Instrumental Beats Hip Hop

First of all, the number of layers and instruments needed can be deduced down to this: if you have gotten your point across, it's probably a good time to stop. And this is wise talk. A famous mixing engineer once said: if you can't hear it, it shouldn't be in the mix. And I think we should really live by this saying. Another thing I regularly tell clients is this: if it adds nothing unique to the song, does it really need to be in there? The weakest component of a track is the track. That means that the last thing you add could bring the whole thing down unless it's absolutely magnificent sonically and emotionally.

Simple and plain music can be very attractive. It also forces you to make better music. It forces you to treat each track like it was the only track in the song. Hell, maybe it is! That should be your mindset.

At the end of the day, however big you want to make your track is up to you. You should always listen to your audience, though, so get feedback and look it over closely and without any anger if it's negative. Just take it in and consider the points made. If you get nothing but positive feedback, then you know you're going in the right direction.

Some instruments stack better than others, as well. Let's take the piano for example. You would in no case want to stack 2 pianos playing the same notes, and even playing different notes, it's going to be tough to stack these harmonically. If they sound the same, it will be extremely tough.

However, some artists have experimented with having two pianos playing simultaneously; they just make sure they have different character and so are distinguishable. If you're going to attempt this, apply some reverb to one piano to achieve the far-away and close-up effect. The listener will hear one off in the distance and another very close. To make it more realistic, apply about 5% of the same reverb on the close piano and choose a hall patch. To your audience it will sound like both pianos are in the same environment.

I hope you have thought a bit about stacking and layering your instruments. Remember that your decision is yours to make alone.

To make a good beat, you must first acquire some form of beat making software, and many are available. The following instructions will fit any software you choose to use, as these are more musical guidelines than software-specific instructions.

This will not be easy money, and will take months of practice to be proficient enough to sell your product to an artist or to use for yourself. But any aspiring rap producer should be more than willing to put the work in to create something original that could one day be used by the next up-and-coming rap artist.

Step 1:

Select which software you want to use. In the early days of the rap industry, many of the sounds used to create beats were produced from analog synthesizers or actual instruments. Advances in technology have now given anyone the tools required to make beats from their personal computer with no additional equipment (synthesizers, midi controllers, drums, etc.)

Step 2:

Sampling is one of main cornerstones of beat production; because most rap beats you here today heavily rely on sampled instrumentation from previously recorded material. Sampled music will give your song a more 3D sound, and add to the texture which will set your beat apart from the rest. (NOTE: If you are going to sample a song from another artist, make sure you have their permission, as this could lead to harsh fines and unwanted legal trouble!)

Step 3:

KNOW YOUR SOFTWARE. There is no tip I can give you that will make beat production easier than learning the ins and outs of your software. Any program out there will have a myriad of tutorials available for free. This will make your experience and creativity flow more naturally, as you will not be limited by wondering 'where the reverb control is.'

Step 4:

There are really no exact guidelines that rap beat must follow, and this is a very liberating fact. This is music, and you are only limited by your creativity. Find friends who play other instruments and record their playing on your tracks! Study other rappers and producers and find out where they started and where they are now. This will give you inspiration and also a feel for how the industry has evolved to this point.

The best advice I can give is to be original, be creative, and don't give up! You will carve your niche after hours of practice, and soon you may be selling your beats for hundreds, or even thousands of dollars!

One very underused method of generating bass tones is to use wind tones and some lead synth patches. Using the lower registers of these instruments and sounds can produce a wicked bass sound that lends itself well to many pop and urban styles of music. The sound may come off a little buzzy, but a little processing (low pass filters come to mind) can solve this and get you out of any messy predicament. Before long, you'll have a jamming sound you can be proud of.

You can use electric guitar patches (and even the acoustic varieties) for the same application. The added advantage here is that even in the lower-mid regions, the sound could still pass as a pure bass sound, and the guitars generally have a very warm and welcoming presence that will help the bass sound be heard in a full mix.
Sometimes the fret needs to be added to bass sounds, especially those derived from wind instruments like the flute. You can add frets organically by adding another track and tapping the side of a guitar near a microphone to the start of every bass note. This technique is becoming more and more popular.

One element you must not have in your bass sound is reverb. Not even a little! If you use a track-wide reverb, you can still pass it over the bass line but only as long as it's not meant to be heard but just adds some character. The bass frequencies do not sit well with reverb, and using more than a tiny, little, wee bit of reverb will quickly muddy up the track and your mastering or mixing engineer (if you don't do this yourself) will be very angry with you! You have been warned.

I hope you've found this useful. Lastly, I just want to also add this: don't overlook simple sounds. For decades, video game makers have added bass sounds using the most simple generators, and even though technology has exploded, it is still worthwhile to go with synthesized bass sounds and anything that sounds good. You don't have to get the latest and greatest, just get what sounds good and make some wonderful music.