BEGINNER BEAT #2 - FEEDBACK WANTED!
- Thread starter Apex
- Start date
This could be pretty cool, I'd either slow down the drums and make them hit harder or make the bell and shyt in the background faster or less repetitive
The drums sound kind of loud as they are and mixed with the rest just clash with each other, it sounds like you're using a lot of reverb too, try and limit it because it takes up
a lot of space and contributes to the whole muddiness and clashing thing, there's some really cool sounds in here though. Try messing with the drum patterns more and
give them some more groove, something you could nod your head to or just feel it more, any questions I'll be happy to help if I can
The drums sound kind of loud as they are and mixed with the rest just clash with each other, it sounds like you're using a lot of reverb too, try and limit it because it takes up
a lot of space and contributes to the whole muddiness and clashing thing, there's some really cool sounds in here though. Try messing with the drum patterns more and
give them some more groove, something you could nod your head to or just feel it more, any questions I'll be happy to help if I can
Im going to keep it real with you, this was pretty rough. Have you ever had your browser play 2 videos or 2 songs at the same time? I thought that happened at 5 seconds but i kept listening then at 15 I was convinced a another video or song started playing (its a frequent occurrence on my laptop i have like 20 tabs open and one will always randomly play an ad or commercial or news video).
The drums lack any groove, but they get a lot better around the 1 minute mark. Using that part as an example LESS IS MORE!!!! The drums are better than your first track. I can see the repeating pattern, they still lack a swing but its not just random percussion.
If you can, re-upload just the drums we or I will critique that piece and help you with that, because you are very very close with it, once you learn creating grooves and implementing swing all your tracks will fall into place
Then if you can re-upload the entire track without that bell--that lil melody you have from 1:08 to 1:20 that can work.
You are taking steps in the right direction, if you dont want to tinker with the beat you already made and learn from it, then for your next beat try to make something very simple, kick, snare, hat, and a melody like the one you had from 1:08 to 1:20 no extra effects whether reverb or other sounds just very basic.
Last edited:
this sounds off key
add some bass
the drum programing in the beggining sound good but the drum seltion could be better
its really repetitive
First off are you using a midi controller or are you all keyboard and mouse?
Second, when you are laying down your drum tracks, how many bars are your loops? While it is cool that you are changing it up, there needs to be some sort of sequence or pattern, otherwise 3 different drum sequences 1-2-3 bars right next to each other just sounds like random percussion.
Your loops need to be even, so when you play just 2 bars or 4 bars of your beat it should come and go without any notes sticking out, or being out of placement, the whole thing should come and go around smoothly and on time. now as you put these drum patterns together, two 2 bars for a 4 bar loop then two 4 bars for an 8 bar loop you can then trick it up by adding a double kick, or double snare but the foundation has to be right.
watch this video, you can see how he programs the drums and the drum pattern loops perfectly. you can always have multiple drum patterns they just have to loop and be in sequence.
make sure your stuff is quantized and sync'd in with the grid- even though is this video he tells you to do the opposite, once you learn timing you can do that but for now make sure your melodies and drums fit.
@str8up
I do 8 beats for the drums, and I just use my mouse for the melody.
I purposely made this one repetitive, because I wanted to focus on the melody/beat, not the organization of the song.
How's this?
If I can knock down the simple beat/melody, I can start getting into organizing songs (hook, verses, bridges, etc).
I do 8 beats for the drums, and I just use my mouse for the melody.
I purposely made this one repetitive, because I wanted to focus on the melody/beat, not the organization of the song.
How's this?
If I can knock down the simple beat/melody, I can start getting into organizing songs (hook, verses, bridges, etc).
I actually just put together this lil tutorial for you, maybe it will help.
having listened to what you just did. this is good, this is a good starting point. smooth out the drums maybe by adjusting the bpm, or just the swing in FL- you'll have a perfect drum loop. Then once you get into melodies, its kind of the same, making sure they are even.
theres just a tad bit of a gap between the loops, so its the timing that is off, i think adjusting the bpm might fix that. overall the timing is much much better. as you get better with the timing, then its a matter of giving the drums and the melody a humanistic feel.
At this point I would work on a little bit of mixing, for instance with this track, that piano type noise is too loud, it you turn down the volume of it a lil bit it will be good, also adjust the attack and release because that instrument starts at 100 and ends abruptly. you dont need to to fade out but just fade, that on at 100 and off at 100 with no in between makes that melody sound very robotic, just adjusting those parameters a lil bit will make that melody overall better
Last edited:
I'll look up some mixing tutorials. Do I mix everything from a song?
Breh, you actually made a tutorial. Thanks for looking out. We need more people like you in this world.
I'll look up some mixing tutorials. Do I mix everything from a song?
