by the bean (jersey club remix)
This one's for Chicago :)
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by the bean (jersey club remix)
Welcome and thank you for visiting our first music post on the explore page of oneofmany.shop! We love to create and inspire art at One of Many and our posts on this website give us the space to express more of the experiences, insights, and learnings that each project brings!
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And in this new digital space of ours, I’m so excited to talk about our new track from Hamzah, by the bean or as my file directory knows it as “idea_#0455.logicx”!!!!!
Project Overview + Goal
by the bean has been around through many iterations over the years, and we’re so happy it’s coming out now as we launch One of Many. Our main goal is to connect our creative expression to the positive change we hope to see in the world; therefore 20% of all revenue from by the bean will go to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. The second goal of this Hamzah track is to inspire ourselves and others to dance and find joy. Together we hope to connect the privileged moments of joy we have to support children who deserve freedom, joy, and care.
Atmosphere
A year ago, we got our hands on a Pioneer DDJ-1000, and with it came a love for mixing all types of music under the sun with the fast paced elements of house x jersey club x jungle. It added a whole new element into our sound design. Mixing at those higher bpms was so fun, when we began making music for Hamzah this year, we wanted to keep that pace.
Timeline
Originally, this project began in Chicago back in May 2020. We were making a DJ mix that led to a shoddy remix of Chicago Freestyle by Drake (feat. Giveon).
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Listen to the original below!
In that initial mix, the pitched up Giveon vocals (+2 semitones) sounded great to me so we began chopping it up to use as the main sample. If you listen to 0:57 in the original remix, the repetitive vocal chop in the background was one of the standout layers of the track at the time.
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If you listen to the end of the remix, I randomly switch into an impromptu Bobby Darin’s Beyond The Sea rework. Who doesn’t love to indulge in the freedom of music creation (more jazz standard remixes to come 0_0 ).
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It was an exciting arrangement and we loved how it sounded, but after the DJ mix fizzled out, the track was lost to the always growing unreleased folder!
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Until, earlier this year, as we were going over old music clips to begin production for a possible release, we heard “idea_#0455” again. The sample still felt so fun, so we decided to revisit it: 3 years later, from New Jersey, and with a deep love for Jersey club.
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Many of the musical layers from the original carried over, except now we sped up the track from 135 bpm to 145 bpm, and began adding jersey club elements, first of which was the iconic Baltimore club-inspired kick. This signature kick drum pattern consists of two quarter note kicks, followed by two dotted eighth note kicks and finally an eighth note.
With a huge rise in the past 5 years, the Baltimore sound can be heard across pop hits in 2023, I’m sure you know it! One track that inspired us heavily at this time is DJ Tray’s Sending My Love – Original Mix.
In this track you can hear the ear-catching quality and fast pace of chopped vocals typical in Baltimore/Jersey club music. My joy from tracks like the DJ Tray track, are part of the reason why I saw a similar potential in by the bean.
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While the first half of this track came about relatively quickly, as we continued listening to iterations, there was a sense that we wanted the track to have a back half that took us by surprise.
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I personally love a switch-up or beat change, so in-search of that switch, I went back to the Chicago sample and started playing with Drake’s verse. The softness of Giveon’s vocals leant to the more atmospheric first half and so we felt that the verse’s louder presence could fit well with a more chaotic and high-energy sound.
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A song I will forever reference for a cold, hard-hitting sound is Black Russian by DVS1.
It’s Chicago freestyle, we started this beat in Chicago, so of course I had to go to some Chicago house chords to express the “I’m just trying to have a nice night” feeling. The mix of percussion and house is tried and true, and all the elements began to mix to make the second half of by the bean what we were looking for.
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Afterwards, we had mixing and mastering sessions with the amazing artist and friend N. Minsi, who mixed and mastered the final song you hear!
Artwork / Visuals
The artwork for by the bean, is inspired by the iconic Chicago elements like the Bean, or as the sculpture is named: Cloud Gate. The beauty of a bright snow covered Chicago winter inspired both the luminous colors and the imagery used to create this collage. Check out our youtube video to see our animated version for by the bean.
For the animation above, I wanted to work on my 2D animation by referencing Chicago’s over-ground train system known as the “L”. Adding these well-known architectural fixtures in Chicago offered an opportunity for me to revisit the sights and locations of where I was when this song was made. Overall, I love how the artwork came out and love the look of the translucent, snow-covered Bean. I hope you enjoyed it as well!
Top Learnings
by the bean was our first release in years so of course it brought so many learnings and re-learnings! Here are some of our major takeaways as we continue our music making journey.
Have fun & explore: Iterating is key to how we make music so it’s always so important that we remind ourselves to not be afraid to experiment with new sounds, samples, and production techniques. The more we explore, the more we will learn and grow as artists.
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Catalog, Catalog, Catalog & Revisit: Properly organizing and archiving all song ideas, recordings, samples, etc. makes it much easier to revisit them later. I by no means have this perfected, but I’d love to explain how I address this important topic.
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Whenever I work on a music project in my DAW (Logic Pro X for this song), I save the project as “idea” with a number in sequential order, and then a unique name or sample name. For example, this track was saved as “idea_#0455 (by the bean).logicx”.
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After a production session, I export (“bounce”) the audio into a folder called “snippets”. The snippets use the same naming convention as the project file. Having all my .mp3 exports in one folder makes quickly listening to audio ideas simple. As someone who has migrated laptops and DAWs, it also helps having the audio separate, so you don’t need the DAW to listen. (plus it helps with sharing)
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Ideas that don’t initially pan out can blossom into great songs given time. Having a system in place allows for us to revisit old song snippets and demos with fresh ears. You never know what potential is still there!
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Many producers have their own versions of this workflow, so if you’re a musician who wants to share your process, please let us know! We look forward to discussing our music workflows more in the future.
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Being patient with yourself: Creativity is not linear. There will be bursts of inspiration and long stretches wandering in the wilderness. Throughout all of it, stay gracious with yourself and trust that this is all part of the process. There were certainly many ups and downs while bringing this song to life over the past three years. However, coming back to the unfinished idea revealed a new potential within it. We all have wonderful wandering ideas inside of us and it’s important to be compassionate towards ourselves to nurture those ideas.
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Value in creating: Above all, the act of creating brings profound meaning and joy to us. Sharing and expressing ourselves to each other allows the space to work together towards a better world. One of Many stands by the value of creation and coming back to releasing music has reconnected us to how impactful creating is!
Future Focus
Looking forward, we want to continue to make music that gets us dancing and connects people through movement and joy. Throughout that process, we are looking to integrate more content creation through our workflows, to give more in-depth insights into our explorations and music. Art will always allow us to keep learning and a part of our creative expression is to offer a view into the experience.
Thank you for reading!
Have a nice day! 
Whether you love by the bean’s fast pace, punchy percussion, or enjoy dancing along to it with loved ones, I hope there is something in this song that brings to you, the listener, joy and smiles. Thank you for taking your time to learn more about this project and we hope to see you back soon!