R. Kelly Quotes

I play a little bit of everything. I beat on the walls. I whistle. I scream. I go outside and scream because it sounds cool when it's recorded. I play drums on a chair. I snap, clap... just anything to build the track and make it feel like I want it to.

At the beginning of each project, I like to create a palette of sound for that particular project.

I'm very lazy when it comes to making the original sound. I don't go through amplifiers and different compressors and signal parts. I just grab something, whether its an old guitar or a children's toy that happens to be lying around, and record it straight into the computer.

Well, I've been recording myself on a computer since I was about 13 or 14. So it's completely entwined with my creative process. Essentially, it allows you to make music that's better and smarter than you are, by using your ears to lead the way.

A lot of the stuff I've accumulated over the last few years of touring I thought was really interesting. Like sounds, sound bites, and beats even, but they weren't good dance beats they weren't ones anyone would want to rap over or anything.

For my second record I had gotten ProTools (program) and started to familiar myself with hard disc recording.

I enjoy working with complicated equipment. A lot of my things started just with a rhythm box, but I feed it through so many things that what comes out sounds very complex and rich.

One thing I'm doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces.

I find it hard to get excited by just a sound. I have to have a song there, then I'll find what used I can make of that sound within the song.

Yeah, anybody can go in with two turntables and a microphone or a home studio sampler and a little cassette deck or whatever and make records in their bedrooms.

Sometimes I just hit the keyboard in a way I'd like the rhythm of the tracks to sound.

I would be content if I had nothing but a tape-recorder. I could still write songs and record them.

Sometimes I listen to music and I wonder how did they get certain sounds.

With '5 Boroughs,' we were each working on beats, sitting in front of our laptops and samplers.

I've got a studio at home, and I'm always recording.

I always relish the idea of collaborating with the director on creating the sound world, the sound spectrum, and the sound environment of the film. I use every means at my disposal to create a score that is as strong and powerful to enhance the director's vision for the film.

I love sampling, and RZA loves sampling, too.

When I write songs, it's just me and a cassette player - or at least it used to be before smartphones - to quickly record a basic idea.

Sampling is very important for me. It's the backbone of hip-hop.

I started by producing, and the rapping came second to that, because I wanted to fill out the beat.

Madlib isn't a beatmaker, he's a producer.

I've always, in some way, incorporated sampling into my work.

When I was a kid, I played drums, and when I first got a 4-track, I would put down drumbeats and then do the rest of the tracks on top.

To me, finding sounds, or even recording, is a compositional process. The studio is kind of an instrument.

I love doing the music. I love programming beats and kind of working on the music as much, if not more, than the actual rapping.