“Might Get Dropped”

The eighth track in the series, “Might Get Dropped” might be the best of the bunch. Peep it with your ears:

How did this happen?

I started working on this project back in early July, and it grew from a two-measure bass riff (I recorded the melody as a voice memo on my phone) that barely made it into the final version (it shows up at 2:33 for just eight beats).

I built the bass portion using the DopeSONIX Bass Engine, which I’ve grown to love. Even though it’s not necessarily my go-to for bass lines, it’s a great place to start when the bass is driving the concept.

Next came the piano, straight to XLN Audio ‘s Addictive Keys (as usual) and the basic drum phrases that became the foundation going forward. The congas played a major part in building up the project from there, using Logic’s on-board Latin percussion kits through the EXS sampler, playing around for a while before settling on the final arrangement.

To me, the beat with its basic pieces instantly felt like a battle, with the shuffling back and forth from kick to snare, from conga to quinto, and the hard piano chord hits almost punching the listener in the face from one side after the other.

The track felt heavy on the lower end with the deep piano, bass line, and kick already, and by the time I got to adding the thunder (aka the 808 kick reinforcement), I wasn’t sure it was even needed, but why not?

The secondary theme that comes in around 0:46 came about naturally, almost being played by the rhythm itself, and adding some variation to the piano theme that honestly could have run through the entire track. It also pushed me to consider adding an aggressive acoustic rhythm guitar, which fit nicely at that point using the AAS Strum GS-2.

The intro/bridge piece was probably the toughest part to build, and it went through many iterations. In the end, a spontaneously conceived spiccato string section carried it, along with automated high cut, single band EQ frequency build-up on a few of the pieces (shown below) culminating in the piano solo dropping in heavy before the beat goes ape.

For whatever reason, I had dropped the vocal pick-up into the project at the very beginning, but I didn’t really think it fit, and overall, this project sat for months with no progress, even though it was one of my favorite items in the draft folder. Once the beat found its way, the vocal piece seemed appropriate, so I went back and pulled the rest of those bars from a verse recorded a few years ago, another part of which was also featured in “Boom Box”:

People in the place, they want Hip-Hop,
tired of the so-called hits on top,
put the mic down, just quit, just stop,
don't pick it back up cuz you might get dropped.

It took many rounds of recording the scratches to get it right, and I chopped out almost everything except for the final segment, where all four bars show up in sequence.

In the tradition of the series, the track name was taken from the scratch, and the artwork ideas were immediate, focused on a road sign warning of getting “dropped” (or, apparently, decapitated?) The top portion of the sign is modern Hebrew for “Beware,” and it seemed a better fit than “Caution” or “Warning” which might confuse the name of the track.

Stay tuned to my Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages for new tracks in this series, mixtapes, and whatever else happens. Check out more “Behind the Beats” here.