Reggae Resources

Hi gang,

I have formed a new.. what do I call it... project? with a couple of Caribbean acquaintances of mine when I discovered that one of them can actually sing Reggae and is going to perform some songs at the upcoming Reggae Fest here. They liked a lot of my beats and the singer wants to work with them, and they liked the fact that I have a studio set up here with my MPK (which is an MPC with a keyboard - MPC is what most DJs use around here).

So, I need to find more resources for producing reggea and hip hop beats (more toward the theory side if possible). Any kicks in the right direction is welcome.

TIA
Shad

Do you have a taste for what sort of Reggae your project will explore?

I like the old Motown influenced stuff... Toots thru Tosh so to speak, which of course is radically different from the modern genres of Reggae.

It might be helpful to figure out what sort of sound you are in to.

best regards,
mike

There's a good selection of dub midi's here which use some fundamental reggae rhythms which are worth having a look at as Ragga, Dancehall and various other offshoots are all derivations from these.

http://midi.dubroom.org/

Check out Sure Dreads, Melodic Reggae collection for the best examples...they are pretty fundamental midi files but because of that they show clearly how all the various elements fit together for reggae music as a whole not just the beat.

Again you'll find many of these elements working in the same way in some of the more modern outgrowths and derivations of the style.

A good article here too on constructing various common reggae beat patterns and how they differ from a straight 4 rock beat.

http://studio.dubroom.org/tutorials-makingdubwithcomputers05.htm

Again it's pretty fundamental stuff but it's a good start toward rolling your own style and it gives some good grounding in the roots of these styles.

http://studio.dubroom.org

Itself is worth a good browse as there's quite a bit of good stuff to be had there.

btw Legions 'Game Over' is a good example of how closely related, Roots, Rock Steady etc are to modern Dancehall note the 'Skank' is occuring there with a synth pad rather than a muted guitar...its mostly the sounds that have changed but the fundamentals have remained

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

Do you have a taste for what sort of Reggae your project will explore?

I like the old Motown influenced stuff... Toots thru Tosh so to speak, which of course is radically different from the modern genres of Reggae.

It might be helpful to figure out what sort of sound you are in to.

best regards,
mike

I guess that is the real question, eh? I am thinking that Reggae has changed so much over the years, that I may be able to explore new territory. I would have never in a million years considered anything I did so far as hip hop or reggae, but Rawley (Barbados), Delon (my best man - from St Vincent) and Adrian (Washington DC) all sat here thinking it was great. I looked at them like they were crazy.

Cheers
Shad

Lookout, man. I'm hot on the tracks of JonBouy's links. (OK, well, I WILL be. One of these days.)
Mmmmmm. Toots. Dennis Brown. Jimmy Cliff...

Summer... reggae... bbq... what more could a person ask for?