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Download here barrybeatsakasispex.bandcamp....
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Still riding high from the success of his bootleg Mass Appeal rhythm roulette attempt, Cornish beat making master Barry Beats decides to test himself once again with a brand new beat making challenge.
This time the blind fold (or Helmet) is removed BUT so is the record buying budget. Armed only with a shiny £1 coin and a full tank of diesel, Barry’s mission is to buy enough sampleable records to go back and craft a bangin’ beat using only the records bought for said pound.
In addition to the digging’ and Beatmaking challenge, Barry has also decided to compose his very own musical underscore to accompany the record searching portion of this vid. It has long been a dream of Barry’s to do a movie soundtrack and in the absence of a phone call from Tarrantino, Baz decided to take things into his own hands and get his Lalo Shifrin on. Inspired by the Library music of the 1960’s and 70’s Barry got creative employing the amazingly convincing virtual instruments to his disposal and wrote a drama suite incorporating 9 original pieces.
The entire Drama suite can be downloaded for, you guessed it £1, via the Barry Beats aka Si Spex Bandcamp page.
barrybeatsakasispex.bandcamp....
Anyway, back to the Beat Challenge where first up Barry hits up the animal charity shops of Camborne and pool in Cornwall where the practice of getting in specialist record pricers is un heard of and usually ends up the job of an old lady called Eunice.
On route from Pool to Camborne Barry makes a pit stop in the fantastical house clearance emporium that is Miss Mollys just outside of Tuckingmill. Here Barry strikes gold with 10p per record and a room of LPs (No AC-DC though)
After approx 45 mins of digging, shop manager Katie takes pity on Barry as he successfully manages to haggle 6 records for 50p!
Barry is unfortunately not as successful in the local chazzas so he decides to return to Camborne’s high wizard of vinyl, the legendary Art (Proprietor of music and head shop Lost in Music) where he is directed to some bin (trash) bags in the corner stuffed with records. These records mean nothing to Art but could really save Barry’s bacon. With a big old pile under arm, Barry manages to snag the lot for just 50p which is a pretty good deal considering there is a Simon Sounds Two Generations and a 20th century steel band LP amongst the haul.
After a busy and successful mornings dig, Barry and camera operating sidekick Leonard need to re fuel and if you are in Cornwall that means just one thing… Pasty time, and there is nowhere better in West Cornwall than Brian Ethertons in Scorrier.
Totally stuffed, the two intrepid adventurers return to the lab where a full assessment of the dig takes place. The verdict is positive as plenty of sample worthy material presents itself. Way too much to feature in this video in fact.
Now for the fun bit! Getting busy in Ableton.
First, in traditional Barry style he starts off by laying down the drums, in this case the rolling bangers of the Simon Sound.
Not quite happy with the loopy chopped B-Boy sounding style of drum pattern, Barry plumps for a more traditional programmed style of drum while also incorporating some layered virtual Addictive Drums for good measure.
Now for the music and after auditioning a number of samples over the drums (again, not enough time to show this on this 30min vid) he finally settles on the Baja Band track Big Red with its cheeky Sesame Street feel.
Using Ableton’s excellent Simpler sampler Barry dissects the Baja Band into hundreds of component parts and gets funky with it. The result is a choppy sounding quirky 12 bars of smile inducing niceness.
Not content with just the Baja Band samples Barry decides to delve into some of the other records in the £1 stash to add extra musical flavour. Both the Beat Street and Duane Eddy are somehow interweaved into the mix giving the track even more variety and entertainment value.
And that is where we leave the lab and get to check out the finished beat complete with added virtual instrument additions.
And speaking of virtual instruments here is a list of instruments used in this track…
Barry adds a bass, marimba & glockenspiel from the Native instruments Komplete collection
www.native-instruments.com/en...
Also the track features the amazing RMI Rocksichord virtual instrument which can be downloaded for free from Soniccouture
www.soniccouture.com/en/produc...
Finally you can here some tasty jazz guitar licks courtesy of the Archtop Hollowbody guitar by Impact Soundworks
no longer available
Hope you Enjoy and if you fancy taking Barry’s £1 (or $1.25) Beatmaking Challenge then go for it. Would love to hear your results. Feel free to post any links to them in the comments section below.
HAPPY BEATMAKING