Here we are again with our weekly report of the Stones Throw Beat Battles! Battle winner Sicboy has a chat with us and tells us a little more about his winning track.

The STBB is a weekly beat battle, where anywhere from 50 to 100+ participants from all over the world, are provided a sample to flip/chop/edit/screw, and make a beat out of it within just a few days. All the participants then cast out a vote, and the winner picks the samples for the next round. We provide a weekly report and an interview with the battle winner.

Original Samplepack: (provided by sicboy)

1. windy city – if by chance
2. george semper – ET where R U
3. lava – sunday morning
4. ???? cant find any info on this one.. was ripped a couple years ago from a turkish psych folk compilation video that doesnt exist anymore
5. 彼女の向こう側 （大沢誉志幸） (confusion?)
6. some drum loop
7. SM58 recording of a japanese girl playing piano from back in the day.. dunno what the song is
8. heatwave edmundo ros d heath (cheers for id on that one runrun, is the only sample that i got off vinyl here)

Special Rules:

• Use at least one (or as many of the samples)
• Outside everything is allowed.
• Time limit: 2:00
• SPECIAL (ISH) RULE: INCLUDE SOME SORT OF ORIGINAL RECORDING IN THERE (VOCALS, INSTRUMENTS, BEATBOX, FIELD RECORDINGS, STUPID ASS VOICEMAIL MESSAGES… WHATEVER) I realise a whole lot of people probably already throw in acapellas/ quotes and that but yeah, come up with something of your own. Kinda came up with this in part hearing a couple of favourites from last round (dopplereffect on the horns, joa gymshoe with the rhymes..) thought it itd be cool to add in a live element and see what people can come up with outside of the DAW..

 

The Winnner

 

Interview with the battle winner, Sicboy:

Hi Sicboy, welcome and much congratulations the win! 🙂

Can you shortly introduce yourself?

Sicboy:Yo I’m Sicboy, a producer and DJ from UK.

What Equipment or software (DAW, VST’s etc) did you use on this track?

Sicboy: I use Cubase 5 as my main DAW, a Roland SP-555 as an audio & MIDI interface as well as for effects, and some crappy old radio/cassette player. I used Kontakt 5 for the bass and a few VST effects as well; TDR feedback compressor II, Fabfilter Pro-Q, Fabfilter Pro-L, D16 Decimort. Also, Izotope Ozone for the final master.

What was your approach to get started?

Sicboy: My favourite of the samples in the pack that week was the break so I decided I’d start by chopping that and making the beat first and then fit a sample over it.

How did you make use of the sample?

Sicboy: I basically just used a loop from the piano sample and chopped a little bit so it would fit better over the beat. Then I processed it a bit with some of the SP-555 effects (compressor, vinyl sim) and then sidechained it to the kick.

The special rule that week was to include an original recording so I recorded me tuning through the radio for the intro of the track.

How did you go about the drumwork?

Sicboy: I chopped the drum loop into individual hits and found the best sounding hihat, kick and snare. I made the attack on the kick and snare shorter to make them more punchy, then layered the kick drum. After I made the loop I added the drum tracks to a drum bus so I could add effects to the whole beat such as compression and eq.

Are there any insteresting aspects of the track that you would like to share?

Sicboy: Before the master I recorded it to cassette and then played it back into Cubase to give it an older and warmer feel.

 

Check out Sicboy on Soundcloud

 

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