Cool Edit, Fruity Loops, and Humanization: Mr. Green Explains His Early Years as a Producer
Full disclosure: Mr. Green has been a friend of mine since my freshman year of college. I watched him rock crowded frat house basements with his epic “Shoop” blend and listened to some of his earliest beats. He produced some songs for my cousin a few years back and made a beat for me to use while I proposed to my wife. We also ended up using it for our first dance on our wedding day.
Even if I didn’t know Green, I would still love his music. His Live from the Streets beat/video series is one of the most creative things I’ve seen a producer do with music and video. His “Children Sing” song gives me chills every time I hear it, he produced a track with Brother Ali, Masta Ace, and RA The Rugged man, and he works with dope underappreciated MCs like Malik B and Pace Won. Through it all Green has remained a hilarious, humble, and unique individual. He has an amazing ability to connect with people from all walks of life and seems to draw inspiration from sources many of us overlook. He is a great reminder that if you love something and you work hard at it, you can find success.
Though Green has graduated to the heralded Maschine sampler as his weapon of choice, he learned how to make beats and found his initial success with Cool Edit Pro and Fruity Loops. In our interview he talks about his early years making beats and gives some very sound advice for aspiring producers and musicians about the importance of hard work and the willingness to suck. As Green says, “Before the beats actually started sounding good there was a grace period, a long grace period.” Learn about that grace period and much more in our interview.
“That was my favorite, the ability to make a perfect grid and then just put it off a little bit so it sounded like a human hand tapped it or a drummer played it rather than fucking robot music.”
Gino: When you started making beats, how old were you?
Mr. Green: I was probably like 17. I’ve been DJing since I was 15, and making beats since 17.
Gino: Did you start producing on Fruity Loops, or were you using another beat-making software?
Mr. Green: The first beats I made were on Cool Edit Pro. I would record drums and loops from vinyl and then loop them up. I went from solely using Cool Edit Pro to using Cool Edit Pro in conjunction with Fruity Loops. That’s how 9th Wonder did it, and it was the standard way of doing Fruity Loops. You chop up your samples in Cool Edit Pro and then you load them into Fruity Loops. That was what I did for years.
Gino: Through practicing your chops on Cool Edit Pro, had you already mastered the art of chopping samples, or was there still a learning curve once you started using Fruity Loops?
Mr. Green: I knew how to loop a waveform visually. You see when the drums start, when the kick starts, and then you see where the last hi-hat is. And you just kind of visually make it so when you loop it, it sounds good. Then I would duplicate that loop. I really didn’t know anything when I was just using Cool Edit Pro. I was almost just trying to make a backbeat to scratch to. I really mastered my chopping in Fruity Loops.
“I really didn’t know anything when I was just using Cool Edit Pro. I was almost just trying to make a backbeat to scratch to.”
Gino: So if you were doing chops in Fruity Loops, you were probably using a later version of it, right?
Mr. Green: Yeah, when I first started doing the combo, it was Cool Edit Pro and Fruity Loops 3, I believe. Then I moved to Fruity Loops 7. Once I started doing the editing, I would chop my samples internally in Fruity Loops using Edison. That’s when I really started getting busy, because there was no time between when I would have an idea of what I wanted to chop and when I was actually playing with it. It was like 30 seconds. Edison basically removed the need for Cool Edit Pro so you could do everything within one program.
“That’s when I really started getting busy, because there was no time between when I would have an idea of what I wanted to chop and when I was actually playing with it.”
Gino: Was there a favorite feature you had with Fruity Loops?
Mr. Green: I really like that I was able to put everything right on the grid, so it was just like a perfect machine. Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta (starts making drum sounds), perfect 16th notes. I liked that, but it was a little bit limiting because it sounds like a robot played the beat. But there’s an ability to slide notes. After putting everything directly on the grid, I would just slide certain notes and make certain ones hit just a little bit behind where they’re supposed to, and that would give it a human feel. That was my favorite, the ability to make a perfect grid and then just put it off a little bit so it sounded like a human hand tapped it or a drummer played it rather than fucking robot music.
