Hip Hop Beats Maker

I recently ran across a really well written article about making hip hop beats regarding what every musician should do if they really want to grow and are serious about making something real and exciting.

Check this out:

Listen to Different Kinds of Music: If you always listen to the same type of music, your minds ability to expand into new creative melodic ideas will be severely limited. Do not be afraid to venture out and listen to lots of different styles of music. Hate pop? Listen to it anyway. Can’t stand classical music? Que up that Chopin piece. In fact, I credit a great portion of my melody-making abilities and musical sense to a band that fits into the genre of “Progressive Metal.”

That’s some amazing advice coming from the often very narrow-minded hip hop and rap community. I mean, when was the last time you listened to come classical or death metal pieces? Here you go, just for example:

Sorry, had a Tim and Eric moment there – and why is my neck sore?

Anyway, More great advice from the article which fits perfectly with classical music and heavy metal guitar:

LEARN MUSIC SCALES: Ok normally someone would just advise you to learn “music theory.” But I find that people can get intimidated when it comes to tackling the entire subject of music theory. The aspect that can really help you when seeking to become better at writing melodies is musical note scales. Do some research online or buy a book about the different scales used in music. Apply these concepts to an instrument (piano, guitar, etc) and you will really begin to get the feel of how notes are associated with one another, which notes combine optimally together, and which moods are brought out by each scale. Learn the major, minor, blues, pentatonic, harmonic minor scales….and so on.

Do you get the point here? Good music is good music, whether it’s hip hop, rap, a great country song (I love Hank Sr. and Johhny Cash!), some 60’s african hi-life boogie, or a hawaiian ukele ditty.

Expanding your musical tastes and educating yourself will pay off with you a becoming more experienced and knowledgeable hip hop beat maker and musician, which should be your end goal anyway.

Monster Beats By Dr Dre Review

I have to say I’ve been pretty curious about the Monster Beats by Dr. Dre headphones for some time now , as I know most of you hip hop heads out there have been. So, recently when I saw a huge guy walking around the mall bobbing his head and jamming out in his own world to the Beats by Dre Studio editions I knew i had to break his hip hop trance for long enough to see what was so special.

The dude was really cool and wouldn’t shut up about the headphones when all I did was get his attention and ask how he liked his Beats by Dr. Dre. He quickly insisted I put them on and listen to the quality coming out of them myself. I would be lying through my teeth if I said I wasn’t impressed. The sounds coming out of those things was like being in your own personal surround sound movie theater. The bass was rich and full, and everything else sounded so clean and dramatic. I didn’t even recognize the song the guy had on, but it didn’t matter.

He told me that his Beats headphones by Dr. Dre Studio model were on the same level of sound quality as $1000 professional studio headphones. I can’t personally attest to that statement, but this guy seemed to know everything there was to know about high-end headphones.

The guy went on to say how they were much better than his old Bose headphones, as those had all cracked or broken pretty quickly. But the main problem he was having with his Monster Beats was remembering to turn them off, although he was getting better at that with time. His betteries had lasted him about four months he said, but I suppose battery life depends on how often you use them (and whether or not you remember to turn them off!). The only other drawback he could mention was the headband and how he had seen the plastic on other pairs crack when people didn’t respect or treat their Beats Heaphones with the bit of finesse that having high-end equipment requires.

I told him that I had heard that there had been reports of lots of noise leakage due to the headphones not fitting as snug around the ears as some people might hope. He said he could always hear everything in the music he played and nothing was left out, and that he even heard musical parts and new instruments that he had never, ever heard before even on his favorite tracks that he knew by heart!

He admitted that typically played his beats pretty loudly as a rule, so that there was no chance that he was going to hear a crying baby or somebody yelling. I personally want to be able to hear if there is a firetruck siren nearby or somebody calling my name on the street, but to each his own. He said that even at his loud volume he had never had anybody comlain to him or ask him to turn this music down when riding the bus or even on a plane. but i honestly don’t know if i would have asked a guy as huge as he was if he would please turn down his music.

With all of that being said, I must make it clear that my experience with the Monster Beats by Dr. Dre Studio headphones was limited to only a few minutes. I got a great tour of the pieces by my friend, the Beats Headhpones stranger.

So, let’s see the specs on these Beats By Dre and check out all of the details.

The official statement on the design and construction of the drivers and speakers in the headphones is that they took THREE YEARS of research and development before production to ensure the highest quality sound possible in a professional grade hip hop studio headphone! Deep basses, clean highs that never distort, and smooth, clear mids pump out of these bad boys.

The noise cancelling technology is powered by the batteries and cut through the sonic clutter that the musicians and artists on your tracks didn’t intend to be interfered with, so you get to hear the music as it was recorded to be heard.

