May 15, 2010

Getting to Know the Elements of Hip Hop Beats

We have been enjoying the sound of hip hop music for over twenty years. It continuously improves and becomes more interesting each day. Beats can now be created and enhanced.

It is fairly easy to make your own hip hop beats since it is a type of sound that is easy to recognize. This can be easier if you have your own studio and can dedicate time for it. There is what we called standard hip hop beat construction that can teach you all the basic.

There are best practices to develop and produce better sound. After familiarizing yourself with it, you can be more creative. For this reason, hip hop continues to gain popularity. The rules are not engraved in a stone, it can be modified and improved.

What makes a hip hop song? It has two parts called beats and vocals made of numerous tracks.

In hip hop construction, “beats” is the most important term to understand. It has many elements but for better understanding, just think about it – it is the whole song without the vocals. It includes MIDI drum patterns, bassline, orchestration, dubs and snips.

MIDI drum patterns are commonly referred as audio drum loops because it comprises the entire drum tracks. Bassline however refer to MIDI sequence and the dubs and snips focus on the accent and characters. The supporting orchestration could be synth pads, string sections or horns.

The beat can be longer or shorter depending on your preference. The shortest beat is made of eight bars that can be in a loop. The longer ones however basically have verse and chorus along with introduction, break and ending. The introduction follows a classic pop form of eight bars as well. The ending ends in fade out. This structure can be modified from time to time.

Vocal tracks in a hip hop song consist of main vocal, second vocal, background vocals and overdubbed vocals. There are different tools that you can use to make your own beat. For one, we have hardware samplers which are the original creator of hip hop beats.

Software synthesizers are also introduced for bassline and orchestration accuracy. Vintage synths has been recognized for being a great resource in this field. Since there are many synthesizers to choose from, it really depends on the artist or user. If you wish to go for blippy sounds, you can actually save more.

There exist many ways to create beats, this way is really easy and inexpensive. Here you will learn about making beats and you’ll learn how to make pro beats for cheap.

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