Ultimate Break Beats
Saturday, 12 January 2008
I thought that Ultimate break beats was just a term. I don’t use much of such terms, but when I read it in articles or heard it in podcasts, I thought it was just a name for the records that DJ’s and producers used to get their samples from. But yesterday I got an mp3 CD from Niels with “Ultimate break beats”, and because they were sorted by number, I looked it up with Google. To my surprise I found out that Ultimate break beats is (also) the name of a series of LP’s! You can find the information here.
The LP’s have nice graffiti style covers, and apart from the Ultimate Break Beat series (with 27 (!!!!) volumes) there are about 10 (!!!) other series, with just equally good records.
I have not checked all the songs on the LP’s, but I think I have about one quart of these records. They are not all that rare. And they are not all that good either, although many are. But I am amazed that I have never seen these LP’s. Or maybe I have never noticed them? Hard to believe.
I am not good at recognising samples. I mean, I can hear when a sample is used, but I am rarely able to mention the title of the original song and/or the artist. There are lists on the Net of all the samples ever used in every hiphop track, but for some reasons this doesn’t really interest me. I am interested in the art of sampling, but too often a great riff is used as the basis for a rather lousy new song. That is okay with me, but I don’t need to hear it.
I like it when hiphop bands use samples from rock’n’roll songs, but unfortunately I don’t know much examples. The first time I heard this exciting crossover was on the second LP of LL Cool J, Go, Cut Creator, go, in which a sample of Chuck Berry was used. Unless it is really a lack of fantasy, as somebody said, I really don’t understand why nobody uses samples from Johnny Burnette or Jean Vincent, or one of those thousands of obscure rockabilly records.”
Here is LL Cool J with that Johnny B Goode sample.
Comments:
frits
2008-01-17 01:47:25
Sorry Arie, i am not very good in names and details.
mr cheeba
2009-02-19 23:47:14
these break beats were sol at the music factory record stores in the bronx up until 1997 – i purchased most of these at that time between 1989-1995 — in the early 80s and 90s these were the hottest compilation albums to sample from almost every dj in nyc had or has these sets —
mr cheeba
2009-02-19 23:53:21
you guys are not true hip hop heads or beat diggers – just online pro tools users and fruity loopers thats why you dont know , kanye west is not that great , hes only great to a lil kid sitting behind his laptop trying to make a hip hop record with his pc , meanwhile kanye samples from actual records then hits his drum machine and creates a track , he doesnt go online a rob mp3 samples from websites like most kids do… plus there is an art to beat digging that many today just dont understand
frits
2009-02-20 02:27:37
Thanks for the comment. But what do you mean with “you guys”? I am just a music lover and i don’t pretend to be a true hip hop head or whatever.
dj mush
2009-03-20 07:12:15
What people also don’t realise is that this set of LP’s shaped hip hop sampling. Each time one of the LP’s came out, songs would come out sampling the beats on those records.
Also, the break in ‘Amen Brothers’ by the Winstons help spawn the Jungle genre and is still used in a lot of drum and bass tracks today.
aris
2008-01-14 03:22:20
Jean Vincent? So now Gene was a Frenchman? However I do agree with the fact that a lot of rockabilly samples are very good to use. Perhaps here’s an opportunity?