- Smartphone ready: meaning you can the mic and remote on the cord is compatible with use for your ipod nano, ipod classic, ipod touch, iphone 3gs, and some blackberry products.

- Noise cancelling

- Requires 2 AAA size batteries (already included, I love when that happens!)

- On/Off switch.

- Gold 1/8″ and 1/4″ jacks with adapters (especially handy for the DJs and musicians out there)

- Replaceable cord (awesome feature! just in case the cord shorts out or breaks or frays or gets chewed on by a pit bull puppy)

- Multiple color choices (black, white, silver, maybe more)

- Fold up design for compactness and safety

- Speaker mute

- Protective touring case

- Antimicrobial cleaning cloth (that’s cool, sometimes ears are dirty)

- 1 year warranty

And if that’s not enough and you need MORE:

The Dr. Dre Beats Pro are even more incredible!
To be released “late summer” 2010, according to official statements.

- Lightweight, rugged aluminum construction. Remember the rumors of cracking plastic we mentioned?

- Backwards flipping ear cups for selective listening. How many times have you seen a DJ do the one ear neck-cruch thing where they’re only trying to hear one channel at a time. Or have you ever watched a producer record live music and want to hear the recording in one ear and the live sound in the other? These should win some kind of headphone Nobel prize.

- Cable jacks on each ear cup to plug in at your preference, or to dasiy-several headphones together. This is so perfect for Djs, musicians and producers. Imagine trying to listen to yourself record bass guitar with the cord in the way by your left hand – just plug it in to the right earphone instead. Brilliant. Or imagine needing someone else in your studio to hear what your hearing through their own headphones – plug em right in to yours.

- Washable ear pads (duh).

Often, skillful and original producers are let down because of the great costs involved with setting up different musical instruments and the essential paraphernalia to record their tracks. yet, all this is now effortless because you can create your own hip hop and rap beats right away by no more than utilizing your computer.

If the appropriate beat is missing, a hip hop song may become somewhat uniteresting. consequently, it is crucial to have an understanding of the rap song and the way the beats in it, guide it to a higher level. A rap beat should be creative and must contain profoundness. This means that the beat need be competent to make the hearer to feel the content that the rap song wants to express.

A loop is really the thing that makes a rap. Loops are sets of bars that are repeated over and over again to produce a hip hop beat. thus, it is indispensable to comprehend primarily how to create a loop. To start with, first select the hi hats. The hi hats can be taken as the basic for the hip hop beat and you may determine the tempo for the loop. create the initial hi hats straight forward and you can transform them if the need arises.

The next step in creating rap beats is to supply the snares and the bass. The bass drums are the bass line’s deep elements. typically lighter than the kicks, the snares form the mid and high beats. Once the rate is configured and the layout is complete, it is time to add the vocals and the melody.

while working on the beat, it is vital to remember that they must not be overdone. Adding on too many details of melody may take the fundamentals out of the rap. alternatively, maintain the beat as uncomplicated and individual. You can pay attention to your favorite producer and observe the way the beats are kept uncomplicated yet special.

You can merely apply the beat-making program for the intention of creating beats. These programs are user approachable and steer the users to produce good quality sounding rap beats without much trouble.

For all of y’all out there sitting on the fence trying to figure out whether to get in this hip hop beat making game or not, I have a question for you: What’s it gonna take?

You can only make excuses for so long and you can only beat box with your mouth or pound on a table with your hands for so long. If you have a computer -great. That’s a rap beat making studio in a box sitting right there in front of you. Go get Sonic Producer for and start making your own beats right now, end of story.

But if you are a little more hands-on and want some real versatility then DO THIS: get a Zoom MRT3 Micro Rhythm Trak Drum Machine and a Tascam PocketStudio DP 004 and you will have your own hip hop beat making studio for under $250.

The beauty in this is that you will learn to make hip hop beats on a drum machine and record them on multi-track recorder. That will set you up for eventually expanding your studio and having the experience to work more complicated, more powerful rigs like Akai MPCs or workstation keyboards. If you really want to get in to music producing this experience will be invaluable.

You don’t need a huge synthesizer or MPC right now (unless you just have loads of $$$ to spend and want to jump right in), so start with what you can get your hands on easily. These two tools are powerful enough to make plenty of great songs with.

The Zoom MRT3 has plenty of drum kits and sounds for you to program and arrange in to your own beats and songs. Your creativity will be your limit, don’t let inexpensive equipment be an excuse for not using it to its potential. It can also run on 4 AA batteries so you can bang out some beats while you wait for a window to open up at the damn DMV.