“After putting everything directly on the grid, I would just slide certain notes and make certain ones hit just a little bit behind where they’re supposed to, and that would give it a human feel.”
Gino: Right. If you were a live drummer playing it, you wouldn’t just hit all the notes the exact same way every time. When you’re making a beat, whether it’s with an MPC, Fruity Loops, or whatever, you want to give your drum pattern that warm sound.
Mr. Green: Yep, you want it to be human. It’s called humanization versus quantization. Quantization is having the exact amount of space between each drum every time. With humanization it’s still on beat, but it’s like every drum has a different space between it, so there’s never exactly the same thing twice.
That’s the number one advice I give producers. People hit me up all the time and say, “What do you think of this beat?” Nine times out of ten I say, “It’s dope but too quantized. You need to work on your humanization.” They’re like, “What’s humanization?” I tell them to make it sound like a robot didn’t make it. Make it sound like a human played it.
“ I think if you really want to explore the full boom bap ’90s sounds, you need to be tapping buttons on pads and programming by hand.”
Gino: Fruity Loops seems like a great tool for a young producer trying to learn the ropes, but it sounds like there is a reason you moved on to using Maschine. Do you think if someone is trying to achieve a more traditional ’90s East Coast sound that they would eventually want to move away from the program because they may not be able to achieve exactly what they want with it?
Mr. Green: With Fruity Loops, even if you get really good at humanizing and making it feel like a computer didn’t mix the beat, it gets a little bit limiting after a while, and every beat starts to sound the same. Even 9th Wonder, who has platinum plaques and Grammys off of stuff that he made on Fruity Loops, later went and with the MPC and Maschine. I think if you really want to explore the full boom bap ’90s sounds, you need to be tapping buttons on pads and programming by hand.
“I think the difference between someone who does it and someone who just thought about doing it is the months or years sucking. You’ve got to suck for a while before you actually get good.”
Gino: When you were making a beat with Fruity Loops, how long would it take you to make a beat start to finish? What order would you do samples, drums, and bass lines?
Mr. Green: To get the idea out, where I’ve got my sample laid out, the drums, a simple bass line, and the sections, it was really only 12 or 15 minutes. To actually tweak everything and make it not so computer-sounding, it would take a couple of hours. You basically get your skeleton out there and then you kind of have to fine-tune everything to make it sound right, so I think about two hours. I have spent 10 hours, maybe even 20 hours on a beat, but for the most part, I think the idea comes in the first 10 or 15 minutes, and then to get it perfect, two hours.
And this is after I already kind of started mastering Fruity Loops. When I first was getting started, I would just sit there and play around all day and not come up with anything. But once I really became a producer who was making records for people, it was like a two-hour thing.
“When I first was getting started, I would just sit there and play around all day and not come up with anything.”
Gino: I think sitting with something all day and not coming up with anything is important. The willingness to work hard, not have a finished product, and be OK with that time investment seems crucial. You have to be OK with not having instant success. Most people aren’t going to pick up beat-making in a matter of days or weeks. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Green: Yeah, definitely. I think in order to get to the point where you’re making really good beats in two hours, you’re going to have to spend weeks, months, years just playing around and not really coming up with anything that’s listenable. I have folders of beats that are just like, “Eh. It’s cool.” But no one is really ever going to be like, “Oh shit, I like that beat.”
I think the difference between someone who does it and someone who just thought about doing it is the months or years sucking. You’ve got to suck for a while before you actually get good. And that’s not true for everyone. I think there are prodigies out there who just sit down, and the first beat they make is good. But I think for the most part, most regular humans spend a portion of their life honing the craft before they ever make anything that’s worthwhile.
That’s definitely how it was for me. I always knew how to scratch. The first time that I tried scratching, I was pretty on-beat, and that’s kind of how I knew I was supposed to be doing hip-hop. But before the beats actually started sounding good there was a grace period, a long grace period. And maybe one day I’ll actually put some of those beats out so people can hear what my first beat sounded like, so they don’t feel so bad when their first beats suck.
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