July 9th, 2010Basic Elements In Making Hip Hop Beats
We have been enjoying the sound of hip hop music for over twenty years. It continuously improves and becomes more interesting each day. Beats can now be created and enhanced.
It is fairly easy to make your own hip hop beats since it is a type of sound that is easy to recognize. 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 constitutes a hip hop song? It has two parts – beats and vocals made of numerous tracks.
When creating hip hop beats, you must fully understand what a “beat” is. It has many elements but for better understanding, just think about it – it is the whole song without the vocals. The rest of the elements are 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. The introduction follows a classic pop form of eight bars as well. The ending usually fades out. This structure can be modified from time to time.
Vocal tracks in a hip hop song consist of main vocal, second vocal, background vocals and overdubbed vocals. There are different tools that you can use to make your own beat. For one, we have hardware samplers which are the original creator of hip hop beats.
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.
If you want 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 make pro beats for cheap.