Sunday, April 17, 2011

Funk Drum Loops Will Give Your Music An Edge

By Rodney Steele


Building amazing, fresh beats is a fairly challenging thing. Modern mainstream beats rely heavily on processed, crisp rhythms that sound machine generated. For a different kind of flavor, try sampling some funk drum loops.

You know what they sound like. Fat, head bouncing beats that make you think of Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube. Many of these tracks are based on Parliament samples, and they provide a thudding pulse for the groove to ride. You can watch your listeners' heads snap back in time to the body controlling rhythms by trying some of what George Clinton was trying.

Parliament is actually one of the best and easiest bands to pull these samples from. Some of the best ones tend to come from the era when Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey played the skins opposite Bootsy Collins' bass.

There are plenty of places to lift good beats from. James Brown is one of the most heavily sampled artists in hip hop, but there are still lots of great cuts to make. Stars of the seventies like Stevie Wonder, Barry White, and Luther Vandross are also great sources.

Working these beats into your own rhythms couldn't be easier. They are wide open, dance beats with the basic emphasis on the one and the three. They are very easy to drop into anything you make. The first few Ice Cube albums are great to listen to if you need ideas about how to best wrangle these heavy beats.

Maybe you can reclaim your freshness by running as far away from the mainstream, high end mechanized drum sounds as you can. Use some funk drum loops to bring the flavor of old school dance music to your own. After forty years, these beats are still fresh and exciting. If you treat them well, they will make you move.




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