Getting into electronic music production can be a bit intimidating with the amount of effects and plugins available these days. I've spent some time trying various workflow adjustments, briefly had a hardware groovebox and then sold it to get into modular gear. But most of what I do happens on my computer, and the concepts in this post illustrate that all you really need to make music is a laptop. If you're reading this, you can probably install any DAW (digital audio workstation) you like right now and get started right away.
For now we'll be looking at how a simple hip hop beat is structured The concepts discussed will apply to many other genres as well, but I'll save that for a future post.
Generally speaking, a beat consists of 3 core elements
Let's watch this concept in action:
It's that simple. Notice how every beat he makes checks each of the boxes above. The art in beat making is not in the complexity, it's in making it sound easy. In this particular example, Rhythm Roulette is a producer challenge, where the artist has to make something out of 3 randomly picked records. They add their own drum and bass patterns, and then it qualifies as a beat.
I currently teach a local course at my uni following this concept. I'm planning on writing a guide on how I teach other students, maybe some of you are interested in picking it up as a hobby. Let me know if you'd be interested :)
PS: To prove I'm not making this up, I've followed my course concept to improve my own music over time :D The weekly series started out following the same beatmaking rules until I felt comfortable to apply the concept to a genre I wanted to get better at. The first beat is also the first file I just managed to host on IPFS, which is an exciting moment for me! I'll try to keep it up over night for you guys to download, curious to hear from you if it works.
Weekly 001 mp3: Qma3Lt5bCDzMQkjxahkuqJaRQJMnPn1jVdZQymP6ovNcpk
