Beat Making: Sampling

Beat Making: Sampling

When making a beat, you definitely have to lay down a melody on top of your drums, but where are you going to get this melody for your beat? The first beat makers of hip hop started out by sampling both their drums and melodies, and putting them together into a beat. To this day, the best of the best producers are heavy samplers.

Sampling is basically taking a part or section of an audio or song and using it in your beat. Some might start out by taking a 1 or 2 bar section from a song and using it for their beat. Some might get more creative by taking this loop and chopping it into pieces and rearranging these pieces. Some might take a really really small section of a song and use it as a background sound effect or for ambiance in their beat. The creativity is almost endless; the sample and its quality is the only limit here.

Why sample in your beat making process? For your beat, you'll want the best sounding sounds. Most of the time, your sound library will not sound authentic, because many sounds are synthesized or compressed, reducing the overall quality. You do NOT want these cheap sounds on your beats right? Sampling comes in handy because if you look in the right places, you'll find sounds that you'll never achieve with your own sound library, or even with your own skills. Lets face it: there has been decades of beautiful, quality music that just sounds amazing. Sampling allows you to add that hint of amazingness to your beats.

For beat makers, sampling is an art. Some people do look at sampling like stealing because the melody composition is not your work, but there is a huge creative process that goes into the idea of sampling. Chopping, pitch changing, mixing, ect is a very complicated process that many won't understand; some producers manipulate the sample to the point that you can't recognize the sample at all. Every producer should get involved in some sampling at one point of their beat making journey; not only is it a direction to take your beats, but it also enriches your knowledge of past music. This gives you an education of all the music you may have missed in your lifetime, and this education is important to your skill level in music.

Sampling is important to everyone's beat making process, whether it's in the overall sound of the beat, or in the education process that comes with sampling. Consider sampling in your journey as a beat maker.

Beat Making: Drums For Beginners

Beat Making: Drums For Beginners

There is one thing that just about every beat contains: drums. Drums are the fist thing that go into your sound library; It was the first thing I added to my sound library when I first picked up Fruity Loops. There are plenty of drum kits out there, which many are named after a big name producer, like Kanye West, Dr. Dre, ect. The great thing about having these kits is that your beats might start to sound like those producers. The obvious bad point is that it won't sound original. Also, you'll realize that these kits are dated. Drum kits are a great place to start out with, but as you continue on your journey as a producer, you'll want to stay away from these, or use them sparingly in your beats.

The best way to go here is get a drummer. Record your own kicks, snares, hats, ect and use them in your beats. Most don't have access to a drum set, or don't have the money to hire a drummer, so the next best thing to do is sample your drums. Find some break beats, drum solos, ect. and chop these up and add it to your sound library. Drums are everywhere so keep an ear out for them and add them to your own kit as you find them. You'll find these sound much more live and in your face than the big name producer drum kits. Some producers just loop up a break drum that they find, and place their melody on top of it; A very simple approach, but most of the time, these break drums sound better than anything you build from a downloaded drum kit.

Stay away from those big name drum kits. There are indeed some very nice drum kits out there and I encourage you to look for them, but do not depend on them. Chances are you won't find many great kits. The nice ones you do find, other people have got to them before you. So build your own drum kits; this way you'll have a whole kit of sounds you like, and your beats will sound alot better. Remember that drums are probably the most important aspect of your beat, so you want your drums to sound on point.