A few years ago, my
sister gave me a Roland BOSS SP-303 Dr. Sample as a gift. I was thrilled. Unfortunately, I immediately realized that
the memory cards required for this sampler were difficult to obtain and very
expensive. Additionally, I found the Dr.
Sample to be limited and was frustrated with it. I consulted with my sister, and upon receiving
her blessing, decided to trade it in and upgrade for an SP-555.
After trading in my 303,
I discovered Nick Tha 1da on YouTube doing one of his 303 tutorials. Watching him play the 303 like an instrument made
me re-evaluate the tiny sampler’s potential.
I did some internet research and discovered a large community of people
who used the limitations of the 303 to their advantage to create some amazing
music. I also discovered that many 303
users were avid supporters of the Roland SP-404. I wanted to understand why
these machines resonated with so many talented people. I decided to start an in depth interview
series with 303 and 404 users titled 303s and 404s.
The first member of the
vast 303 and 404 community to reach out to me is also perhaps one of the most
well know. Mr. Dibia$e, a member of the
Green Llama crew, has reached legendary status in the LA beat scene through his
victory in the Los Angeles Red Bull Big Tune 2010 beat battle and numerous impressive live shows. Dibia$e has
captured the attention of countless fans and the respect of his beat making peers
through his un-quantized beats, expert chops, and distinctive mute-outs. I am honored to present my first entry of
303s and 404s with Mr. Diabia$e.
DJ Sorce-1: I saw
in an interview that you got your first sampler in ‘95. Have you been
doing music non-stop since then?
Mr. Dibia$e: Yeah,
pretty much (Laughs). I started out rhyming. I was needing beats,
so I started looping up stuff.
(Via Abdullah Saeed)
DJ Sorce-1: What
made you decide to focus on producing?
Mr. Dibia$e: Once
I saw how active the beat battles were, I was like, “Man, I don’t even have to
break a sweat rhyming.” Then the beat scene grew and it was pretty much a
wrap. I saw the homies traveling off of beats so I thought, “I better
put everything in one basket instead of multi-tasking.” Sometimes I get
the urge to rhyme, but I’m not that focused with the writing.
(Via Knocksteady)
DJ Sorce-1: How
many hours a day would you say your spend working on beats?
Mr. Dibia$e: Now that
I’m working again, not that much. Sometimes I take the equipment to
work. I probably spend like three hours
a day on beats. But there was one point where I was like all day pretty
much. I was doing the music full time
from 08 until maybe eight months ago.
(Via sunny_J)
DJ Sorce-1: What
made you decide to go back to mixing work with your music career?
Mr. Dibia$e: I was kind of like you, doing the coaching
and all that and working at a park. With that job, the schedule was
flexible, so it was kind of easy to balance with the music. I wasn’t really travelin’ to other states or
even out the country, so it was easy to do some shows and then drive to Hollywood
after I clocked out of work or go to San Diego or The Bay. But once I
started travelin’, a little after Red Bull, that’s when I stopped working at
the park. I had a booking agent and
tried a few of them out. Now my wife does my booking. Once I got a
booking agent, that’s when the shows started really picking up and I started
going out the country a little more.
But the beat scene, it
fluctuates sometimes. I had to get a
little job on the side for the times when it’s like a dry spell. You
know, you want to be comfortable. Sometimes
I would stress out from chasing down money from selling beats. It would always come through, but the
stressing out for years, I was over that. So I just got another job.
Plus, when I moved out here to Sacramento, I had to get something.
I was pretty much starting over because I’m from LA originally.
(Via Patti Miller Photography)
DJ Sorce-1: How is
the re-adjustment to balancing work with music going?
Mr. Dibia$e: The job I
have now is similar to the park work I was doing, like a city job. I’m basically at a person’s house looking out
for them while they’re sleeping. I have my equipment and I pretty much
just make beats. It’s kind of a chill job. I was trying to get
something that wasn’t too stressful so I could balance the two. They’re
pretty good on the schedule and I get time off, so it’s cool.
(Via Polaroid Gang)
DJ Sorce-1: I’m
glad to hear it hasn’t been a negative experience. Work can definitely consume your drive to be creative.
Mr. Dibia$e: I’m
getting older now, but when I was younger, when I was working at the park,
shit, it didn’t even matter. I would write rhymes, make the beat, record
the song, go to work, and come back at night.
I’d do the same thing, stay up, and repeat the process. Then on my
off days, the homies were living in Fullerton, so I’d crash out there for the
weekend and go on a beat binge. I’d
knock out 20 beats in a weekend and call it a day. That was like 07.
(Via Lifelounge)
DJ Sorce-1: If you
have a weekend with free time, can you still churn out 10, 15, or 20 beats in a
weekend, or is that hard to do?
Mr. Dibia$e: No.
I was single at the time. All I had was my job and I’d be at the
homies house so I could afford to lock myself in the lab. Now, I have a
lot of responsibility, so I can’t lock myself in the lab on some all-day shit.
But sometimes I’ll crank out like five or six beats on a good day.
(Via IllSociety Magazine)
DJ Sorce-1: I
know you still use the Roland SP-404 a lot. When we spoke before this
interview, you were saying that for the last couple of projects you used
programs like Ableton. Are you using
more software these days?
Mr. Dibia$e: Swingology101 was done with Reason 5. I’ll make a beat on Reason and then run it
through the 303 or 404 for its compression to dirty it up. A lot of times
I combine stuff. Back in the day I just
had the MPC and 303 and that was it. I had a cool workflow because I was
using the MP for so long. Now that I’ve learned all of this software, sometimes
I’m combining three different things and running it through the 303, just re-sampling
stuff, and it be taking some time just to get certain effects. Back in the day I wasn’t doing all that.
