Ski Beatz – An Unsual Approach to Ableton
Ski Beatz is a producer who’s worked with some of the biggest names in Hip Hop, including Jay Z, Mos Def, AZ, Foxy Brown, Lil’ Kim and Camp Lo.
In this video he demonstrates how he goes about making a track, and its actually done in quite an unexpected, yet very impressive way. Ski has an unusual technique for beatmaking which is extremely fast and fluid. Watch the movie to see him in action.
If you’re having trouble following what he’s doing, here’s how he goes about it:
- Ski Beatz uses Warp Markers as slicing point markers. He listens to a song he’s going to sample, with only the first Warp Marker in place.
- When he hears parts he wants to use, he creates a Warp Marker. Generally, he adds about 10-15 Warp Markers to a song, totally unrelated to Live’s tempo—the metronome is off at this point.
- Once he’s done adding the Warp Markers, he right-clicks on the audio file and selects the “Slice to MIDI Track” command.
- Then he chooses the Warp Marker setting, and his custom slicing preset, you can download this here.
- Ski now has all the points he wants to trigger chromatically laid out on his keyboard. He plays his samples, and while he’s playing with one hand, he hits the “Tap Tempo” button on the APC40 to set the tempo.
- Finally, he turns on the metronome and triggers an empty clip slot to record into.
