Soulful Keys

What is the difference between Neo Soul and R&B

Hezo — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:33:22 +0000

I believe that they have both come from the same direction however R&B seems to change every decade or to appeal to a more general audience.

R&B this day and age has very similar production to that of dance and house having a regular 4/4 beat, uptempo and heavy on synth.R&B in the late 80′s and 90′s have more of a traditional soul flavour. Neo Soul, although different to 90′s R&B also retains that original soulful sound but tends to be more on the Jazz or Gospel vibe. If you listen to the tracks of a typical Neo Soul artist e.g. Jill Scott, you will notice that the chords progression do not follow the text book format e.g. the famous 2-5-1 theory. Neo soul will be based in one particular key however many chords are borrowed from other keys, just like Jazz, in order to get that soulful tension and mood. R&B tracks will probably follow music theory to some extent and resolve any tension with major chords, making it easy on the ears general listeners. Neo Soul also tends to use very complex chords to create that well know “Phat” Sound, especially church musicians.

Neo soul will probably be more based on real instrument sound rather than samples and synths like R&B. Producing Neo Soul definitely requires a lot more musical knowledge then producing modern day R&B tracks.

Free Soulful Piano & Rhodes Loop Download – Part 2

Hezo — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:01:51 +0000

Here’s another mellow vibe for y’all. Based around the keys Eb and F. It’s basically a four bar loop but changing the key slightly on the 2nd 4th bar to add some tension. This is more obvious when listening to the melody version. This time using the lizard lounge VST plug-in and the Wurlitzer sound.

Number of Chords 8 (8 bars)

BPM 120 (60 slow)

Download Link

The chords with melody version

Download Link

Rhianna – Disturbia Chords

Hezo — Sat, 05 May 2012 11:53:19 +0000

More Pop / R&B then Neo Soul, however I was messing around on the keyboard the other day and worked out of chords Disturbia by Rhianna.

It seems to be a simple repetition of the following chords:

Bmin7th or 9th

Amaj

Gmaj7th

You should be able easily improvise with your right hand in the key of “D”. (D,E, F#, G,A,B and C#)

Free Soulful Piano & Rhodes Loop Download – Part 1

Hezo — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:38:43 +0000

As mentioned in my previous post, allow me to introduce to you my Soulful Piano loops to download and use in your productions. These are non-quantized and natural arrangements.

Download Loop 1 (Chords only)

BPM: 90

Chords: 4

Keyboard type: Stereo Wurlitzer sounding rhodes

Download loop 1

Loop 1 (Chords with melody)

Download loop 1 (W/ melody)

Free Piano and Rhodes loops for download

Hezo — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:21:25 +0000

I am decided to post up some jazzy/soul piano loops for download for free. The information with the file will be, the chords, the tempo and the name of instruments so you can easily include in your mixes. Please check back shortly for the uploads of the Free piano and rhodes loop samples.

Underground Neo Soul Sounds

Hezo — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:36:41 +0000

I briefly mentioned Presonus Studio One in a previous post. Well here I have a sample of a track which I made using the software. The focus of the track is arranged using Presonus however is used the Vst FL Studio pluggin since I had the drum pattern programmed into FL Studio (easier) and a few other Vst’s however I could have just put the other Vst’s directly into Presonus, either way works fine however if your are struggling with CPU usage then it’s best to do as much as you can directly through Presonus.

The track I made is an uptempo Neo Soul track. I first started off with the vocals only and had no idea what the key was so I messed around on the keyboard until I worked it out to be the E flat Major key, so I built some chords around this key and it sounded fine. One chord is slightly outside the key however that is often required for that jazzy/neo soul tension feeling.

http://soundcloud.com/goldshift/dat-thing-full

Electric Piano or Synthesizer

Hezo — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:23:07 +0000

I am contemplating on whether to purchase a good Electric Piano or a synth. I do quite like the real piano feeling which nice hammer action keys and a realistic piano sound. However, if I pay $2,000 – $3,000 I feel I could be missing out on a synth which would have a library of 1,000′s sound as opposed to the electric Piano which is limited to around 5-6 sounds. I think Synthesizers are more portable so there’s an advantage there.

At the moment I am simply using a MIDI controller keyboard and I have some realistic Piano Vst pluggins on the PC. This is a much cheaper alternative to paying thousands of dollar for a Keyboard.

Smooth Robert Glasper Type Chords Progression

Hezo — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:19:34 +0000

I have come up with this nice smooth sounding chord progression which has Neo Soul R&B feel to it. It would be good to play it on a Rhodes or similar sounding electric piano. The Chords are as follows.

Bb Maj 9th

A Min 7th

Ab Maj 7th

G Min 9th

Play these chords on your left hand and improvise or jam on your right hand in the key of F (F,G, A, Bb, C, D, Eb). It is only when you hit the Ab Maj 7th you should emphasize the Ab Note, since this is the only note which changes for this particular key (Eb). Try it and see how it sounds.

Incidentally, many R&B artists like to use the F key, since it has a jazzy feeling and is very easy on the fingers if playing the keyboard.

Presonus Studio One recording software

Hezo — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:05:34 +0000

After playing around from Cubase for some time, I recently discover the excellent music DAW -Presonus Studio One. Teddy Riley, former member of Blackstreet actually used this to produce the remix of Michael Jackson’s latest album. Playing around with it, I noticed it has very similar functions to Cubase and Pro-Tools however it is so easy to use meaning less time referring to the manual. The output quality is as crisp as ever also giving you professional quality mixes every time.

http://studioone.presonus.com/

Morning Neo Soul Groove

Hezo — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:47:44 +0000

Here’s a video of some Jazzy Soulful chords I put together one morning. Watch the video for the onscreen chord display. Nothing too complex here, just mainly chords and voicing. I’m will try and make this into a full track and add some other instruments such as a live bass and guitar.