Same goes for the Tascam PocketStudio DP 004. You can pug mics in to it, you can plug your sister’s cheap garage sale keyboard in to it, hell – IT EVEN HAS BUILT IN STEREO MICROPHONES! Record some weird refrigerator noises over your Zoom beats and make some crazy next-level style madness! When you’re done, save it all and hook it up to your stereo and blast it at the next party! Better yet – record the party and loop a beat over that!

See what I’m saying? Get your hands dirty and stop talking about it – If you have a couple hundred bucks you could have your own portable hip hop beat making studio this week!

For all of y’all out there sitting on the fence trying to figure out whether to get in this hip hop beat making game or not, I have a question for you: What’s it gonna take?

You can only make excuses for so long and you can only beat box with your mouth or pound on a table with your hands for so long. If you have a computer -great. That’s a rap beat making studio in a box sitting right there in front of you. Go get Sonic Producer for and start making your own beats right now, end of story.

But if you are a little more hands-on and want some real versatility then DO THIS: get a Zoom MRT3 Micro Rhythm Trak Drum Machine and a Tascam PocketStudio DP 004 and you will have your own hip hop beat making studio for under $250.

The beauty in this is that you will learn to make hip hop beats on a drum machine and record them on multi-track recorder. That will set you up for eventually expanding your studio and having the experience to work more complicated, more powerful rigs like Akai MPCs or workstation keyboards. If you really want to get in to music producing this experience will be invaluable.

You don’t need a huge synthesizer or MPC right now (unless you just have loads of $$$ to spend and want to jump right in), so start with what you can get your hands on easily. These two tools are powerful enough to make plenty of great songs with.

The Zoom MRT3 has plenty of drum kits and sounds for you to program and arrange in to your own beats and songs. Your creativity will be your limit, don’t let inexpensive equipment be an excuse for not using it to its potential. It can also run on 4 AA batteries so you can bang out some beats while you wait for a window to open up at the damn DMV.

Same goes for the Tascam PocketStudio DP 004. You can pug mics in to it, you can plug your sister’s cheap garage sale keyboard in to it, hell – IT EVEN HAS BUILT IN STEREO MICROPHONES! Record some weird refrigerator noises over your Zoom beats and make some crazy next-level style madness! When you’re done, save it all and hook it up to your stereo and blast it at the next party! Better yet – record the party and loop a beat over that!

See what I’m saying? Get your hands dirty and stop talking about it – If you have a couple hundred bucks you could have your own portable hip hop beat making studio this week!

If you’re looking for a way to make hip hop and rap beats on your computer, I think I have just the thing for you. If you need to make your own instrumental beats, this is it. After reading many reviews of Sonic Producer, it looks like a lot of people are saying that it’s the best rap beat maker out there for the price. Here are some things I’ve learned from reading other people’s reviews of it. 

The Pros

DubTurbo is a membership website that you pay $30 to become a member of. That means there is no complicated beat making software download to get through. You don’t have to worry about any virus infecting your computer or even having any downloads to deal with. You become a member and begin making your own beats. How simple is that?!

Many of the sounds can be triggered from your computer keyboard – meaning when you press the “Q” button you will hear a bass drum sound. I don’t actually know which keys trigger which sounds, but I’m explaining this just so y’all understand – you can play drum beats on the keyboard keys and record them with the software. All that time punching out beats with your knuckles wasn’t wasted. Snap to it, son.

The drum machine sounds are professional and are even on par with most expensive drum machine and synthesizer sounds. You won’t even be able to tell that you’re not using a professional music studio to make your hip hop and rap beats. Sonic Producer has thousands of samples and sounds for you to choose from too. 

Everyone wants to have a large number of sounds to work with, and they are all available here. From many different types of drum sounds, to pianos, keyboards, basses, guitars, and sound effects, you’ll have plenty to work with and will never run out of ways to get your ideas in to your songs. 

The interface is simple to use. You put the sounds where you want them in the timeline of the beat measure. If you make a mistake all you have to do is take that beats or note out of its time slot and put it where you really want it. You can adjust the tempo, use the mixer to change the volume of certain parts, and string many parts together to make a song. 

If this is all over your head, don’t worry, any beginner can use Sonic Producer and be a master at it with a little practice. And if you get stuck or lost the members are has many tutorial videos to explain exactly how to do what you want. 

When you’re done with awesome new your song and want to save it, there is even an option to convert your song to an MP3 file and save your beats on your computer hard drive. From here it’s your to do whatever you want with, you can burn it to a CD, upload it to a website, share it with others, or import it in to another program to edit it further or have somebody spit some flow over it. 

