Producing a Different Sound
A lot of people do not really appreciate the skill that music producers and rappers have when it comes to how the final version of a song sounds. It takes a special ear to be able to hear lyrics and to come up with a beat and sound effects to put behind them.
The instrument that DJ’s and producers use is called the turntable. Brandiwyne’s article called Let’s Turn the Tables Back in Time goes into detail about how the turntable started out with the name Phonograph and really makes you realize how special of an invention it is. She says: “ The Phonograph utilized heavy tinfoil wrapped around a cardboard cylinder to create sound. 3 years later it was upgraded to the Graphophone invented by Alexander Graham Bell which still utilized Edison’s cylinder, but used wax instead of foil. Both of these inventions were a little impractical, and possibly far from portable, so Emile Berliner came up with a more practical form called the Gramophone. Berlinder’s invention is known as the first turntable. Instead of the bulky cylinders, Berlinder utilized a flat disk- made originally of hard rubber, then shellac and later vinyl- that could be easily mass produced.”
DJ Mustard is a DJ/Producer whose call sign is “Mustard on the beat, HOE!”. Dan Hyman has a blog post on medium in which Dj Mustard describes how he got into making beats and producing and how its something that you just have:
“ So I started DJ’ing my own parties: like high school parties, stuff like that. And that introduced me to the whole idea of learning to listen to what it is that people want to hear. I just instinctively knew sounds. I just always was listening, hearing music… That’s what being a producer’s about. Not just about the beats, it’s moreso about the overall sound. Of course, you do make the beats and you make sure that’s right. But then also, if you’re in a session with a rapper, a big part of producing them is telling them, “Yo, this part ain’t right. I think this should go this way.” That’s really what being a producer is. It’s also about just having an ear for music. And once you prove that, the artists, they just know: “Maybe he’s right.”
Artists love to work with good producers such as DJ Mustard because they are able to focus more on doing their part with the lyrics instead of focusing on or worrying if what the producer is doing is going to mesh well with what they brought to the table. The result of working with someone that allows you to focus on what you do best and they do what they do best is the best quality product.
Dr. Dre is another one of these producers that is probably more well known than DJ Mustard. He came up from a hard life growing up in Compton, CA, but he had that special gift with music that made him able to hear things that others could not. He came into the business in the year 1984 and to this day Dr. Dre is still recognized as one of the most influential man in Hip-Hop.
He’s not an actual doctor, but Andre Young is arguably the architect of contemporary rap music. — Donnell Alexander
Producers such as Dr. Dre and DJ Mustard set themselves apart with their own style of beats and their own take on what the sound behind the lyrics is going to sound like. Most of the time these types of people “just instinctively knew sounds” as they were growing up, as DJ Mustard stated. But just because they were ahead of the game with their ability does not mean they did not work just as hard if not harder than producers that are not as well known.
Within every activity, whether it be music related or not, there will always be people that set themselves apart from the rest. Both of these producers looked at music in a way that was different from everyone else, and from that came a sound that was different.
