Instrumental Beats Hip Hop

You Don't Need Equipment

One of the biggest misconceptions people have when they are interested in getting into beat making is that you need a lot of money to buy fancy equipment. Over the last few years software has pretty much replaced hardware in the current digital revolution. This is an exciting time because for the first time in the history of music, the playing field is finally evened out - you don't need a lot of money and fancy equipment for you music to sound professional. A common myth is that software doesn't sound as good as hardware - this is simply untrue. I've had a huge rack of hardware worth thousands of dollars only to all be replaced by my laptop. All you really need is a computer, a midi keyboard, and a solid software program to make solid tracks.

I highly recommend starting out using either Propellerheads Reason or Fruity Loops. I say this for a few reasons. The first is that these aren't difficult to get started and start using. The learning curve for these software isn't bad so you can start making beats immediately after you download the software. The second reason is that these programs are extremely powerful in the music you can potentially make. Reason and Fruity Loops are easy to learn but very challenging to master. You'll have the peace of mind that you have the power at you fingertips to make tracks just as hot sounding as a Timbaland or Dr. Dre beat. With these software, you'll have all the resources to make great music - you're only limited by your creativity and the work you put in.

Important Points to Note

One of the most important things in perfecting your craft is having a deep understanding of music. You need to know where music has gone, where its presently at, and where its going. If you ask any great producer what its going to take to be great. In a recent interview, Timbaland was asked what advice he would give new producers on the come up. "I would tell them to go back and listen to real music, 70's and 80's music, something that ya'll young people don't know nothing about. Notice I said ya'll young people. Ya'll don't know nothing about it. Go back and study the art of where real music comes from. Feel me?" I hope you guys take this information to heart and have fun listening and making music - that's what it's all about.

Stepping is a form of dance that was originated by African American college students. With this percussive dance, the entire body is used as an instrument to create various intricate rhythms and sounds through a combination of foot stomping, clapping, and spoken words. Its roots could be traced way back to songs and dance rituals performed by African American fraternities and sororities in the early 1900s.

Stepping as an art form emerged from a long and rich tradition of African American communities that communicated allegiance to a group through movements, words, and sounds. Though this dance may be performed by an individual, it is generally performed by groups of three or more, often in arrangements that resemble military formations. The influence for this dates back to when Black veterans of World War I enrolled in colleges. Because of their military training, they brought to their dances a highly rigorous, drill like component and combined it with elements from other Black dances.

This dance is partly rooted in the experience of African-American men who were made to work as slaves on the railroad. As an outlet to keep up their morale and esteem and to forget about the pain, they stepped. It was a tune that they marched to, a tune about a story and pain. Stepping served as a sort of code for African Americans to tell their story since speaking out was often times too dangerous. Since then it has grown and evolved into the art form it is now.

Although Stepping is directly associated with college fraternities, it is quite popular with younger people. Children and Teenagers across the U.S. are practicing this art form. Churches and community-based organizations are also getting into it. Stepping is also being done by Latino and Asian American Greek-letter organizations.

With the African centered movements of the 1960s stepping started to flourish with the addition of some traditional African ritual dancing and the incorporation of other elements like cheer leading, tap, gymnastics, etc. Over a period of time, stepping has become very elaborate and demanding incorporating props, high levels of gymnastics and other elements found in team sports. Today, practitioners of this dance add hip hop and other current trends. Just like with modern languages, Stepping is continuously growing and being added to. It also originally drew heavily from the stage routines and movements of popular R&B groups such as the Temptations and The Four Tops.

During the mid-20th century, traditionally African American fraternities and sororities on United States college campuses traditionally sang and chanted to celebrate "crossing over" into membership of their respective organizations.

According to Jacqui Malone, the author of "Steppin' on the Blues", stepping is "one of the most exciting dance forms to evolve in the twentieth century."

One of the most common looping numbers of bars is four. This is usually enough to develop an indicative portion of a song, and then four bars can give groove, tempo and feel to a song, and so is great as a foundation or 'skeleton' sample. The drum samples in the four bar loop can be organized as one total unique sample, with each bar being totally different from the last. However, most music producers in rap and RnB prefer to keep some element of comfort with the listener, and variance is the keyword. Varying drums from bar to bar using changes towards the end or velocity is much more effective at not inducing stress into your listener.

Sixteen bars is another common loop number, usually because in hip hop, 16 bars is a typical vocal verse length. So if you can develop the 16 bar loop, complete with pre-chorus introduction and an 8 bar switch-up (just an example), you can give a good example of the way the song would be structured. Using drum sounds and patches over these 16 bars will give see you test your creative limits, especially if you make a few beats every day. Introducing the hi-hats starting at bar 8, for instance, gives the song a great motion factor.

