When you add live instrumentation you've just added a whole lists of bullshit that your gonna have to deal with that will cost you more $$ and time in the long run, especially on an underground level. You need musicians and will they be willing to tour for a little of nothing? The time it takes to build and the ego's you have to deal with during this process. The extra cost to record and master a band. I have thought about this and have mettled around with it. But I feel this is something more on the lines of someone who is established already and may have financial backing. By all means if you know a bunch of talented musicians that don't already have a full schedule jump on. A quick reminder to anyone who wants to try this, if you don't do it right your gonna waste tons of time on something thats mediocre. Alot of musicians will have barriers that will show in your attempt to make live hip hop. Not everybody can find the roots, feel me?
sorry im gonna have to disagree on that one, ive recorded my Nicholas Kopernicus project using live musicians.
www.myspace.com/nkopernicus
i used a saxophone player, horn section, Flute player, Guitar, Percussion, harmonica, everything coast under 200 bucks. Musicians are a dime a dozen and most are eager to record and work on something that is interesting. If you approach them correctly most will work for free, i only paid 200 because i wanted to...
on my current project ive already recoded guitar, Vibraphone and flute. I also have a string quartet lined up as well as a 4 piece horn section, acoustic bass, percussion etc. All this is costing me less then 300 bucks
Like anything else it takes practice, it may seem daunting at first but its really not, at times its easier working with live musicians as apposed to samples because you can get exactly what you want. After i have recorded their parts i treat them like samples and chop and rearrange them accordingly. so in essence its no different then sampling from a record. The only difference is the source of the sound.
But as the producer its your job to tell the musician what YOU want, i find that alot of bad experiences that people have with musicians stems from the producer not knowing how to communicate their ideas properly. Alot of cats expect the musician to show up and just play and do all the work, you need to direct them to your vision and tweak them just like you would tweak a synth patch. This is where the whole producer vs beat maker separation happens. A producer is going to know how to handle this and work with the musician to get the best performance out of them . The beat maker is just gonna sit there and expect the musician do come up with something.
Keep in mind you dont have to use pro's either, you can do down to the local highschool to get what you want. Hell i worked with a cat that i saw playing on the subway. Musicians are everywhere
Now touring with a band is another story. but again touring in general is a daunting task. Touring with a bunch of musicians would be no different then touring with a rbunch of rappers in a group. Their is always gonna be drama when groups of people go on tour
just my 2 cents
