Official beatmakers/producers tips and tricks open question thread

[BlackDroog]

I dunno man. You can make it do what it do. TOok me years to get to a point where my sound quality was at an acceptable level. The key to it was compression because i was running into peaking and there was a distinct way i wanted my bass to sound in the car. I like to be able to turn to volume up to 26 and maintain sound integrity. Sometimes, its good to take the laptop to the whip, plug it into the auxillary jack and play with your sound at that level. From there put on some rinky dink headphones, or some clock radio speakers. For the music ive sold doing that has saved engineers some work.

I use the car test too. except i just export to the ipod first. I use some regular headphones but i feel like i will invest in some high end ones to help my mixing.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

I use the car test too. except i just export to the ipod first. I use some regular headphones but i feel like i will invest in some high end ones to help my mixing.

I think the car is the ultimate test. Sometimes the headphones can decieve you. I uploaded a beat to soundcloud that was sounding hot to me in the headphones but when i went to the whip the bass was sounding like WHOOOO WHOOOO WHOOOOOOO, friend and i had to delete that track for sounding like trash. With bass up to 6 and volume up to 26 if you can eq your tunes to hit frm there, it will hit anywhere.

 

[KushSkywalker]

I think the car is the ultimate test. Sometimes the headphones can decieve you. I uploaded a beat to soundcloud that was sounding hot to me in the headphones but when i went to the whip the bass was sounding like WHOOOO WHOOOO WHOOOOOOO, friend and i had to delete that track for sounding like trash. With bass up to 6 and volume up to 26 if you can eq your tunes to hit frm there, it will hit anywhere.

the car test, the shytty stereo test, the crappy iphone ( cellphone) speaker test.

This will clean up mixes def, props, sound advice, friend

 

[Ian1362]

My car has no aux input

Usually I'll try to get the mixes right, throw my rough mixes of beats on a CD, pop that shyt in and see how it sounds. Also blew one of my speakers in there blasting Throw Ya Gunz too loud so it sounds like shyt lol

I have rokits 6s and M-audio av-30s, but they're sitting in my apartment with my desktop setup, came home for spring break and was too lazy to pack all that shyt up. Also left my turntables, all my vinyl, and my MIDI controllers so I'm literally just working off a combination of FL Studio 10.9 + Audacity right now off a laptop that my former roomate paid 50 bucks for and gave to me for free that's half-broken. shyt didn't even have hardware support for on-board stereo mix so I had to software-workaround it, fukk Dell. Don't even have speakers, just a shytty 20 dollar pair of sony noise cancelling headphones. Cant get my mixes right at all so just saving all my chops and shyt till I get back Sunday.

straight up struggle production

 

[BlackDroog]

Question about Sampling...How do you hide the drum beat if your sample already has some drums in it? Do you match the tempo and lay your on top of the existing ones, or alter the sample to hide them?

 

[Insensitive]

Reading through this thread and all I'm doing is

 

[Ghpstface]

match the tempo and lay your on top of the existing ones

i think this is what most people do...


i play the sample and do the little tap tempo thing to set the project tempo...(if i sped up the sample or slowed it down i would tap tempo afterwards obvs)...then i chop the sample up (1 chop every half bar...sometimes more, sometimes less)

then i put the chops on the pads and either just play the loop or mix it up ... whatever the situation calls for... then add drums one drum sound at a time, usually starting with the kick ... but sometimes i start with the snare or hihats ... it just depends


thats just how i do it, theres no wrong or right way

 

[head shots101]

when play y'all drums out on drum machines do y'all lay a dound down one at time? for example do you start wit your drum and then lay down your snare...or do ya'll play it out at the same time?

 

[KushSkywalker]

when play y'all drums out on drum machines do y'all lay a dound down one at time? for example do you start wit your drum and then lay down your snare...or do ya'll play it out at the same time?

depends, sometimes Ill do them all separate, sometimes Ill do kick and snare together, then split them into their own tracks so they can get separate EQ and Compression.

I almost always do the hi hats and overheads alone though.

 

[head shots101]

depends, sometimes Ill do them all separate, sometimes Ill do kick and snare together, then split them into their own tracks so they can get separate EQ and Compression.

I almost always do the hi hats and overheads alone though.

I mostly do the kick and snare at the same time and do everything else dolo. My boy said its better to lay out each sound one at a time. What's the benefits in doing that?

 

[KushSkywalker]

I mostly do the kick and snare at the same time and do everything else dolo. My boy said its better to lay out each sound one at a time. What's the benefits in doing that?

less coordination required, also this way you can just make a new track for each sound so you can mix them independently.

You can do this anyway if you just separate after the recording take, but it does make it a bit easier.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Sound effects can help a repetitive sample sound fly. Sometimes you have a quick sample that you like but hearing it over and over again can get repetitive. For times like that i like to use a style thats like a narrative almost. You progressively add sound effects or different types of percussion that can create a groove or enhance the progression of the sample so even though the listener is hearing the same short loop over and over again, there are elements long the way they keep them hooked like certain percussion, bass hits, aural sounds, etc. Drops in the track and can also enhance a repetitive loop. This sample isnt quick but i i thought to enhance the sound i could add percussion that brought more life too it. While your loop plays you can just click on sound effects and see how they mesh with your track and add them as needed.

https://soundcloud.com/crackface/waitingformyson

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Try not to get too used to templates. Especially in fruity loops. Sometimes you have a template that works for you but it takes a lot of the experimentation out of makin the beat because you may just be satisfied hearing your beat over drums that worked on another track. No friend no. Please have a database of hundreds/thousands of kicks/snares/percussion so you can bring something unique to your songs. Im saying this because im guilty of it at times.

 

[BlackDroog]

when play y'all drums out on drum machines do y'all lay a dound down one at time? for example do you start wit your drum and then lay down your snare...or do ya'll play it out at the same time?

it depends...sometimes i'm indecisive and will use up to 3 different drum kits for one track. kick from one, snare from another, so-on and so-on...I also have a few saved that are only kicks or only snares. when the kick and snare are in the same kit, i often play the basic pattern together. then add all the rest later (hihats, etc.)

 

[head shots101]

Sound effects can help a repetitive sample sound fly. Sometimes you have a quick sample that you like but hearing it over and over again can get repetitive. For times like that i like to use a style thats like a narrative almost. You progressively add sound effects or different types of percussion that can create a groove or enhance the progression of the sample so even though the listener is hearing the same short loop over and over again, there are elements long the way they keep them hooked like certain percussion, bass hits, aural sounds, etc. Drops in the track and can also enhance a repetitive loop. This sample isnt quick but i i thought to enhance the sound i could add percussion that brought more life too it. While your loop plays you can just click on sound effects and see how they mesh with your track and add them as needed.

https://soundcloud.com/crackface/waitingformyson

I will have a dope ass four bar loop and I be so stuck trying to find a second sequence