Ableton Forum

does anyone know? how do you get your samples?

his vocals are from acapellas which traditionally were on the B sides of Hip/Hop vinyl. You can find them on the Internet for Hip/Hop and some Pop.

The other stuff is mostly just loops of the original stereo mix of the song some are filtered with EQ to cut/boost certain instruments. By finding just a bar or so of what you need arrangement wise is easier and more fun than you think. You just need to get in there and start chopping out interesting bars of music. Hip/Hop has done this for years.

I am sure Greg has some more skills up his sleeve that I am aware of but that is probably at least 85% of what I hear

If you are creative with editing and Eq a lot can be done with straight stereo mixes.
Try taking a loop and creating three versions. Each one boosting certain freq with an EQ. Such as one with a lot of bass and severly cut treble, the next one uses just midrange, and so on.

It can also be useful to make the loops mono as that can 'focus' the mix to elements that are strongest, helping to clear up a busy mix.

savyurrecords wrote:his vocals are from acapellas which traditionally were on the B sides of Hip/Hop vinyl. You can find them on the Internet for Hip/Hop and some Pop.

The other stuff is mostly just loops of the original stereo mix of the song some are filtered with EQ to cut/boost certain instruments. By finding just a bar or so of what you need arrangement wise is easier and more fun than you think. You just need to get in there and start chopping out interesting bars of music. Hip/Hop has done this for years.

I am sure Greg has some more skills up his sleeve that I am aware of but that is probably at least 85% of what I hear

If you are creative with editing and Eq a lot can be done with straight stereo mixes.
Try taking a loop and creating three versions. Each one boosting certain freq with an EQ. Such as one with a lot of bass and severly cut treble, the next one uses just midrange, and so on.

It can also be useful to make the loops mono as that can 'focus' the mix to elements that are strongest, helping to clear up a busy mix.

+1

there's also a neat phase trick - isolate left and right channels of the stereo track, invert the phase on one of them. then bounce to mono. bam! center (where lead vocal usually resides) is gone

4.33 wrote:there's also a neat phase trick - isolate left and right channels of the stereo track, invert the phase on one of them. then bounce to mono. bam! center (where lead vocal usually resides) is gone

Not clean and bad quality...

Yea that CAN work when the vox and instruments are clearly panned separately, but it rarely works that well.

I have also wondered how some of his smaples are so freaking clean. I know some parts are looped instrumentals, but a lot of his stuff is acapellas from tracks that I would imagine are A. really effing hard to get a legit acapella of, and B. not easy to eq/phase cancel. He's the fookin bomb.

Good YouTube of him making a beat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KykbPtRb0K4

Love Girl Talk.

From: Gregg Gillis of Girl Talk on how his sets have become more complicated over the years

Even on the last record, I don't think I'm officially allowed to say which pieces, but there were definitely chunks on that album that were given to me specifically by people at major labels being like, "Check this out" or "Do you want to use this or that? Here's an a cappella. Here's an instrumental."