A brief that asked for a sample, and what it actually got
Read this brief closely: “dusty jazz piano sample”, “MPC swing”, “vinyl crackle”. Every one of those is a request for a texture, and every one of them arrived — without a second of anyone else's record being used.
The prompt that made it
“Classic 90s boom bap instrumental, 80 BPM, hard punchy kick and snare, dusty jazz piano sample, deep warm bass, MPC swing, vinyl crackle, gritty underground hip hop, simple repetitive groove”
“Classic 90s boom bap instrumental, 80 BPM, hard punchy kick and snare, dusty jazz piano sample, deep warm bass, MPC swing, vinyl crackle, gritty underground hip hop, simple repetitive groove.” 2:22 of exactly that. The piano was performed to sound like a sample, which is the part worth understanding.
So “sample” is a legitimate word to use in a brief here. It tells the generator what texture you want — filtered, looped, slightly degraded — and it is not a request to lift anything. What you get back is yours in the same way every other track here is.
The words that make it sound like 1994
Boom bap is defined by imperfection, so the vocabulary is a list of imperfections to ask for.
| Write this | What it does |
|---|---|
| dusty, gritty, lo-fi | Takes the shine off the top end — the single biggest change |
| vinyl crackle, tape hiss | Puts a floor of noise under everything, so nothing sounds sterile |
| MPC swing, swung 16ths | Pulls the off-beats late; this is the head-nod, and it is not the same as the tempo |
| hard kick, snappy snare | The “boom” and the “bap” themselves — say both or the drums stay polite |
| filtered / muffled | Rolls the highs off the loop, the way a sampler's filter did |
| simple repetitive groove | Stops the arrangement from developing; in this style, repetition is the point |
Tempo, and the swing that is not tempo
85 to 95 BPM is the classic window and 90 is the safest single number to write. Slower than 80 starts to drag into trip-hop; faster than 100 loses the space between the kick and the snare that gives the style its walk.
Swing is separate. Two beats at the same 90 BPM can feel stiff or loose depending on how late the off-beats land, and “MPC swing” or “swung, behind the beat” is how you ask for the loose one. If a beat comes back feeling like a metronome, that is the phrase you were missing — not a tempo change.
One loop, and what to put on top
Boom bap beats are built to repeat, which makes them the easiest beats here to rap on and the least interesting to listen to on their own. Two ways to use that. Keep the loop simple and ask for space — “drums only for the first eight bars”, “drop the piano under the hook” — so your verses have somewhere to sit. Or ask for one change and one only: “bring in a horn stab on the last verse”, which is how records of this era kept four minutes moving.
Once it exists, Add vocals can perform a vocal over it at the same tempo, or you can upload your own recording. On Pro and Ultra, stems split the drums from the loop so you can mix them yourself.
Sources
Written and fact-checked by the Tunely team · Updated