YAY!!! SO WHERE DO WE START, WHERE DO WE START....
Okay I know you anxious, so lets get our hands dirty. Okay so a lot of people start beats different ways. Now I will say this...There is no "CORRECT WAY", to actually start. Bummer right, but you have to know the truth....
Now what I will iterate on, is my process' and some ways you can begin.
Lets start off with something simple, how about a Lex Luger type track? Yea, those are hot right now and even more so, they are quite simple to put together.
Okay get ready go....
Wait....
You don't know where to begin, or what instruments? Okay I can help you. Certain things come with experience, the more beats you make, the more you will learn which instruments automatically go together. Now I'm not saying that if you add instrument x to automatically every time add instrument y and z. Eventually all your beats would sound exactly the same. So its fine to use instruments over and over, but every now and then, don't be afraid to change it up if you notice you are doing the same ol' stuff over and over.
Now the first thing I want you to do is go listen to a Lex Luger beat...Lets look at "Hard In The Paint"...
What instruments could you pick out? I heard, several horns, rim shots, several strings, orchestra hits, rise effects, 808, hi hats, kicks, tubular bells, snares, and claps....My interpretation and yours may be different. But look at what we have done here, we have determined several things.
1. What instruments are used in a Lex Luger Dirty South beat.
2. What the melody patterns are doing.
3. What the drum style is.
So now we have an idea of how to get it started. First I want you to start playing around with some of these sounds. Now if you are more attuned to get your drums first and build around it then by all means do so, if not lets try things my way. I first like to get a melody going, in these Lex Luger beats, they are simple 5 note progressions that only change after two measures or so. So lets start off with a simple melody, feel free to use mine here...
Okay so the first thing you can see is it is only a 5 note progression, and the chords are c, d, d#, g#, g. Then after 4 measures it changes to f, g, g#, c#, c. So its not that hard. Now I will say this, when you begin playing the melody, tap it out on your foot as you play. DO THIS BEFORE YOU PUT THIS MELODY DOWN!!! Now BEFORE DOING ANYTHING, we have to set our tempo. Which is the speed in which the song will go. That rhythm you were tapping on your foot...That's the tempo lets get it into our sequencer here...
Notice the tempo area, right click it and then select tap... Now you can tap with your mouse or any key on the keyboard, the tempo of the song. When done simply click accept. Now we are set, for this track our tempo is going to be at 77.00 bpm.
Also be sure to set your metronome on here....
It is the light that is just below the keyboard light.
I am using these soundfonts for this melody:
They are a part of the Lex Luger soundfonts collection:
BollandBrassSection
BrAsS
ZSF_Brass_Ensemble SE
After I do the melody above in one of the instruments I simply copy and paste it to the others...
Wait...I'm lost how do I put the melody in there? Okay if you don't have a piano and want to do it the Luger way...Simply drag and drop the sound you want to put into the track on the pattern section of FL Studio. Now right click on the sound and click piano roll. Then its just clicking in the notes at the correct points and getting it in order.
Now that we have the brass laid down, lets get the next portion. The strings!
I did the same exact pattern, no different, only I used the Marcato Strings from the Drumma Boy Kit. Now we have a good foundation going.
Now lets get into some drums, this is what makes a hip-hop beat. If your drums suck, the track will suck. You want it to kick and kick hard, you want the snare to hit and hit hard. Although there are several ways of this. I will show you both, one in this part and the other in part 3 of The Beat Making Process.
Lets get the kicks laid out first...
Notice I didn't just add a single kick, I have layered with two different kicks. This is a beginners method of making a kick stand out. Nothing wrong with it, even some more professional producers do it. Although, in the professionals defense, stacking is more useful as in getting a different sound, more than it is to getting a kick to stand out.
Now how do you determine your kicks? Simply bang it out as your melody plays out. You'll feel it, maybe even different than I did here.
As far as picking the kicks to use, find one that has a high end, that way it can stand out better. One that sounds more like cardboard than a kick I should say, the other should be your bottom end, but not too much. Remember not to clutter a certain frequency. If you can't avoid it, no worries we are going to mix it down eventually anyways.
Okay so now we get to the snares and claps. First I will show you the run on my snare. Now know that picking this snare, it must be a tight, high-end snare. Think marching band style snare...
Notice how I kept a general pattern, but changed it up. This is essential. Also know that you should change up your drum patterns even after you have finished them. Then when putting them in order for the beat to be a finished product. You can put drum pattern 1, the 2, then 3, then 4, etc. This allows the beat not to be so repetitive and it catches the listeners by surprise. This is key in hip-hop/rap, because the beat determines 99 percent on whether or not the listener will like it or not.
Okay now here is a view with the two claps I have added....
Okay now these are simple, its every other click of the metronome. After all that is sort of the snares purpose, but here the claps are taking its place.
Now for the 808s, we are so nearly finished!!!...
Okay now, with the 808s, just find a simple low bass 808 that you can use, any will suffice. You can play with it in the piano roll and make it follow the beat more. However, for this tutorial I will show a simpler version, as the same Lex used in hard in the paint.
Now on to the high hats...
Now it is harder than it look really, but I wanted to do something a bit more complex than Lex did. This seems to fit better.
Now the last piece of the drums, the rim licks he has cluttering his tracks....
Now if you notice I also changed the snares here in addition to adding two rims...Here is where my ear came in use in my creative process...I simply exchanged my current snare for my rims, and made my name follow my claps. It fits much better. You can make simply alterations whenever you feel it to need it. I just right clicked my snare and then selected edit and cut, then right clicked my rims, edit, paste...Simple as that.
Okay now we have the drums, lets move along to another instrument. The Orchestra hits...
Another simple pattern, merely following as a reference. It is always good to have a rhythm support in your beats. The orchestra hits are doing just that in this beat. It is supporting the melodies, by keeping tempo with the root note of the melodies...Keen huh.
Now for the last instrument, no dirty south beat...NONE, can be official without the tubular bells!!!....
Simple as well, just put one at the beginning on each chord transition. The bells remain in the background the fill up and add ambiance. As well as give that official sound we know and love DJ Khalid anyone, anyone?
Okay so now we are on the last portion, I'm sure you are amazed at how easy this really is, now we just get together our last portion, which is our rise effect for this we must first change our pattern...
Notice just to the right of tempo, it says PAT with a 1 above it. Left click and hold the 1 and push your mouse upward to change to pattern 2. Notice now you have a bunch of blanks in your sequencer.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO........
Relax, your beat isn't gone, simply do the reverse to get back to pattern 1. As the rise effect is in ever loop of Lex's beats, we must put it to the side to use sparingly.
So now your pattern 2 should look like this...
Wow how simple now we have a beat, this has been a long post but well worth it. Now one last thing before we leave lets put it in our playlist. First thing we need to switch from pattern to song mode.
Notice to the left of the play button we get PAT and under it song. Simply click song. Now we must bring up our playlist view...
Located in the top right hand corner it is the first button on the left you see here. Simply start changing the patterns and clicking them in place now and you should get something like this...
Okay now its just a matter of placing and cutting instruments in and out...You have pretty much created your first beat here guys. Good job, now that wasn't that hard was it.
Now this one was a long blog, but we still have to start mixing and that is going to be the longer, and funner part. So guys look out for The Beat Making Process pt. 3
Guys I would love to hear your version of this and feel free to email it to me here
Also remember I give you guys this information for free, so please comment, subscribe, and share. Also visit my page and check out some of my own beats.
G-Rage Productions Inc. Beats for Lease only $20.00
No comments:
Post a Comment