Born and raised in Pasadena Ca Ted D. Bear started doing beats out of necessity. I wanted to rap and let somebody else do the beat, but nobody my age was doing it in Dena at the time(early 90's). They was on that football, basketball or gang-banging. Nobody had no equipment except the old dudes which hip-hop wasn't their forte.
The first thing I thought I needed to do beats was some turntables. The wheels of steel! I started with some Radio Shack joints that didn't do the trick so I graduated to a pair of 1200's.
Now I'm freestyling to B-sides instrumentals of songs that are already out. I'm still not making beats though. I hear shit in my head that's not on the record that should be. I'm thinking how do they make that shit on the record? I start making some phone calls like,"Excuse me, can you please tell me how they make the beats on the radio"? I went straight down the phone book asking the same question. People thought I was joking but I was serious. Finally somebody referred me to a place in Hollywood off Santa Monica called, Nadine's.
When I walked in it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. A lot of shiny shit, buttons, flashing lights, big shit, little shit, cords and guitars. It was interesting. It was a dude named Tyrone Griffin that worked there. He asked me if I need some help so I asked him,"How do they make them beats on the radio"? He looked at me puzzled then showed me to this back room. Back there was these 3 machines. A SP-12, MPC 60 and a newer version of the MPC 60 the MPC 60II. He points to these machines and is like,"these are drum machines". This is how they make the beats on the radio. The SP-12 had drum sounds already in it, the MPC you can create your own sounds by sampling other sounds. He said Teddy Riley used the MPC. I'm thinking if it's good enough for Teddy's Jam surely Ted D. Bear can get some use out of it. I didn't get it that day but I knew I had to get it.
Around 93 I got the MPC 60II along with Mr. Griffin's number just in case I had some more questions. Now I'm at the pad with this square box with a gang of buttons not making a sound. This can't be right. I thought I was going to plug it in and then viola, beats for days! After a numerous amount of phone calls to Mr. Griffin, he assured me that I just need to play with it and to give it some time. Soon I was sampling, sequencing and creating loops for my original songs. My beats were coming together but they still didn't sound like what was on the radio. I remember listening to Dr. Dre and DJ Quik and being like, "What the fuck? How do they do that shit"? It was amazing to me and it still is. It's like magic!
Nadine's Pro Audio went out of business, so I started going to Guitar Center in Azusa Ca. That was before the one we have in Pasadena was built. I got at a dude working their like,"Excuse me, How do they get them basslines on a track? He was like you either play the bass guitar or get a keyboard that has bass sounds in it. I looked at the keyboards because they had more sounds. Some boards even had drum sounds and sampled like my MPC did. He said I could link a keyboard to my MPC using midi cables. It was like an epiphany,"that's how they do it"! I didn't get it that day but I knew I needed a good keyboard.
I had an old toy Casio keyboard at the house. Finally I got the MPC and the Casio talking to each other through midi. I never learned how to play the piano I just knew how I wanted the sounds to go. My beats still didn't sound like cuts on the radio but they were better than what I started with. I put out the "Second Hand Smoke" cassette with the first batch of beats I made from this midi combination.
Fast Forward to now and you can find everybody doing music. Everybody got beats, it's like a producer on every street. You can't please everybody so I make music that I like to listen to whether you like it or not. I name my beats by the way they make me feel or whatever they remind me of. I started producing because I wanted something to rap to and didn't know where to get it. Times have changed and now we have options that make beats more accessible. I just want to do work and have my music heard! Get placement and develop a strong track record. Pasadena is over flowing with talent. I want to open the flood gates and help put Dena on the map once and for all.