David: Before we get into it, I just wanna say something that obviously shook the entire world.
RIP to X and Peep, two of the most musically fearless and inspirational artists of our
generation.
And two guys that really pushed creatively to continue to think outside the box.
And this song that we made with Juice, "Legends," is a song that pays homage to them and the
musical legacies that they behind.
DenzeI: I think that was like the first or second beat we played and he immediately just
said, "Load it up."
And this is like five minutes after meeting him.
He just like goes in the booth and kind of just freestyles this entire song.
And that's like the first song we did with him.
David: Yeah, the day that we made this beat, all of us were just in this room and Russ
started playing this progression and all of us just said, "Put it down."
"That's hot."
Russ: Right, exactly.
Just started messing around and we got this.
David: So after we put down the regular guitar take and quantized it, usually we start by
putting RC Retro Color on it.
Just go through the different presets and turns and knobs until it sounds good so…
So after that we added HalfTime, which is pretty much our version of Gross Beat.
So for this, we put the one bar setting on and brought down the mix about about 64-50%.
Denzel: After we put down the guitar, Russ played this bassline in.
David: Yeah so after we put the bass guitar down, quantized this one again and he put
the same retro color plug in that was on the guitar just to give it the same effect.
In this instance, Russ was playing bass guitar parts but at the same time, I was messing
around trying to find a sound.
This is the Prophet 12 and out of all the keyboards that we have, this is like our go to.
Yeah so for the next sound, you know, just going through
the Prophet again.
So this is actually the first keyboard that we got and we do a lot of our piano/organ
sounds on here.
Just thought I needed something in the higher range.
Denzel: So after the melodies, we usually just go straight to the drums.
This is usually how we do the hi-hats.
Just like layer them to make a groove so it’s not just straight 16th notes.
Next thing we added was the snares.
So this snare has a H-delay on it.
We usually use H-delays on hi-hats or snares just to give it a little bit more movement.
We’ll layer like hi-hats and snares, different percussion things just to make it to groove
more.
It’s like easier to dance to.
It’s more things for your brain to catch on to to just be like interesting.
Just more earcandy things.
And then after that, open hi-hat.
So the next three things we added were just more percussion things, a crash, a hit, another
just like random percussion thing that we have.
So after we put the percussion things in, we started laying in the 808s.
If we have like live bass and a few different low frequency things in a song, we’ll start
just carving out pieces for the other basses to sit.
The live bass in this song is around this frequency so we just cut that out, cut out
a little bit of the low, cut out a little bit of the topping ‘cause that’s kind
of like where the other bass is gonna sit up here so when we play them together, they
don’t crash.
So the last thing in this track was just the kick.
Denzel: That’s the beat.
David: That’s the “Legends” beat.
David: That whole day was just feeling out the vibe, feeling out the energy.
You know, all of us talking about it and saying all the things of what like X meant to us
and what Peep meant to us.
It’s 2 artists that are gonna inspire many generations after this one.
Already left such an impact on this current generation.
Denzel: The day that we did this song was the actual day that X passed.
David: You know, I think we all kind of just felt the energy in the room and thought this
beat would be perfect for the landscape of what was going on that day.