Mike Will Made It

it occurs to me that maybe people are not talking about this guy enough.

he has 7 singles on the hot 100 right now, which for a rap/r&b producer in this climate seems really remarkable. maybe even historically so (if not right now, then maybe when his 2013 is done). like, is this not pharrell/timbaland in their heyday type numbers? i mean, the songs (esp stuff like juicy j/big sean "show out" or b.o.b./t.i. "we in this bitch") certainly aren't as groundbreaking/awesome as classic tim/neptunes stuff, but the way this guy is dominating the market right now still feels underplayed.

anyway, consider this the rolling "wow mike will is really killing shit 2013" thread bcuz he's inching up on some historic company if he's not there yet.

(cc: some dude)

hadnt known - Mike WiLL has also announced that he has produced on Miley Cyrus's new album (TBA) coming later this year.

his dominance feels similar to the way which every big remix features the same 5 rappers

he's basically everywhere yeah but i don't get a consistent flavor from track to track? what's your POX jordan?

the entire future album? i haven't really thought about it. i'm not sure how great of a producer he actually is.

that's the thing... he's pretty chameleonic. he's a bit like drumma boy in that sense.

his dominance feels similar to the way which every big remix features the same 5 rappers

― 乒乓, Thursday, March 14, 2013 2:24 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i direct you to this quote that project pat gave deej:

When it comes to the music and making the beats you want to be up to date, that’s how you stay afloat. The things people rap about are basically the same. It’s different little slangs here and there. But the main ingredients of a song is the beat. One point in time it was a west coast sound, it was a New York sound, now it’s not even that anymore; it’s a producer. It’s like are you on a such-and-such beat, are you on a Drumma beat? They’re always on somebody’s beats.”

good quote

im not sure if rappers are as fungible as project pat makes them out to be

Tupac Back http://youtu.be/m5spMjy8uhc
Mercy http://youtu.be/7Dqgr0wNyPo
Bandz A Maker Her Dance http://youtu.be/AI0gk2KJeho
Turn On The Lights http://youtu.be/zIrhcTkHX_A
Pour It Up http://youtu.be/G_pbbavq-n0
My Hatin Joint http://youtu.be/EeTanj5YfFA
773 Love http://youtu.be/8rdNecIdOK0
La La (ft Busta) http://youtu.be/9oQrBgSbzH0
Plain Jane http://youtu.be/muRWvu6Bupo

i think he has a pretty distinctive style. heavy on eq filtering

he seems like a generalist to me, idk

who was doing eq filtering as an intentional affect before him?

tupac back & mercy are red herrings—the former was early in his career, before his sound emerged, and the latter was co-produced w/ like 6 other people

what do you mean by eq filtering?

Can someone post Wake Up No Make-Up in this bitch pplz I'm on my phone

(Cosign thread but ime tons of people are talking about him a lot)

https://soundcloud.com/ciara/wake-up-no-make-up

the "eq filtering" deej is referring to is the lowpass filter he uses on the drums e.g. the beginning of "Bandz" & "Plain Jane"

two more:

french montana - marble floors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ffXIluYXE

kelly rowland - kisses down low
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0DJUTgkUIA

Mwah xp

does it make them sound rubbery? xp (cant listen rite now)

i think he has a pretty distinctive style. heavy on eq filtering

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Thursday, March 14, 2013 2:57 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

true... but maybe this is more of a production tic than an outright style

does it make them sound rubbery? xp (cant listen rite now)

― 乒乓, Thursday, March 14, 2013 3:17 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

it makes them sound underwater

thats like a polow feature tho rite

not just the drums I guess, it's pretty much the whole mix. it sounds muffled and creates a trancey swooping effect as the high frequencies are brought back in.

the "kisses down low" beat is great until the chorus imo... starts to sound kinda cheap & chintzy

not mentioned yet :

future - aint no way around it
future - truth gonna hurt you
jeezy - way too gone
2 chainz & drake - no lie
future - itchin
gucci mane - north pole

thats like a polow feature tho rite

― 乒乓, Thursday, March 14, 2013 3:19 PM (51 seconds ago) Bookmark

the dream had that kind of effect on his drums that made them sound like they were gasping but it's more prevalent w/ mike will. i don't think polow did that very often.

it's too bad for jeezy that he was way ahead of the mike will curve with "way too gone" cuz that song would be a way bigger hit now

it's a signature part of the mike will sound for sure. I can't say offhand whether hiphop producers did it before in the exact same way that he does it, although e.g. "Aston Martin Music" comes close. He's definitely not the first to use filters intentionally in hiphop. The full-mix lowpass filter roll is more of an EDM/trance tradition afaik.

