on January 23rd, where the results will be posted the same day.

Check out the Beat This! ranks: https://www.illmuzik.com/beat-battles/ranks/cat/bthis/

*Note: check out this site to find out the correct time difference for your timezone:

World Clock & Time Converter

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Theme: Jazzy
Time Limit: 2 minutes
*Vocal Track Allowed?: NO
**Vocal Snippets Allowed?: YES

• You must make a Jazzy style beat!
• Saxophone, trumpet, piano, etc.

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* VOCAL TRACK ALLOWED? This means you can have a full vocal track with your beat (acapella, for example).
** VOCAL SNIPPETS ALLOWED? This means you can have vocal snippets in your beat (very short vocal parts, for example). This is where you can also have an intro with talking (like from a movie).
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Voting

If you are competing, you will be able to vote but not for yourself. DO NOT TRY TO CHEAT! I will be watching for cheaters. This means you cannot sign up under different names or get your friends and family to sign up either. If you are caught cheating you could be banned.

Voting Criteria

You can use whatever sounds you want, samples, synths, just remember to read the rules for the rest of the restrictions. What the judges will be looking for is originality, creativity, mixing skills and overall dopeness!

Beats

All the beats will now be displayed in a random order and without any names. All you will see is: Beat #001, Beat #002, etc. This is so that there is no favoritism when voting.

Rules

If you're not sure about the rules, read this thread.

If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions about the competition, please post them in here.

Did you just say JAZZY?

Jizzy... got it.

Listen my albums Nizhyn City Beats vol 1 and vol 2. When everything calms down, I invite everyone to Kiev - We will make a party!!!

BizangoNigma said:

Listen my albums Nizhyn City Beats vol 1 and vol 2. When everything calms down, I invite everyone to Kiev - We will make a party!!!

Click to expand...

bro you actually out here dropping bombs in the middle of a warzone right now? (every pun intended)

Working on a beat for this one actually, hoping to finish it by tomorrow. What do you guys use to flip samples? Working with Studio one 6 right now with NI maschine mk2 and some generic vst's. Hard for me to even finish one beat but this one is slowly coming along.

isaacbrighteyes said:

Working on a beat for this one actually, hoping to finish it by tomorrow. What do you guys use to flip samples? Working with Studio one 6 right now with NI maschine mk2 and some generic vst's. Hard for me to even finish one beat but this one is slowly coming along.

Click to expand...

I use Studio One 6, too.

I'd be chopping shit up in Impact and the arrange window tho I should probably try using mpc beats or one of NI's things

They are fun to try out got mine used at a music shop

The results will be posted tonight around 5pm ET.

Listen to the beats and place your vote for the BEST JAZZY BEAT!

Fade said:

The results will be posted tonight around 5pm ET.

Click to expand...

ET trying to decide his vote

RESULTS!

See what went down: https://www.illmuzik.com/beat-battles/archives/cat/bthis/battle/362/

Props to all those that entered, and to those that took the time to vote.

Congrats @TWU .

My favorite beat was @Delta Skeltah 's . Awesome drums/energy.

DJ Excellence said:

Congrats @TWU .

My favorite beat was @Delta Skeltah 's . Awesome drums/energy.

Click to expand...

I've been listening to ur stuff lately
@TWU always dope

Congrats @TWU!

@DJ Excellence I had you first but it was close for me with yours and @TWU.

@Delta Skeltah that shit was nice!

Nice one @TWU

Thanks guys, much appreciated!

@jbm got my vote! (Surprised you didn't win.) Big fan of that 90's boombap flavour, dope stuff!

@DJ Excellence and @Delta Skeltah also two of my favorites...

Not checked who's who yet, but wanted to do something different and give a kind of 'review' of the entries as a whole.

To try avoid calling out any individuals or whatnot.

When it comes to 'other music' themes, there seems to be 2 common mistakes, or difficulties that present:
I'll use in context of today's Beat This

- people struggle to make it 'jazzy' enough

- people make it 'too jazzy' and thus it loses the 'hip-hop' element

it can be really easy to fall either of those two ways... you might pick a chord or instrument that is inherently 'jazzy', but, the style of playing etc just does not have jazz feel.
Similarly, you can get focussed on really nailing that jazz feel, that your drums, or whatnot, loses the hip-hop element.

Really, it's as easy as listening and asking 'does this sound jazzy?' 'does this sound hip-hop enough', and if the answer is no, just revisiting it. (I myself, have fallen into the too far themeinfluence before)


So first off, when voting, I take into account the above --- if either of the above are true, im not considering it. I think you missed.

If you made it past that, my voting leans slightly biased... sampled vs 'composed'. I'm leaning in favor of the composed;
If it sounds like you've just grabbed a jazz record loop and chucked it over hip-hop drums, I think you're cheesing/lazy.
If you've chosen a popular sample, used before, and used it in the same way, I also think you're cheesing and lacking original.
If you've chosen a sample(s), but chopped it up interestingly, clearly somewhat 'composed' in your use of sampling, your chops. I rate this.

At that point, it will still ultimately come down to 'which record just sounds like a great bit of music' - ultimately, that's what's important.

But I try take my personal (and Fade's) criteria for voting into consid first.

When I was voting, I felt like many people either fell into the category of 'not jazzy enough' or 'not hip-hop enough'.

Mixing I was slightly overlooking on this one, as when I was listening to jazzy type stuff, all felt fairly lo-fi or maybe not mixed as 'excitingly' as I'd like.

I voted on one, that I felt the hiphop, I felt the jazz, I think the mix was pretty lofi. I also now appreciating more lo-fi mixes differently to what i used to.

Have a feeling it was likely Deltah or maybe Leopard I voted for.

Gonna listen to the results now, and hoping that at least the jazzy ones are there, and hoping that they retain hiphop vibes.

As a side note, jazz actually feels really easy. Anyone else?

I think I either voted for @Delta Skeltah or @DJ Excellence -- both similar vibe I can remember both beats but can't remember which I chose.

Winning beat was one of the ones I quickly skipped past as wasn't Jazzy enough for me

As always if anyone wants any individual feedback @ me

A lot of cool drums in this battle, and a lot of great jazz also

Curious what others thought of my beat also?