Instrumental Beats Hip Hop

One of the ways you can go about finding beats that you can use for your musical projects is to listen to the many different hip hop albums and artists that have made it big in the industry. These people know what it is that people like in hip hop and taking your cue from them may help you find that beat you are looking for or will need to create for that hit you want to make.

Sample hip hop beats can also be found by downloading free beats that you can find online. There are a number of sites that offer people instrumental beats in different kinds of music and these beats can be used to either create music with or to be used as a starting off point for other similar beats for music makers to use.

There are also online beat making machines that you can use to create your hip hop beats with or downloadable beat machines that can help you create that unique beat you need for your music. You can even find sites that offer royalty free beats with a membership. For a minimal price, you get full access to beat making machines and ready-made beats that you can use for making music with.

2Pac broke out Hip Hop's first double album with 1996's All Eyez On Me, and ten years later MF Grimm dropped Hip Hop's first triple album with American Hunger. If the pattern continues, might we even see Hip Hop's first quadruple album in 2016?

And with this whole triple album talk we are brought to our latest from one of Hip Hop's best immovable rocks - a Soul of Mischief, a Hieroglyphic, a cousin of Ice Cube - he is Del Tha Funkee Homosapien. And Golden Era is his shot at this triple-album shit.

The beats are...well, beats. Produced solely by Del himself and employing a fairly consistent lo-fi approach in his production, you will find some sweet bass lines (and synth bass) and occasional sampled keyboard and guitar riffs here, but you won't find many melodies that these are put into; you'll find solid drums, but you won't really find any abstract drum patterns that deviate from traditional Hip Hop. However, all these do provide a very interesting and somewhat different take on West Coast Hip Hop, as that trademark old school sunshine bounce gets laced with a musical smog (probably all the distortion), then twisted and yanked down underground into an oddly cosy sewer...and finds a lot of charm here.

There's no doubting that they provide much more than the bare minimum canvas for flows as all these instruments come together nicely but still, a significant number of these instrumentals are quite simply loops replayed after 4 or 8 bars. Of course that's not really anything new for Hip Hop, nor is it necessarily a bad thing; but when it is bad it is because you become very aware that you are hearing these beats being looped over and over again, and this repetition is just one of those things that brings your finger or cursor to the "Skip Track" button.

So what's the best way to keep your listener listening? Well, since you're the sole artist rhyming on these three discs which have a joint running time of almost two and a half hours, you need to maintain good form in your verses. Luckily, Del has the smooth voice, tight flow and consistently well-above-par lyricism that keeps your ear hooked to his voice (even if it does often sound like it's been recorded on a reject shop mic). Though he doesn't traverse any new grounds here, his charmingly geeky references paired up with an unmistakeable persona that just wants a good ol' battle with any takers doesn't tire quickly, but with prolonged single listen it does eventually grow thin and begin to feel like it's just running on fumes.

Unless you need a collection of music from a single artist to hold you down for two-hour-long+ drug trip, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien's Golden Era is best listened to in intervals, a non-consecutive disc by disc experience. For its length it is indeed a very solid effort from one of Hip Hop's martians who needs not refer to himself as one because when you listen to him, you know. Who else in Hip Hop could put out a triple album and not make a total disaster of it?

If you aim to create a unique hip hop beats, then you should have a dependable beat maker software. Sonic Producer is an example of this. Now here are the basic steps to make your own hip hop beats:

1. Pick your style - Start with some basic styles and later on, once you finish the whole music, you can experiment on your own style.

2. Choose a great hip hop artist - This will be your inspiration in creating your own hip hop beats. Familiar yourself with his styles. You can make use of them as your basis later on. You can choose as many as you want.

3. Listen To Their Songs - Once you have chosen for the artists, the next thing to do is to listen to their song and check see how the flow goes. If you hear something you really like, try to remember that. Or you can mix that with another cool beats you'll hear from other songs.

4. Lay out the beat - Now this is where you'll start to create your own beats and you'll start it with your intro, chorus, and verse, bridge, etc. Make sure to lay out them accordingly. The basic form in rap is 2 or 4 bar intro, 16 bar verse, 8 bar chorus, 16 bar verse, 8bar chorus, 16 bar verse, 8 bars chorus.

5. Lay down the beat - Everything starts with the drum. Learn the Kick, Snare, Hi hat for a good start. And make sure to record while you are working on this so you can check how it goes later on.

6. Lay down a melody - Your skills in manipulating the keyboard controls are needed here. But for starters, just go with the basic, until you learn some techniques. This can be made easy though if you have a dependable beat maker software like Sonic Producer that contains tutorials and techniques you can apply.