"kisses down low" is prob my #1 jam this year

The full-mix lowpass filter roll is more of an EDM/trance tradition afaik.

french house!

a couple other trademarks - cluttered synth arpeggios, ufo swoops

@hotdoorknobs
@jordansarge Triumph of the low-pass filter. Not mad.

^^ dude from pains of being pure at heart

was thinking to myself how sci-fi mainstream rap & r&b production has become recently and it could be mostly attributed to this guy

i like the comment (forget who) htat this guy became big once everybody started taking molly and stopped taking lean

it sounds like lean AND club drugs

yah... i think i just made that last part up

Doesn't Noah "40" Shebib use a lot of low-pass filters in his stuff?

true, but not nearly as well. he kinda uses them to box things in whereas mike will uses them to open them up. like my favorite trick of his is where he'll bring the lowpass in on a pre-chorus and then open it up as the chorus comes in and it makes the chorus sound that much bigger.

hah okay i can see how this lowpass filter is a nice signature once you know what to listen for

also i love it when people start dropping science and put names on production techniques etc., good stuff

yeah he basically uses it like a dance producer does, to create a big contrast between loud and softq

it's too bad for jeezy that he was way ahead of the mike will curve with "way too gone" cuz that song would be a way bigger hit now

― J0rdan S., Thursday, March 14, 2013 3:22 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's still my favorite Mike Will track, at least on a production level. it actually jumped back on the charts for a second last summer, six months after it initially got some spins, right after "No Lie" blew up. "Bandz" started getting on the radio around the same time even though it'd been out forever at that point, so it really felt like after the 2 Chainz single got big it was like 'ok everyone re-release their Mike Will tracks.'

love 'way too gone' so much, still reminds me of twin peaks every time

One of my favorite producers at the moment for sure. Trance-riffs are definitely key. Also taking up this sound in a really post-Lex Luther moment to my mind, so it still has those blinding ultra shiny Playstation synths.

Interview with Noz from last April - http://www.thefader.com/2012/04/30/beat-construction-mike-will-made-it/

People don’t even know that I got fucking four on the floor music

would like to hear

He put Gucci on the phone and Gucci was like “We gotta get in the studio, woo woo.”

So I was like “we can do this kind of shit in our sleep, this street shit. I’m about to test you real quick.” I played the “Turn On The Lights” beat and out of nowhere he was like [sings] “Turn On The Lights!” We knocked that joint out.

i love this

love that beat construction column

He put Gucci on the phone and Gucci was like “We gotta get in the studio, woo woo.”

― r|t|c, Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'woo woo' is what ppl say instead of 'etc. etc.'

i dig that one a lot, was just thinking the other day how it's a shame that Brandy was a little ahead of the Mike Will R&B curve but never released that one as a single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OgUR7drdts

THIS IS GREAT

yes it is btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp1NoS0fxqg

this billboard article says mike will worked with katy perry, anyone have any idea what he's talking about

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/5908369/dj-mustard-how-the-producers-ratchet-revolution-became-the-sound

no idea. the grantland article on mustard has even more head-scratchers than that though.

yeah that article was weird as hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGFio2Bs4A4

Uploaded on Jul 24, 2008
Gucci and Juice freestyle over a nasty beat that is actually produced by a young cat name Mike Will if he has more heat like this shawty redd and zay better look out

http://i.imgur.com/ljMd18Q.png

<3 Mike Wilmer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkiHbmreLaQ

Jeezy "4 Zones" may the greatest Mike Will (and P-Nasty who co-produced) track thus far, and def. the best this year

Mike Will beats that sound like they're beamed in from another planet > Mike Will slowin-it-up in da club

"4 Zones" is weird, like Jeezy was the only southern rapper who didn't warble in AutoTune when it was the thing to do 5 years ago and so he finally does it and it's exactly as awkward as you would expect

it was inevitable that Mike WiLL wouldn't be able to keep up the pace of 2013 but it's almost weird the degree to which he's disappeared this year. "No Flex Zone" his most notable track lately and the beat feels more secondary to the appeal of the song than w/ most of his productions.