Breh, you actually made a tutorial. Thanks for looking out. We need more people like you in this world.
dont look up mixing tutorials yet. that is a big thing, like its own entity there are people that just produce beats and others that just mix.
the basics that you want to be concerned about is just the volume, like if your melody or synth is louder than your drums. its just a matter of going into the channel mixer and turning it down a lil.
i have a 4 track beat tape that is stickied, the songs are about 2 mins long, listen to them if you get a chance, they aren't super complex (atleast I dont think so, i hear a lot of shyt on here that has me like
) but the principles, decent looping and such are all there for the most part.@The Eclipse this video might help you make some easy and good chords if you dont have midi controller. i hate to keep linking the same dude but im searching for things to help you in youtube under FL and this dude keeps poppin up.
This is good, this is a great start, its easy to hear that is a perfect loop. so from this point its a matter of splitting it up into different sections which you can do really however you choose. You can do four bar loop, 8 bar loop, hell if it sounds good to you you can do a 2 bar or a 6 bar loop. But because it is even you dont have to worry about things becoming out of sync.
For the drum, I would assume you are 'painting' the pattern across 1 bar, over and over and maybe you molded that together for a 4 bar loop. What you could do is paint 3 bars, but dont mold them together, edit the second bar in between the first and third. do something like remove the last snare before the end of the loop, or the kick, or if it sounds right, add a snare hit right next to the one that plays either right before it or right after it so its a double snare and just let it ride into the 3 bar.
This is how you can create variation within your drum patterns
If you watch tutorials of FL you will see a lot of people copy and paste their drums or paint on the drum pattern in like I explained for you to do, (paint 4 bars of the pattern 1 or 2 bars at a time) then do something like remove or add a snare, kick, particularly hats.
Now with your melody that is repetitive (as it should be for the practice) practice putting a variety of notes that are in time. I'll try to recreate your beat in fl to show you what I mean but basically since your drums loop perfectly and it seems like you have a perfect 1 to 4 bar loop with the drums expand on the melody play different notes within the correct timing and get them to loop.
@The Eclipse
here you go man, its not the same, i just listened real quick and quickly browsed the stock sounds on fl. but just kind of playin around since like i said everything is in timing you can play around with it to get some variation with your beats, you are on the right track.
this one is just changing notes on the melody, going up and down, showing you what type of variation you can have since everything is timed right
this just shows what adding or removing a snare, kick or a hat can do to the pattern youve already laid out
Other than that you are on your way. Just keep askin questions on here, definitely watch some tutorials on making beats in FL- they will vary from 5 mins, to an hour long, but you will learn a lot of shyt and a lot of different ways to do shyt you may already know how to do for instance short cuts- just being able to highlight notes and hit alt-q for quantize or something...idk...you are on the right track though.
here you go man, its not the same, i just listened real quick and quickly browsed the stock sounds on fl. but just kind of playin around since like i said everything is in timing you can play around with it to get some variation with your beats, you are on the right track.
this one is just changing notes on the melody, going up and down, showing you what type of variation you can have since everything is timed right
this just shows what adding or removing a snare, kick or a hat can do to the pattern youve already laid out
Other than that you are on your way. Just keep askin questions on here, definitely watch some tutorials on making beats in FL- they will vary from 5 mins, to an hour long, but you will learn a lot of shyt and a lot of different ways to do shyt you may already know how to do for instance short cuts- just being able to highlight notes and hit alt-q for quantize or something...idk...you are on the right track though.
Last edited:
further examples. for this beat I did the percussion (drums) first then I went back and found a synthy bass i liked. to give the song different sequences I just modified the drums in different parts but the bass melody never changes
For this beat I made the melody first, then added drums later, I made sure my melody looped first- to jazz up the melody at about a lil after 1 min in you can hear how I added a lil piano part on top of it to give it some difference
For this beat which is over a decade old is from when I first started experimenting with melody, once again I did the piano and played the drums over it- once again my melody looped just fine when I played it on the keys then I added some sounds over it to break it up, some minor adding/removing hats/kicks and snares to break it up
If you listen to all 3 of these beats in their entirety you'll notice there isnt much of a change up or any advanced transitions but simply dropping in and out of various tracks whether it be a piece of a melody, the kicks, the snares, the hats etc, but the tracks do transition.
Now that you are getting on tracks making loops, you can see how adding or removing components can add transitions and add some life and variety to otherwise simple loops and even could be full tracks.
For this beat I made the melody first, then added drums later, I made sure my melody looped first- to jazz up the melody at about a lil after 1 min in you can hear how I added a lil piano part on top of it to give it some difference
For this beat which is over a decade old is from when I first started experimenting with melody, once again I did the piano and played the drums over it- once again my melody looped just fine when I played it on the keys then I added some sounds over it to break it up, some minor adding/removing hats/kicks and snares to break it up
If you listen to all 3 of these beats in their entirety you'll notice there isnt much of a change up or any advanced transitions but simply dropping in and out of various tracks whether it be a piece of a melody, the kicks, the snares, the hats etc, but the tracks do transition.
Now that you are getting on tracks making loops, you can see how adding or removing components can add transitions and add some life and variety to otherwise simple loops and even could be full tracks.
Last edited: