Making A Cool Hip Hop Beat
Mason Taylor | July 7, 2010We have been enjoying the sound of hip hop music for over twenty years. Because technological advancement brings good result to our lives, it evens improve the mix of music. Right now, we are able to make and improve the beats.
Hip hop is a very identifiable type of sound so it is easy to create beats of your own. This can be easier if you have your own studio and can dedicate time for it. There is what we called standard hip hop beat construction that can teach you all the basic.
There are best practices to develop and produce better sound. After familiarizing yourself with it, you can be more creative. For this reason, hip hop continues to gain popularity. The rules are not engraved in a stone, it can be modified and improved.
What makes a hip hop song? It has two parts called beats and vocals made of numerous tracks.
In hip hop construction, “beats” is the most important term to understand. It has many elements but for better understanding, just think about it – it is the whole song without the vocals. It includes MIDI drum patterns, bassline, orchestration, dubs and snips.
MIDI drum patterns are commonly referred as audio drum loops because it comprises the entire drum tracks. The bassline has something to do with the MIDI sequence while the dubs and snips work on the accent and characters. As for supporting orchestration, it can be in the form of synth pads, string section or horns.
Your hip hop beat can be in any length. The shortest beat is made of eight bars that can be in a loop. The longest one is made of many parts called verses and chorus together with introduction, break and ending. Similar to the classic pop form, the introduction has eight bars, too. You can notice the fading out characteristic during the ending. This construction can still be changed whenever you like.
A hip hop song’s vocal is made of main vocal, second vocal, background vocals and overdubbed vocals. There are different tools that you can use to make your own beat. One of them is the hardware samplers which is the basis of older beat construction.
Software synthesizers are also effective in the accuracy of bassline and orchestration. Another great resource in this field is the vintage synths. Since there are many synthesizers to choose from, it really depends on the artist or user. If you wish to go for blippy sounds, you can actually save more.
There exist many ways to create beats, this way is really easy and inexpensive. You’ll learn lots of stuff about making beats and you’ll learn how to do it for only 30 bucks – but still produce studio quality beats.