idk I get where you're coming from esp. w/r/t to the hook but I really love the track, got a great otherworldly vibe & I like how Jeezy goes on the first verse, matches things nice

the ATLienization of Jeezy

wait he is ATL my bad. I suppose he's not nu-ATL though

"Way Too Gone" off the last Jeezy album was the first Mike WiLL track that made me go holy shit, no topping that imo

BTW speaking of another Jeezy track (that I'm not sure I've heard yet, it's a Best Buy bonus) does Polow go by Hot Sauce now lol? Thought I remembered something like that

and yeah "Way Too Gone" is amazing, my favorite Mike Will track the whole time he was popping even though it's not from when he was popping. I really don't mess with the songs he was running the radio with tho, idk what it is, too much of a "depressing strip club" vibe for me or something lol. This year got me thinking he may have a Neptunes/Pharrell-type career where IMO he becomes more creative even as his popularity declines

oh but I do like most stuff he did with Future and at least a couple of those were reasonably popular, I think

lol listening to "Addicted" Best Buy bonus with T.I. and YG right now going in expecting the obligatory "buzzaonthebeathoe" drop and instead it's this happy-go-lucky shit heh. Kinda dig it

Def. the best Childish Major track there, he kinda stinks up the main album

anyway sry not to derail thread topic

i don't think Polow is using a different name now. he co-produced "Anaconda" as Polow.

I thought he was Hollywood Hotsauce on the Diddy-Dirty Money album but I may be getting my producer aliases crossed up

wiki says Hollywood Hot Sauce is a completely different dude who co-produced a lot of Polow tracks circa 2009/2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Hot_Sauce

what was Polow's rapping alter ego? 'Gorgeous Jones'? lol

You know I was kinda wtf@"4 Zones" being left off the regular version but like you said maybe Jeezy relistened to the hook and was all naaah that ain't me lol

"Awesome Jones" btw

awesome possum ondabeat

starting to think "No Flex Zone" is a total classic. sucks for those dudes that they'll be remembered as a kiddy act even tho they're like 20

eh its part of their style though. also their new one is gonna be a hit too

swae lee's gonna have a solo career too i bet

http://instagram.com/p/tbvdierUDY

nooo why are they letting austin drag them down

starting to think "No Flex Zone" is a total classic

^^^^
this

theres sick production on this but not sure any of the songs are great, some good verses def tho

nothing is promised is a jam

all the Future ad libs just make me wonder if it would've sounded better as a Future song, it seems more suited to his voice than Rihanna's

Yeah he wrote it and it really just sounds like a future song w rihanna's vocals.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/11/how-mike-will-made-it

I did not know Swae Lee wrote "Formation"

pretty weird timing for a mike will super producer trend story...

The author seems a little out of touch. A lot of the piece reads like it could have been filed in 2013, just after Bangerz came out.

The angle to me feels like it could have been Will's commercial resiliency. Wasn't all that long ago ppl were suggesting Will had been rendered passe by DJ Mustard, but now it's pretty obvious which producer had the longer shelf life.

Also odd that the piece was written for readers who have absolutely no knowledge of rap music about a subject that only readers deeply interested in rap music would ever care about

but he hasn't really shown much commercial resiliency, "formation" aside... rae sremm album got pushed back after the single flopped. mustard prob has the bigger hit ("needed me") this year.

Still, Mike Will is just about the only ATL producer atm who seems to bring the best out of whoever it is he's working with.

what does that even mean

It means that whenever Future or Thug collaborate w MWMI they sound inspired, that all the new Rae Sremms have been great + MFN Right is a banger. The Rihanna song would have been better as a Future song but it's still good, and no, he isn't really charting atm but the spark's still there.

It means that whenever Future or Thug collaborate w MWMI they sound inspired

examples?

rae sremmurd have only ever worked w/ him so i don't see how they count

Rae Sremmurd count because they seem to be developing healthily whereas Future and Thug are sort of threading water atm. He brings out a poppier sound in them whenever they work together and I need more of that.

* them = future & thug

and the best new gucci is over a mw beat