Thursday, February 7, 2013

How to Make Pro Hip Hop/Rap Beats

How to Make Pro Hip Hop/Rap Beats

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Hey, I've been making music for a little while now and I've been able to generate a steady income from it. But when I began I had no idea where to start. I searched and search through pages and pages of Google to find some help but I couldn't find anything but advertisements. So now I've decided to help someone else out and write a in-depth article on  how to make beats.

 

 

 

Steps

  1. Find drums that already have bump to them. Find a kick that has punch and one that has thump and layer them, then if your making southern music put a grimey 808 under that.
  2. Rap/Hip Hop music is all about 2 things: bump and feel. Change up your patterns until you are completely satisfied. Try moving to it, try to imagine what it would feel like if you were in a club.
  3. As you start to add your instruments, keep going back and playing with your drums. Change up the hi hat pattern or even the sound, add some 808 snares, make sure your transitions are flawless.
  4. Music is an art form, it creates a feeling. As a producer you are trying to create this feeling. Its not something you have to make up, you know it already from listening to your favorite music.
  5. Don't just add your instruments and leave them, play with them, add reverb and delays, if you have rhodes add a chorus. Do everything within your power to fill the feel of the beat your making. If you can get the feel, then whatever you put in the beat will turn to diamond.
  6. Last but no where near least is....BE RELEVANT!! Stop living in the past, artists want beats like the ones they hear on the radio, they want singles and you have to cater to that if you want to make sales.

Tips

  • As a producer you are a painter of sorts. Take elements that already exist and bring them together to make something new, you don't have to rack your brain over how your gonna make good music.. a lot of it is scientific.
  • Go back and listen to the music you grew up on, but listen to it differently. Break it down, listen to the instruments, try to put yourself in the producers shoes and listen to what feel he was trying to accomplish at the time...was it a simple pop record, was it soul, funk, jazz. Take it all in, even the riffs and melodies. You will start to notice similarities.
  • Also listen to the mix, smash hits always have the same sound...Try to accomplish that at best you can.
  • Find some software that suits you.
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make Pro Hip Hop/Rap Beats. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How to Make a HipHop Beat ? Best Beat Making Software

How to Make a HipHop Beat

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Best Beat Making Program Click Pic To Check It Out
Very few people fully appreciate the hard work and effort that goes into making hip hop and rap beats. The hip hop beat is a complex and often difficult, but always necessary piece of hip hop and rap music. Here are a few simple steps to get started in beat-making. Most people think most modern rap beats are just minimalist sounding beats that had been created in a short time for rapper to rap on. Making beats and producer quality beats in a long but exciting process.

 

 Steps

  1. Get Tight Sounds. No matter how well thought out your beat is, if you're just using an 808 kick and a weak General MIDI snare, no one is going to want to listen to your beat. It's important to find drum kits and loops with some extra flair to really make a good beat. There are many producer packs you can download to get a wide range of effective kicks, snares, hi-hats, and claps.
  2. Understand the Structure of a Beat. Different genres of music have different rules and structures for beats. Most hip hop beats have syncopated kicks and a snare or clap every other bar. Often, closed hi-hats are used to play 16th notes, while open hats are put in the offbeat. This is common for more contemporary sounding beats and is used in a lot of dirty south, crunk, hyphy, and glam rap, but some more older beat uses hat.
  3. Make Instrumental Loops. Very few good hip hop or rap beats are made without some form of repetitive loop. Different rap producers use different kinds of instruments and sounds to make effective loops. Timbaland uses a lot of synths and ethnic instruments, while Dr. Dre uses a lot of orchestral hits. Mf Doom uses vintage sounds often from old cartoons. The type of sounds you use to make your track should reflect the general emotions you want that particular track to convey and your own style. Experiment with what sounds best. When you have the sound fonts you want to use, figure out some rhythmic loops and try not to make them too complex or the rapper will have to work harder for the listener's attention. Figure out another simple loop for the chorus that should be catchier then the rest. After a couple verses, try an instrumental bridge, and then go back in for the last few verses.
  4. Make a Bass Line. This is pretty easy if you've already written your loops. Try to make something that augments the original loop but doesn't compete with it. Well made bass lines are subtle and add to the song rather then just arbitrarily hang in the background.
  5. Add Effects. Try adding a small amount of reverb to your snare or clap, and a bass boost to the kick. Make sure to use effects in moderation, not to distort the track and make it unlistenable.
  6. Master the Track. Make sure the beat is loud enough to be heard without overpowering the main melody. The hi-hats should be quieter than the kick and snare. Experiment with the sound levels until you are satisfied with the end result.

Video 

 


Tips

  • Buy the full version of Fruity Loops, Acid Music Pro, Cakewalk Sonar, ProTools, or Reason. Worth it to be able to save tracks and spend more time on them.
  • Develop an original style. Try to make beats using loops and samples that are a little unusual and start to develop your own style of beats. This will help separate you from the run of the mill beat producers out there. If you good at composing, write your own melodies. If you are not the composer type, experiment with loops and beats online and blend them with your project, and add your own elements too.
  • Be original. It's okay to try to replicate certain aspects of other artist's beats but when you start to make actual beats, make sure you have some original ideas to implement. Try to be yourself and get a signature style, like Pharall Williams blended exotic brass jazz harmonics.

Warnings

  • Do not plagiarize another artist. Don't use samples from copyrighted material unless you've been given permission and don't remix other rapper's tracks without their permission.
  • Don't go on YouTube and tell everyone how great you are at making beats. This also applies to anything else you do.
  • Don't make beats that contain hate speech or spread hateful messages unless you are using them ironically and even then be careful.

Related wikiHows

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make a Hip Hop/Rap Beat. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.