Boon Doc: Playing Drums on the Keyboard

Boon Doc shares his method of playing drums live on a keyboard. Take notes beat makers!

Jaisu - Beat Tape Vol. 4

Jaisu puts out a vid showing off 5 crazy beats. Some hardcore rock samples to some smooth jazz in this one. Take a listen!

Make sure to check out his bandcamp page -> http://jaisu.bandcamp.com/

Mixing and its Importance

Beat Making: Mixing

Mixing is one of those things that is extremely hard to fully explain, but is of utmost importance in producing. Producers also should realize that their job extends outside of beat making, including things like vocal mixing, so mixing is quite an important thing to learn.

Mixing is basically the art of mixing sounds together, as the name implies, but it's much more than that. A good mix will give every sound a bit of room to shine through at it's best frequencies. Mixing can turn a boring voice into an ecstatic and energetic voice. Mixing could be the difference of a boring song and a hit. Mixing can do so much, but such a delicate process could take years to perfect.

 Its a thing I'm still learning, so I won't bother going into an in depth explanation, but it's a thing that I strongly suggest yall read into. It could be the single most important skill that goes into producing.

Beat Making: Free Piano Lessons

Beat Making

Free Piano Lessons

As beat makers and producers, we could all use some piano lessons. Nowadays, skills on the keys could translate to hits. Keyboards give our hands access to virtually any sound in a piano's layout, so learning the keys should be one of the most important things you can do for yourself.



No piano? No prob. Get yourself a midi keyboard. A great option is the M-Audio Keystation 61es 61-Key Keyboard which gives you plenty of velocity-sensitive keys to work with, along with the octave shifter and mod wheel to give you nearly full control over your sounds. Many other stand alone keyboards, which have their own sounds, also have midi controlling attributes and can do the trick, but a midi controller is all you really need in terms of hardware.

To supplement a midi keyboard, a good soundbank is needed. Vsti's (virtual studio technology instruments) are great tools that not only provide the sounds, but are a great way to link your software to hardware. Hypersonic 2, which boasts 1.7 GB of sounds,  is an excellent vsti to begin with, but there are literally hundreds of different vstis to pick from. With a combination of a midi controller and a slew of vsti's, your arsenal will multiply tenfold.

Now for the free piano lessons! A user by the name of Lypur has posted a very detailed series of piano lesson videos on youtube, containing 40 videos, ranging from 15 to 30 minutes each. He is offering these piano lessons for free because he believes that everyone should have the opportunity to learn to play the piano. These videos could've easily been sold in a Dvd collection for hundreds of dollars, but they are 100% free. Check it out!

Beat Making: Producer's Block

Beat Making

Producer's Block

It was a nice week for me, made plenty of beats, working on two albums and I got many of the beats done... then it happened. I heard of writer's block before, and it's happened many times to me. But Producer's block?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


The stream of inspiration has a certain limit. The amount of samples and sounds at your fingertips also have a certain limit.. but, supposedly creativity is limitless, and it's a matter of finding how to push the boundaries. Shouldn't creativity be a natural flowing thing, rather than a science? damn this shit is annoying.

What do yall do to break free of producer's block? Let me kno in the comments section!