(hip hop/beats) Beats that were gathering dust

[MGB]

Easy everyone, I recently posted a couple of beats on my soundcloud. Interested in any and all feedback, but particularly on the mixes as I only produce on headphones and have found that things can sound pretty different out in the open.. or on different headphones.

Big up!
Max

[Audiotic]

Great beats!
I think they all suffer from lack of vocals to accompany, but as HipHop beats they all sound cool and each conveys it's own feeling/atmosphere!
GS is definitely my favourite as it's the most upbeat and energetic (which I'm a sucker for...). It almost holds up on its own without any vocals with maybe some more variation or main Theme/instrument.

GS: Great!
New Ground: darker feel (not my cup of tea). Bassdrum mix maybe a bit too heavy/boomy; snare a bit loud/prominent?!
Hug me up: Almost a DJ Krush / Lamb kinda lushness to it. cool!

[Pete B]

They all sound really good. My favourite hip hop is always based on jazzy sounds.

I like the bass in the first one, and the beat drops out at a good time to keep it interesting. The guitar twiddling's nice too. When the spoken word comes in (around 1:45) maybe you could lower some of the EQ of the competing instruments (keyboards?) so that the words are more audible.

Nice keyboard in the second one. Good mood and nice voice samples. I might lower the snare a bit - it seems a bit above everything else.

The third one's great. I love the Isley Brothers. I like the fact that you've taken the vocals from a really upbeat song and put them in a completely different setting. Lovely laidback stuff! I particularly like the music after he sings "Take me in your arms". But it's all good. Nice one.

[Jivethompson]

love that third song!!!

[skie]

Nice work the mixes sound good on my Yamaha's. I think they are arranged more as standalone istrumentals but if you had a rapper in mind you may want go for a 16 bar verse/8 bar chorus format. I tend to like tuff/hard sounding beats and there were a few parts that flirted with being "ambient" but never really went there, so I dig them. Did you play the keys? Drums programmed or sampled loops? What kind of headphones did you mix on? Good job.

[MGB]

Nice work the mixes sound good on my Yamaha's. I think they are arranged more as standalone istrumentals but if you had a rapper in mind you may want go for a 16 bar verse/8 bar chorus format. I tend to like tuff/hard sounding beats and there were a few parts that flirted with being "ambient" but never really went there, so I dig them. Did you play the keys? Drums programmed or sampled loops? What kind of headphones did you mix on? Good job.

Thanks! Yeah because I tend to work on my own, I get caught in the 'need to add more' mindset so try to make the beats stand up without vocals as much as possible. The keys in the middle beat are sampled and the drums in that one are programmed/library drums, but all other drums are chopped breaks. I have AKG 702s so they're pretty good especially to use as reference for width and space, but definitely find that some weird things sitck out when I listen to the beats on other systems sometimes. Thanks for taking the time to listen

[skie]

Nice I'm impressed it turned out this good mixing on cans. I may check those out, I think my Sony's are louder in one ear than the other. I can def relate on the "need to add more". Nice selection/chops!