Beats may be a simple melody that you unconsciously hum in your mind or a part of a song you recently heard. Beats always begin with a musical concept or idea.
Beats are alternatively soft and loud sounds that result when two sound waves with varying frequencies reach the ear and create alternative destructive and constructive interference. Beats can be popular and making beats can be a great hobby. Here are steps on making beats if you plan to get into the beats hobby or industry:
Steps on making beats
- Use high end sounds. Avoid using weak MIDI snares or old kicks. Great beats, aside from being well thought out, are produced by drum kits and loops with extra aptitude. You can download from many producer packs so you can have an extensive range of effective snares, kicks, claps, and hi hats.
- Most beats are made of a snare and kicks or claps on every other bar. One of the steps to making beats is to understand the structure of a beat. Different genres of music are made of different structures and rules for beats. Beats with closed hi- hats are common for modern sounds such as crunk, hyphy, dirty south, and glam rap; beats with open hats are common to older sounds.
- Experiment with what sounds best. When making beats, use the type of sounds that could reflect the general emotions that you want to convey or reflect your own style. Find out the rhythmic loops that can come with the sound fonts you want to use and try not to over complicate them. With too complex instrumental loops, the rapper has to work harder to catch or keep listeners’ attention.
- Bass lines are subtle and complement the song instead of just randomly hanging in the background. If you have your loops, making a bassline is easy. A bass line should supplement the original loop and should not compete with it.
- Add effects to the beats. Use effects to add spice to your beat. Try a small amount of reverb to claps or snares, and a bass to the kick. The effects should be used in moderation to avoid distorting the track or make it deafening.
- Make sure that the beat is loud enough but does not overpower the key melody. The kick and snare should be louder than the hi hats. Try different sound levels until the result is satisfactory.
Tips for beginners
Most beginners are very excited about making their own beats so they go with expensive and very technical music production software. What happens in reality is that they get so overwhelmed and find beat making too difficult; they eventually give up. When starting off in beat making, begin with basic beat making software and techniques. By doing so, you can easily learn step by step techniques while also making hot beats.
You can also look for themes used in movies, games, and TV shows. These are great inspiration and can be used as samples to fit the theme of your desired beat. Make sure to adhere to copyright laws when you aspire to sell your beats using these themes. But if you use your beats for non-commercial purposes, using themes is fine.
Another technique for beginners to come up with good beats is to make beats simple. Many beginners believe in the notion that laying multiple samples and melodies will make beats hot. But this is not the case. Make sure that the vocals rise to the top by not being overpowered by the rest of the track. Do not over-complicate the beat. A simple bass line, short subtle melodies, and other simple sounds can perfect a beat.
You can also learn from tutorial videos or live performances. Download or bookmark video tutorials so you can get back to them whenever you need to use them. Some tutorials might be difficult for beginners to understand but they familiarize you with how the beat is structured and how melodies and other sounds are put together.
The steps to making beats may be a little difficult for beginners. But once you get the hang of it, you will do it every day by practicing until you perfect your beats. When you are able to make hot beats, you can profits from them. How nice is it to make money doing something you enjoy?
