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60s, 70s and 80s soul: what changes for beatmakers

Three decades that sound nothing alike, what actually changed between them, and which era suits which kind of beat.

Producers talk about soul as one thing, and then wonder why a sample that seemed perfect will not sit in a beat. Very often the answer is that they have picked material from an era whose tempo, arrangement density and stereo image are working against what they are trying to do.

These are broad generalisations and there are exceptions everywhere, particularly across different cities and labels. But as a way of choosing source material quickly, the decade tells you a lot.

1.The 60s: fast, dry and built for mono

Records in this period were made to be heard on radio and on small record players, which shaped almost everything about them.

• Tempo. Generally quick. A great deal of it sits well above 100 BPM, which is the single biggest practical issue for a producer building at 80 or 90.
• Arrangement. Tight and economical. Short intros, no long instrumental passages, everything arriving fast because the record had to make its point in two and a half minutes.
• Sound. Dry, with little reverb, and mixed with mono playback in mind. Bass is present but not deep, because small speakers could not reproduce it anyway.
• Drums. Often quite high in the mix and quite simple, with the snare doing most of the work.

What it is good for. Energy and brightness. Horn stabs. Short vocal phrases. Anything where you want lift rather than weight. It is also useful material to pitch down hard, because dropping a 115 BPM section to 80 changes its character completely and the dry recording survives the process better than a reverb heavy one does.

What fights you. The tempo, and the thin low end. If you want a beat that sits heavy, 60s material usually needs your own bass underneath it rather than relying on the source.

2.The 70s: why this is the era hip hop kept returning to

There is a reason so much sampled soul comes from roughly 1969 to 1979, and it is practical rather than sentimental.

• Tempo. Slower. A lot of it lands between 70 and 100 BPM, which is exactly where hip hop lives. That means far less stretching and far fewer artefacts.
• Arrangement. Longer and more spacious. Albums had room for extended intros, instrumental breaks and vamps, which is precisely the material a sampler wants. A four bar section with no vocal over it is much easier to find on a 1974 record than a 1964 one.
• Sound. Multitrack recording matured, so the low end got deeper and the stereo image opened up. Bass is real and sustained. Strings and horns sit in a proper space.
• Harmony. More ambitious. Extended chords, key changes, movements that go somewhere unexpected, which is what gives a repeating section something to hold interest across three minutes.

What it is good for. Almost everything. If you are choosing source material and you do not have a specific reason to go elsewhere, this is where to look.

What fights you. Density. A well arranged 70s record can have so much on it that there is nowhere for your drums to go. That makes the frequency work more important, not less, which is covered in the section on making room in how to make a beat from a soul sample.

3.The 80s: synths, gates and a tighter grid

By the 80s the technology had changed enough that soul records were being made a fundamentally different way.

• Instrumentation. Electric piano and organ give way to digital keyboards and synth bass. Real string sections become synthesised string pads. Horns get replaced or doubled by keyboards.
• Drums. Drum machines arrive, and where live drums remain they are gated and heavily processed. The famous big snare with a sharp cut-off tail is an 80s sound and it is very hard to hide.
• Timing. This is the important one. Sequenced parts sit exactly on a grid. The human push and pull that makes a 70s rhythm section breathe is largely gone.
• Sound. Wide, bright, and much more reverberant. Digital reverb was new and it got used generously.

What it is good for. Cleaner, glossier beats. Anything where you want a sample that already sounds modern rather than aged. Chord pads work well because they are sustained and sit still. Some of the most interesting material is the moment of transition, where a band is still playing live but the production has gone digital.

What fights you. Rigid timing against a swung beat is the real conflict. If your drums have any swing and the sample is locked to a grid, they will pull against each other in a way that is difficult to fix. The reverb is also a problem, because a heavily reverberant sample cannot be placed in your own space.

4.Tempo is the dividing line that matters most

If you take one practical thing from this, it is that tempo will cause you more trouble than instrumentation will.

Rough guide to what happens when you move material a long way:

1. Within a few BPM. Inaudible. Do it freely.
2. Ten to fifteen BPM. Usually fine on sustained material like keys and strings, more noticeable on anything percussive.
3. Twenty or more. Now it is a creative decision, not a correction. Expect the character to change, and often to improve. Pitch will drop with it unless you prevent that, and the dropped pitch is frequently the thing you actually liked.
4. Speeding up substantially. Harder than slowing down. Material tends to get thin and slightly comic before you have gone very far.

This is why a 70s record at 78 BPM is easier to work with than a 60s record at 118, regardless of which one you prefer listening to. There is more on the mechanics in what to do with BPM and key labels.

5.Choosing by what the beat needs

A short way to decide, if you know what you are building:

• Heavy, slow, sparse beat. 70s. You want the real low end and the space.
• Bright, fast, energetic. 60s, or 70s material pitched up.
• Something that needs to sound weighty and does not yet. 60s material pitched down hard.
• Clean and contemporary. 80s, particularly the pads.
• Swung drums. Avoid sequenced 80s material unless you are prepared to fight it.
• You want chords that go somewhere unexpected. 70s, where the harmony got most ambitious.

The short version

60s soul is fast, dry and thin at the bottom, which makes it good for energy and good to pitch down. 70s soul sits at hip hop tempos with real low end and spacious arrangements, which is why it became the default. 80s soul is clean and wide but sits rigidly on a grid, which fights swing. Choose on tempo and timing first, instrumentation second.