10 steps to make beats

Here is a basic rundown on how to make a beat from scratch. You might find a better working method but here is a good way to start making beats. This article assumes that you know how to use your own software. All decent beat making software will be able to do the following steps without much trouble.

While the steps outlined below work well for making music, remember that all rules can be broken and some steps can be swapped with others. basically if something really good hits you, then run with it and come back to other steps later.

Step 1 – Basic drum pattern

Most of the beat makers I know, start a beat with a drum pattern. If you have a great pattern then by all means go with it, but for me I prefer to start with a musical element as the main inspiration to the beats I make. This is why I make a simple drum beat first. All I need is something to keep time for me. The process to make a beat is a fluid one, meaning that it will always change and flow a different way depending on what is the inspiration is for the beat maker at the moment. You will want to determine the tempo and maybe pick a few good drum kit sounds at this point.

Step 2 – Basic progression

In this step, I try to determine what key the beat will be in. When making music, the scale determines the feeling or emotion to the beat. We all develop our favorite scales that sound better to us than others when we make beats, but sometimes we get stuck in a habit and everything we do sounds the same. One of the things you can do to spark some creativity, is to go online or find a book of scales and pick one you are unfamiliar with. Challenge yourself to make a beat using one of the new scales. You will learn and get inspired to make beats at the same time!

Step 3 – Add parts

Now that you have a basic bed of music to work from, start adding parts to it. Find sounds that you like and just record one part after another. It would not be uncommon for me, when I make beats, to lay down 10 to 20 parts, even though my finished beat might only use 5 or 6. The goal here is to just capture whatever happy accidents of beat making flow out of you. As you work and add new elements, mute out some of your previous ones so you don’t get lost in the wall of sound. Make some parts that hold and flow and make other parts that are choppy or stabby. Also makes parts that call and answer between each other.

Step 4 – Adjust drums

At this point in your beat making, you might have a found a few favorite parts that would do better with a more interesting drum pattern or two. Go ahead and change up your drum patterns. Add some new drum patters too. You might even decide to get some different sounds in the mix for this beat of yours. Do as much drum work as you can. People think making beats is easy and it is easy in the sense that it’s not like work, but it still requires some careful thought process and attention to detail.

Step 5 – Arrangement

At this point, start thinking about how your beat will be arranged. Do you want an intro to go straight into the chorus? How many bars will the verse be? Etc. My belief is that to make beats that are memorable, you need something to make the user go “WOW”. Often times that’s going to be a transition or musical element that comes in unexpectedly. For example, your beat might have a slow piano intro, that explodes into a hard hitting orchestral beat.

Step 6 – Cut and Add

At this point, boil down your musical parts. Remove those that don’t add or fit into the main groove. You can always take the throwaway stuff and use it for a new beat later. You will also look to add accent parts. These might be drum fills, breaks, drop outs or even just punctuation parts like an arpeggio fill, cymbal crash etc.  Also remember that if you plan to add vocals, you might have to turn down or remove some busy parts to make sonic room for the vocals.

Step 7 – Be selective

if you have a really catchy melody, use it in the chorus only. If you use the same parts over and over in the different sections of your music when you make beats, it will sound repetitive and uninteresting. Having a catchy part in the chorus is good because it makes the listener want to hear it again and leaves the impression in their brain long after they hear it.

Step 8 – Finalize the arrangement and mix.

Al throughout this process you should be adjusting volume levels, effect and panning to make things sound balanced. It’s now important to make some decisions and set your mind to complete the song. Many people get to this point and fail to complete a song because they feel it’s not perfect or it’s missing something. I say just make those decisions and get it done. I have so many unfinished works because I lost momentum at this stage. Remember that it’s your beat and you can always change it later, but it’s good practice to finish the beats you make. Not only will it make your beat portoflio larger, it will be a sense of accomplishment and free your mind to new ideas and music to create.

Step 9 – Master it

Find and/or use a mastering plug-in to do a quick shine up on the sound and maximize the audio. I like WAVES UltraMaximizer. You are not trying to be a mastering engineer at this point, just a quick and easy master to get it ready to put on a CD or upload to your favorite beat selling or beat making site.

Step 10 – Render your beat

Finally make a CD copy and a high quality  MP3. Make sure your MP3 is at least 128bts and 44.1 Khz sample rate. Congratulations your are done!

The more you do these steps, the more your own personal working style will emerge. Just go with what works for you and let your inner beat maker come through.