7. Layering The Beat - Layering is important after creating your initial beats to make it sound like a professional music. To do this, apply your instruments to fill the gap in between the intro, verses, and chorus.

8. Apply Panning - It's only like using an instrument all the way to the right, left, or anywhere in between. It gives each track its own little space in the stereo field. You don't have to follow certain rules here. You will make your own rule.

9. Do Some Mixing - Do some mixing of individual track. Make sure not to distort them. To keep it safe, apply some instruments if you notice a little distortion.

10. Bounce - This is it. After you heard your creation, you can now import this into an MP3 format, save to a CD or upload online. If you want to upload to the internet use, 320kbps (the highest.mp3 quality) or 128kbps.

As you can see, your beat maker software will make it very easy for you to make your own beats. At first, you are expected to be a little slow, but you'll master this later on. As long as the beat maker software is equipped with comprehensive tutorials and techniques you can use.

The first mixtapes were started by party DJs that recorded their live mixes at block parties and nightclubs. The original purpose of these mixtapes were to serve as demos to demonstrate the DJ's abilities to rock a party as a party DJ and as a means of gaining new gigs and new fans. The mixtapes became quite popular, copies and duplicates were constantly made amongst fans and by the DJs themselves. Of course being that the first mixtapes were recorded onto cassette tapes only the direct duplicates made from the original master cassette had the best quality sound. The sound quality would degrade the further down the chain a copy was made for example a Copy of a second generation copy would not sound as crisp and might have more cassette tape hiss than a copy made directly from the original master cassette and a copy of a copy of a copy would definitely have serious sound quality degradation. That of course never stopped people from copying these mixtapes amongst themselves if they thought it was that good. After all, if the mixtape was that good people felt they had to have their own copy, but it did mean that it was still best if you could get one of the original copies direct from the DJs themselves rather than a 3rd 4th or 5th generation copy that had poor sound.

In the beginning all mixtapes were party mixes, mixed by party DJs. There were Hip Hop Mixtapes, Techno Mixtapes and House Music Mixtapes. Overtime the breadth and scope of mixtapes changed, eventually including mixtapes made specifically for music artists to get their music out into the streets as ways of finding new fans and creating excitement for upcoming music albums. These new album style mixtapes lead to an increase in Compilation album style mixtapes by DJs that no longer mixed their mixtapes but rather just compiled different music together and used their name as a DJ to call it a mixtape.

The change from mixtapes being on cassette to the new mix-CD versions and download versions have made it easier to now duplicate without sound degradation issues. The switch from mixtape cassettes to digital formated Mix CDs and downloads has also lowered the cost of duplication and distribution. The lowered cost of duplication and the compilation style (non-mixed) mixtapes inadvertently opened the flood gates for an abundance of mixtapes that no longer share the original qualities that made mixtapes popular in the first place.

Some people abuse the word mixtape as a means to sell albums that they don't intend to distribute through normal store outlet channels. Lets face it a compilation of songs by different artists that is not mixed by a DJ is technically just a compilation album and not really a mixtape. Similarly a bunch of new songs by One artist is really just another album. The use of the word mixtape at this point may simply be to gain street credibility for the album or because the release is not a fully polished album release, it likely will contain songs intended more for "The Streets" that might be in direct contrast of an artist's mainstream style songs you would find on their regular album releases. Mixtapes after all are a way for artists to stay in the public eye in between their full album releases. As such, it is expected that a mixtape release will have songs not originally intended for release on a regular album. It might contain freestyles and exclusives over other Emcees beats or over popular song instrumentals as a form of showing how well the music artist can flow over someone elses track or rhyme to someone else's song concept. Many times clearing the samples on an album can take time. Whereas on a mixtape they are simply not cleared as they are not intended for commercial release but rather to be distributed in smaller quantities through the streets without compensation. The goal of an album is to make the artists and the label money. Whereas the goal of a mixtape is usually to increase awareness of the artist, and give the artist street credibility to reach the hearts of new fans they couldn't reach through the radio and TV with their more mainstream tracks. The ultimate goal of these mixtapes is to increasing indirect sales such as merchandise, concert ticket sales and eventually also create an increase in album sales as well.

With the major success of artists like 50 Cent, T.I. Lil Wayne and Chamillionare who were all able to rise to superstardom using mixtapes as a major tool for success, many artists now utilize mixtapes heavily as a means of promoting themselves. A few DJs like DJ Green Lantern, DJ Khaled, and DJ Drama have also become famous through mixtapes by introducing fans to upcoming new artists and for being partly responsible for the success of many of today's rap stars like Rick Ross, Paul Wall and a few others.