Looking beyond drum samples can expand your horizon a little bit and it actually opens a whole bunch of doors. One common switch-up in a 16 bar loop, for example, is the introduction of a new instrument after 8 bars instead of anything drum-related. However, at this point - or anywhere else in the loop - you could mix up the drums to coincide with this change, and this can be very powerful.

Looking outside instruments and drum sounds, vocals can also be a great trigger tool. A singer or rapper may perform the first four bars in a very monotonous tone and then simply explode with emotion. This is a wake-up call on its own, but coupled with the other techniques, you could really run wild in your listener's mind.

Drum samples are one of the easiest ways to introduce variance, as it requires no extra input on the vocalist's part and can accentuate vocal parts and instruments without anything being different in those departments.

Part of my activity is entertainment related, especially with gaming, clubbing music and hip hop. Fortunately, now, there are extremely many resources for getting started in becoming a music producer, and if you have this dream, pursue with it, don't leave it away:

* Now we have internet where you can search for finding almost any tune, video you can think of;
* There are also game like DJ Hero, Guitar Hero and others where you can start practicing and gaming in the same time. Many successes in entertainment business begun in a joke so it is OK;
* There are available hundreds of e-books - free and paid where you can find useful information about becoming a successful music producer;

Due to these resources and many others it is easier than before for anybody to get started. For becoming a successful rap music producer I recommend 5 steps:

1. I don't think that you can become successful without knowing very well this music so study its roots, listen the most interesting albums released and also study the actual trends;

2. Invest in the minimum resources: a PC, keyboard, music software, a set of turntables - there are many electronic scratch resources but I recommend the vinyl classic turntables;

3. Search for new ideas. The competition is tough and you will be most likely to succeed if you will bring something new in the market;

4. Find other persons which share the same passions and desires like you and create together beats, songs, develop ideas. Most of the times, two or three minds together produce extraordinary breakthroughs. Find them between your friends, forums and social networking.

5. Use at the beginner instrumental rap beats which can be found on the internet in collections as the pictures can be found in clip art. You will be able to modify them in the future but at least you will have a solid place to start.

And the most important, create your mindset for success, don't think at the failure at all and you will succeed.

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.

Make Beats Online

Truth be told, it doesn't actually take thousands of dollars worth of equipment to make killer rap beats. These days, you can make beats online, thanks to beat making software that you can get your hands on. In fact, you can be knocking out beats in a matter of minutes. It's really simple!

With that said, here are some of the benefits of making your own instrumentals online:

- No expensive gear to buy. You don't have to load up a room in your house with a bunch of recording gear that will take you months to learn how to use!

- Perfect for beginners who don't have the patience to try to spend months learning how to use once piece of equipment to only end up making beats that sound like garbage.

- Cost effective. Why waste money on something that you don't know how to use? Making instrumental tracks online keeps money in your wallet!

Beat Making Software Online

Software to make beats really takes the learning curve and difficulty out of making beats. By being able to make beats right out the gate with the right beat maker software, you'll be able to bang out killer sounding beats that your friends will ogle over in no time.

What are you waiting for? Get yourself a software program to make beats online now. You'll be happy you did!

Your first option would be to by a Garageband Jam Pack, specifically Jam Pack 2: Remix Tools. This will add much more Hip Hop oriented loops to the loops library and instantly give you more ideas of how to utilize them. You might even hear some familiar-sounding loops used in recent hits. Remix Tools also adds more software instruments. Among these software instruments are the classic 808 and 909 drum machines to name a few. The 808 drum machine sound has made a huge comeback in recent years and will definitely add some old school flavor to your beats.

There are also tons of third-party loop-packs available on-line. Some free and other not so free. The third party loop packs available span multiple sub-genres of Hip Hop including West Coast, Crunk and more traditional sounding hip hop. These loops are usually made by DJ's and Producer's with some music industry experience and some are pretty good. Just check that they are royalty free before purchasing.

Another option would be to use the existing tools available to you in Garageband such as the software instruments. You can select one of the Hip Hop drum machine software instruments and compose a beat using a MIDI controller hooked up to the computer or just the computer keyboard. All you need to do is play the beat on the keyboard and record in Garageband. These can be saved as loops or in mp3 format for later use. What you can also do is use existing loops and manipulate them using the edit function in Garageband. This can be done only with loops that we're made using the software instruments. All you need to do is load a loop you want in Garageband, click the edit (scissor button) and from there you can manipulate the drums sounds. After doing this, a neat trick is to slow the tempo of the beat to make it more rappable. To make a loop more rappable by changing the tempo, select project in the LCD and change it to between 100-110.