Hey everyone! Hope you’re all having a great April. I got a lot of questions and comments from last month’s blog on How To Become A Hip Hop Producer asking me to talk about some insider tips on creating great Hip Hop content. Well, you came to the right place! Here’s 7 tips that I tell just about everyone who asks me about how to create great content.
Ok, starting with the very first tip I give everyone. LISTEN. Not just to your favorite tracks, but to a variety of genres and artists that you wouldn’t usually listen to for fun or to relax. There are some amazing artists out there who I’ve learned a lot from that I never would have gone and listened to just to relax. LISTEN to the artists who inspire you AND to artists that are great at their craft, and learn from what they’re doing. Start by copying what they do, and slowly incorporate it into your own style.
Here’s the thing - everyone copies or mimics at first. That’s how you learn! Just like when you first start learning piano, you have to first learn your basic chords and scales. That’s how you figure out the building blocks of music. The same thing applies to producing beats. You have to learn the building blocks and the techniques first, before you can start breaking them down and making them your own. That’s why I always tell people to listen and try to recreate the stuff that inspires them. You’ll be producing some dope beats on your own in no time!
I touched on this a bit in last month’s blog on How To Become A Hip Hop Producer. But just to reiterate it - every track has two main parts: the focus (aka the part that everyone hums or gets sucked in by), and the foundation, which is the part that the focus rests on. Every track needs a solid foundation. If you were to start a fresh beat and just throw cool sounding loops into it, you’ll end up with an absolute mess. It might feel cool at certain points, but it won’t be able to stand on its own. You need a solid foundation.
A good general tip is to mute every element in your beat except for the drums and bass. Listen back, and see if your head bobs to it. If it’s not, or if you’re not feeling the beat, try changing it until you feel it. After that, put the ear candy back in and your track should be a lot more solid!
I’ve coached a lot of beginner hip hop producers who love to throw a lot of ear candy into their beats. While I love the enthusiasm, sometimes the best thing you can do for a beat is keep it simple! You might be able to keep up with all the elements you’re throwing in, but that’s because you’re the one putting it together. Your listeners need something easy to listen to, that has a lot of replay value. If you make the track too complex, they’re gonna say “oh, that was cool” and then move on and listen to their favourite beats that are simple.
Replay value is a HUGE part of creating music that not a lot of people think about. It’s the whole concept of having someone listen to a song and then decide to immediately listen to it again. If a song is too complex or too simple, it has low replay value. Finding the right balance between simplicity and complexity is a key skill that you’ll have to polish as you continue making beats!
This is pretty linked to tip #2, but it’s more about process than concept. I recommend you start off by building your track from the bottom up. What does that mean? Simply put, start with your track’s groove. Figure out the drums and bass and general chord progressions within your song before stacking cool elements on top of it. Building your track from the bottom up allows you to start with a solid foundation. That way you never run into the issue of having your ear candy overwhelm the beat!
Ok, FINALLY we’re gonna talk about ear candy. This is the stuff that everyone loves putting in their track. It’s the cool samples or the weird effects that make a beat you create so uniquely you. My biggest tip with this is to keep all the elements of your track within the same sonic family. What does that mean? Basically don’t put in a pop vox sample and then an air horn then a goat scream. They’re not in the same genre or sonic family. Keep your focus tight and in the same overall colour palette, and you should have a leg up on any other beatmakers that throw random samples into their tracks.
Moving on from tip 5, tip 6 is to pitch match your samples. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down for a lesson, loaded someone's stems into my DAW, and the first problem we ran into was that their samples and loops weren’t in the same key. I’m not talking about pitching or tuning your drums, but legit the 808 / guitar / keys / etc loops that were in the beat. You NEED to make sure all of your loops and sounds are in the same key, otherwise your beat will be chaotic and just won’t work. Does this sound a little complex and too much like music theory? That’s because it is music theory. If you have a hard time wrapping your head around this kind of stuff, I highly recommend you check out this video here. It’s a quick 30 minute flythrough of what music theory is and why it’s important. Or feel free to call me up for a lesson or two on music theory foundations.
But bottom line… pitch match your loops and samples.
Last tip of the day! Breathe and have fun. Music making should be fun for you! But, on top of that (here’s the actual tip) your track should breathe. A lot of new beatmakers throw elements into their track until it gets overwhelmed and saturated with sounds. A great beat breathes and has all of its elements strategically placed to create a listening journey. Your beat should build tension and release tension almost like how you’re breathing in and out right now. A good beat is strategic and tells the listener a story.
Hope these help you! Let me know if you have any questions!
Keep making music,
Spike