The Cons

I’ve read a lot of people saying that video quality of the tutorials isn’t all that great. Apparently the video quality is less impressive than the beat maker, and since the peeps who started DubTurbo are professional musicians and not movie makers, who can blame them . Maybe we can get them to do some better videos in the future. It’s all good.

And some of the tutorials may take a couple of times to watch since the instructors know what they are talking about, but you may have some music vocabulary to catch up on if you’re just a beginner. That’s ok, the more you learn the better beat maker you’re going to be in the long run.

Everybody knows that the first drum machines were made by Roland, and Boss is now the same company as Roland. From Synthesizers, bass machines, and early drum machines, Roland paved the way. All of the classic old school hip hop sounds you know and love and grew up with most likely came straight out of Roland’s early line-up of electronic beat makers and drum machines.

Things have come a long way since the early days of old school hip hop and rap beat making, but some things never change, and Roland/Boss are still the go-to brand for drum machines and beat machines. Their line Dr. Rythm drum machines have been used by thousands of beat makers over the years, and there’s a reason. The sounds are what makes these machines great.

But hold up, what about modern times? Not only does the BOSS Dr 880 Drum Machine have 440 drum sounds and 40 basses, but you can plug your microphone, guitar, or bass in to it to play along with or record out to. That is something we never had in the early drum machine days. Not only that, but the DR 880 also has built in amp-modelling for your guitar and bass sounds, and also has a USB port. What?!

So, I’d like to give you a primer on some hip hop and rap beat making making vocabulary words. A lot of people know how to make rap and hip hop beats, but they might not understand all of the terminology that goes along with it. These are really just some basic terms, but they may go along way in helping you make better hip hop beats. You’ll at least understand the framework within which you’re working.

Track – A track is what you record an instrument or beats on. The term used to have more relevance when recording was done on magnetic tape. Different types of tape had a certain number of “tracks” that ran along it, which were read or played by a stereo. Generally when using software to record your hip hop beats, one instrument or sounds at a time be added to a track. Whole beats, with all of its parts can be one added to a track. Or, parts of a beats, such as just a snare, or just the bass drum, will have its own track for mixing and panning (more on this later).

Time Line – The time line will contain the tracks and moves from left to right just like you read a book. This is the progress of your beat, or your song. If you move to the right along your time line you’ll see a visual representation of the beats and music as it happens later in the song.

Tempo – This is how fast or slow the hip hop beat or song you’re making is. Most beat making programs will have a way to adjust the tempo. This control on your software may be as simple as a set of “up and “down” arrows, or it could be represented as BPM, a numeric value that shows how many beats per minute your song contains.

Mixing and Panning – A mixer is traditionally a piece of equipment that allows you to adjust the volume of certain parts of a song, or even whole sets of tracks. If you’re a DJ, you would use a mixer to fade the volume from one turntable to the next smoothly. the Panning of these tracks sends a signal to the left or right monitor (or speaker, or headphone) so that you can create a “stereo” effect.

Save and Export – You might have The beats already saved, or you might still be programming and editing your tracks. Saving will work just like it does on any other program, but when you export it, you send it out of the program you’re working in so it can be used later in another program. For instance, you may save your rap beats to your hard drive, but they may not be accessible outside of your beat making program. You will have to export you song to MP3 format so you can edit it in another program or uploaded to the Internet for all of your friends and new fans to hear.

I hope this helps clear up a few things for beginners and anyone else who may not understand what the components of a hip hop beats maker are and what they do.

As much as I love modern rap and hip hop I really have a soft spot for the originators of the classic old school sound. One of my favorite old school hiphop beats makers is a guy named Man Parrish. I heard a song of his on the radio in about 1985 on some late night radio station and it completely blew my mind. A lot of people in the early days of rap and hip hop didn’t make their own beats, some did, but most rappers just sampled something or rapped right over a live band or a record.

You can tell from the Man Parrish song below, Boogie Down (Bronx), that he was going for something really unique when he made this beat for John Ski of Freeze Force to rap over. It took me years to find any information about this song. I had a cassette tape recording from that hip hop radio show in 1985 or ‘86 or whenever, and besides “Freeze Force”, I didn’t know anything about the song except that maybe the title was Boogie Down Bronx (because that was the vocoder chorus). Not until the internet years dawned upon us and I started looking up rarities and researching great music I had forgotten about did I remember that maybe I could find a little info on this song.

It turns out Man Parrish made a handful of the hip hop, electro poineering songs. Being a contemporary of Afrika BamBaataa and having been influenced by Kraftwerk as well, it’s no wonder his sound is so clean and fresh and representative of that classic early Roland 808 drum machine sound that we all associate with vintage rap and hip hop.

Check out this song, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and listen to all of the details he added in to this unique song when making the beats and music for it.