No matter your experience level in music production, there are certain essentials that every creator must know prior to learn how to make a beat.
Your first task should be selecting a sound that embodies your style and aesthetic, which DAWs often come equipped with preloaded samples for this purpose.
How to Make a Beat Basics
Created original beats is an excellent way to start a production career; however, for new producers this process may be daunting and overwhelming.
There are a few basic steps you can follow to begin creating your own beats and music that you’ll be proud to show your listeners. These steps will assist in producing top-quality pieces that resonate with them both musically and aesthetically.
Before beginning to compose music, the first step should be laying down a drum track with an engaging pulse. A proper combination of kick and snare patterns will make your beat both engaging and listenable.
First, find a melodie that works well with the drums. Producers generally tinker around with drum beats until they find an attractive melodic pattern that complements them.
Make your beat stand out by including additional percussion such as bells, gongs, and cowbells for maximum effect. This helps define your genre while making it easier for others to identify it among all of the rest.
Sources
Musicians use beats as basic units of time to measure grooves and rhythmic music tempos. A beat can be divided into two distinct types – stressed and unstressed beats – for measurement purposes.
Finding the ideal mix of repetition and variation is critical in creating great beats, otherwise listeners could become disengaged or move onto another song quickly. Finding original and distinctive sounds also contributes significantly to creating successful beats.
Inspiration for making beats comes in various forms, but the best approach is listening to a range of songs and noting those which stand out, then using this material as the basis for creating new rhythms.
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Arranging
Arranging can be one of the most difficult parts of creating music. It involves taking an unorganized collection of musical ideas and parts and crafting them into something finished – an “arrange”.
Before creating your song, it is crucial that you have a clear vision of its genre and listen to several tracks within that genre so as to gain an idea of which elements go into crafting this style of music.
After you have a basic grasp of beat structure, load your audio file into your DAW and use locators/markers to mark out its arrangement in its MIDI roll or track view. This will enable you to keep beats on time throughout the song’s composition process – essential in crafting any great song!
Based on your genre, you may want to add elements like fills, risers and variations into your beat. Doing this can add extra dynamism and individuality while making them uniquely yours.
Mixing
Mixing beats is an invaluable asset when creating hip hop, trap and electronic music. It doesn’t require much skill; all you need is a DAW and some affordable plugins to get started!
As part of your first step in mixing, make sure your samples are of high-quality. Low-grade samples could create unfavorable mixes that sound muddy or synthetic when blended together.
As part of your overall approach to track creation and production, it’s also vitally important that the levels are balanced across your tracks. A good starting point would be setting each track’s levels so they sit somewhere around -6dB before making adjustments as necessary.
Once your beats have been carefully coordinated, the next step should be working on transitions from song to song. This step is often at the core of most mixes and should be executed flawlessly for optimal results.
Transitioning should occur at 16 or 32 beats and it’s best to synchronize both tracks before beginning; otherwise, your beats could veer out of sync and sound chaotic.