There are now countless styles of mixtapes, some are mixed many now are not. There are also themed mixtapes that either have a binding theme to them or have songs that have a similar theme to them such as the "Ear Candy" R&B series by DJ Big Spade, The "Southern Smoke" mixtape series by DJ Smallz, the "Gangster Grillz" Mixtape series by DJ Drama. My own mixtapes tend to be themed including the Iron Man Mixtape, Transformers Mixtape, 18K Dancehall Reggae mixtape series and the Michael Jackson mixtape. Each of theses mixtapes have their unique flavors styles and themes. The Southern Smoke series by DJ Smallz introduces new hot music and artists from the "Dirty South" so you can expect some gritty down south style Rap music and new hits from people like Ludacris, David Banner, T.I. and Gucci Mane. My Techniques mixtape series all have Action movie or kung fu movie based themes and are integrally tied together with the use of movie dialogue and smooth mixes to make an integrated mixtape theme that plays both like a mixtape and like a movie. DJ Big Spade's Ear Candy series brings together flavorful R&B tracks to give the listener a sultry earful of great R&B to groove and dance or just relax with a loved one.

The mixtapes that tend to stand out the most and have a tendency to be the most listened to are naturally the mixtapes that are actually mixed. This is because the transitions on mixed mixtape CDs are generally smoother and easier to listen to due to their better music programing and gradual or exciting transitions. A DJ that mixes their CDs will most likely have a better understanding of programming the music to create a better overall mixtape that can be played straight through without the need for skipping around tracks as one would on certain albums.

Mixtapes that are mixed usually have some hot exclusive tracks you will not find anywhere else because the DJs have created their own remixes and DJ Blends exclusively for these mixtapes. Some DJs do this more than others and some DJs we recommend like DJ Silva Sirfa are considered Blend DJs. They put out what is referred to as Blend mixtapes where almost every single track on the mixtape is an exclusive remix of One song over another song's instrumental. Most DJ mixed mixtape CDs will usually incorporate at least a few blends and remixes created by the DJs themselves. We recommend you find a few DJs you like and check out their mixtapes. Chances are if you like One of their mixtapes you will probably like most of their other mixtapes as well.

With so many DJs and artists making mixtapes these days it's hard to find the quality mixtapes amongst the countless garbage ones. It's important that when you do find mixtapes you like that you keep track of who made the ones you like. Make sure you continue supporting those DJs by telling your friends about these DJs, their mixtapes and their websites. You may even feel compelled to try and bring those Djs to your city by recommending them to the best nightclubs in your town. Bringing out special DJs to your town will serve to also help elevate the level of DJs in your area as new ideas and styles are introduced into the local DJ community. Remember support the good DJs the good mixtapes and support the good artists by buying their albums at the stores or online. This way great music may flourish and prosper.

The new CD comes clean with virtually no samples, which gives the listener a creative and unique sound. It is evident that this group has their fingers on the pulse on many different genres of music. You'll hear a hypnotic mixture of electronic keyboards, drum machines, and live instruments.

The Bunjii front men consist of trio Big Yount, Joey Majors, and Mercury. Hailing from Willingboro, NJ, these three friends have come together in harmony to form a new sound that embodies hip hop and rock music. Their powerful rock influenced beats, coupled with undeniably hard-hitting rap lyrics, result in musical perfection. This energetic hip-hop rock band brings a fresh new musical perspective that is sorely needed in today's climate.

Big Yount and Mercury are the innovative producers. Joey Majors fills the role of clever hooks and lyrics. DJ Jay Ski, who is Philly's own 100.3 The Beat mix show DJ, joined the band early 2004 along with Trey (Drums), AJ (Bass Guitar), John (Electric Guitar), Mike (Keys) to form the live sound that gives Bunjii it's leading edge when it comes to their live performance. It's almost spiritual how they strike an unquestionable balance with each other.

Bunjii has already created a large buzz for themselves by performing at many local NY/NJ events as well as producing for other established artists such as Lil Flip, Raekwon, City High, Raptile from Germany, Erykah Badu, Claudette Ortiz, Ryan Toby, Peedi Crack, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, Chingy, Bilal, Boyz II Men, Bad Boy's "Making of the Band 3" and also scoring for Anthony Anderson's movie "Kings Ransom."

Much like the sport of bungee jumping, this group is risky and sure to satisfy the appetite of any adrenaline junky. They promise to carve their own path in the music industry. Bunjii is destined to take HIP-HOP AND ROCK (HIP-ROCK) TO THE NEXT LEVEL! Check out the band's MySpace page!

The group is signed to True 2 Life Entertainment and Mystery Men Entertainment.