I would just make a beat and record it straight to an external CD burner.
I wasn’t even messing with computers back then.
DJ Sorce-1: Which
sampler has a better workflow for you, the MPC or the 303?
Mr. Dibia$e: I like
the MP but I felt limited at the time. I wanted to have effects and
filters with certain beats I made on the MP. If I wanted filters, I had
to sample the MP through a 303 or a CDJ just to get the wah-wah effects.
With software the effects are built in already. All you do is add
the little auto filter, then map your knobs and you got your instant filter.
With the hardware, it might have been harder, but it kept you occupied,
and it kept you thinking.
(Via Impose Magazine)
DJ Sorce-1: So
using a combination allows you to grow a little bit and become more layered?
Mr. Dibia$e: Yeah. Combining the two is like the best of both worlds. I hear a lot of people clowning Fruity Loops and all that. Back in the day I used to be like, “I’ll never mess with software.” I was holding myself back all those years. It’s good to use both. Once I started doing that, that’s when stuff started getting serious. I started entering the beats battles and winning them.
(Via Monochroma)
DJ Sorce-1: What is
your proudest accomplishment from the time you spent doing beat battles?
Mr. Dibia$e: The Red
Bull definitely. Just getting accepted to it was an accomplishment.
And I was lucky enough to win it and be runner up. I used to enter
mad battles in San Francisco and throughout L.A. Sometimes I would just catch
a Greyhound from L.A. to The Bay and I would end up winning it. I was
taking a little chance man. If I won it, I won it. If not, all
good. I was getting a place to play some beats on loud speakers. That was the cool thing.
(Via Redbull)
DJ Sorce-1: You
were getting to introduce a new audience to what you were doing.
Mr. Dibia$e: Yeah. The battles there were kind of challenging because they would give you samples and sometimes they had challenges where you had to flip a remix. It was fun. The battles in L.A. were called the Hotel Room battles. They used to have MC battles, and then they started having the beat battles. Pretty much everyone used to enter them. Mike Gao, Tokimonsta, P.U.D.G.E…all kinds of beat cats in the scene were entering them. It definitely kept your sword sharp going against everyone. This was around 08 or 09.
(Mr. Dibia$e and P.U.D.G.E Via Carmen Luceno)
DJ Sorce-1: I’ve
seen a lot of YouTube footage of you rocking the SP 404 live. Were you
using it at all in those battles?
Mr. Dibia$e: No.
They weren’t live battles like that. You would just make the beat
at home and then bring your CD. In 2006 or 2007 they did have battles in
L.A. at this record store called Rehab and you’d have to bring your MPC.
They would have performances in the beginning of the night with cats
rhyming, and all of the producers would be at the back, like 16 cats with they
MPs. Everybody had two hours to flip the
same record and get they drums from a breakbeat record. After all of the performances was over,
everybody would come to the back and plug they MP up to the monitor speakers. That
was the first beat battle I was in where I was making the beats under pressure.
(Via CrayonBeats)
DJ Sorce-1: What's
the atmosphere like in that situation? Is there any talking or is it
really competitive?
Mr. Dibia$e: Those
battles were cool. Some of the homies in my crew were in it as well.
I was in a crew called Missing Page back in the day, like 2005.
Pretty much everyone rhymed and made beats except for a few cats.
We were all entering the beat battles.
One of the other homies from Japan, BudaMunk, was living in L.A. at the time,
and he was entering them battles too. So he was in them and my homie who
was in Fullterton was in those battles. It wasn’t aggressive or nothing.
Some of them Red Bull
battles seemed aggressive. A lot of
egos. I was in a few beat battles in San Diego back in the day that was
kind of aggressive and cats bit my style. Just like bold face bit, came
up to me before we battled and said, “Yo, I got something for you. I made
something just for you.” Then they would flip a beat that I’d flip, the
same samples, like some video game shit, and play it against me. I was
just like, “Wow, OK” (Laughs). Dude
ended up winning. We went to overtime. I thought I got ‘em in the
first round, but they had judges that night. It went in his favor and he
ended up winning the whole thing. Other than that I don’t be taking
losses too serious.
(Via Redbull)
DJ Sorce-1: That
could be seen as a good thing. If other
people are making stuff specifically for you, you know they’re considering you
one of the top producers in the battle.
Mr. Dibia$e: Yeah, I
guess you can see it that way. I’m pretty much retired from the battles
now. It was fun for a while. I get the itch to enter some, but I’m
just on the live shows now. I’m trying to build that and improve on that.
(Via Empower Network)
DJ Sorce-1: In a
lot of the footage of you that I’ve seen you’re using one or two 404s. Is
that your weapon of choice for live shows?
Mr. Dibia$e: Sometimes I’ll use the MP, but I
haven’t used that in a minute. I use Ableton as well, and sometimes I’ll
use Ableton and the 404 together and go back and forth between the two.
But yeah, I’ve mixed it up throughout the years. I was using the
303 with a laptop, but I couldn’t get enough sampling time on it. With
live shows, you could get maybe 15 minutes. It’s funny; all of the homies
like Ras G and Sam were rocking the 303s back in the day for shows. I
remember when Ras G went overseas for the first time. He had to use my
303 when he went so he could have at least 30 minutes of sampling time.
He didn’t have a laptop, he just had the MP and a 303, so I let him use
my 303 because I had a 404. I was telling him, “Yo, you can fit hours
into a 404. It’s pretty much the same as
a 303 but it got more effects.” They
were sticking to the 303 religiously, until the 303s started breaking down.
Then they started getting the 404.
(Ras G Via Culture Remixed)
Click here to read Pt. 2.
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