LEARN TO MAKE RAP BEATS

Having original beats makes you as an artist or producer very unique. Self-produced beats can make or break an artist. Unless you got grands to drop on a single (or even k-0k from Timbaland and Kanye), you can make your own beats just as good as pros with the right software.

When you learn to make your own beats, be it rap, hip-hop, or even R&B smooth jams, you can express exactly what you want through the whole song. Beats show your personality and convey what you're all about as an artist. It's like when a graff artist throws up a whole piece production, he wants to show you something, what he's thinking. He's putting out a message and gets respect for it.

Now, I had my share of mainstream Hip-Hop brag-o-nomics, and if you want to show that you're the best, then you gotta get some beats that have that feel. If you want to share an idea, the whole beat's gotta share it too. You know what beats you want yours to sound like-they just got that swagga you love.

Now, a couple tips from a veteran Beatmaker - Two ways to produce fresh beats

(I'm getting older so I spend less time making beats, but I used to pump out 5-10 beats a day. Now, out of those 40+ beats a week, only a handful would actually make it to full production.)

Tip #1

Inspiration comes most often when you immerse yourself into music. You can pull a grip of ideas listening to random music genres. Sometimes I'd get ideas for hip-hop while listening to Marvin Gaye or even a completely different genre like electronic music.

So first, I say you go listen to some music you like and get inspired by like Anthony Banks or Timbaland (I even listen to electronic music to catch some of the tricky elements they use to make dope dub and bass). There will usually be something that sticks out in a track that makes your brain go nuts with ideas. It might be one single sound or a drum pattern from some congas or sticks you hear in the background. Maybe the bass line or 808 hits and you say, "Dag, I want that in my music."

Anytime you feel the juices flowing, don't sit there and let 'em go away, GET UP and put it down as fast as possible. You'll start goin from one idea to the next. Next thing you know, you got five mins. worth of a fresh track (edit it later). Let that creativity flow.

Tip #2

Some of my best beats were made when I was just foolin' around tryin' to come up with new synth sounds or messin' around on the piano or MIDI. I'd get some sound that sounded so dope, the riff didn't have to be complicated at all (sometimes even just one note). On the piano, I'd hit some chord or some sequence of notes that struck my creativity.

I'm no piano expert and I wouldn't really even consider myself a musician-I'm a producer. I can sit down at a piano and play basic chords that I make up and I can pluck out some riffs and melodies with my right hand, but I've had no training. It's pretty easy to make your own beats if you got the right software-but super difficult if it's wrong.

There's tons of cheap and free software you can use to get just the sound you want, but not all are created equal. Some programs take a while to learn, few are easy. Some pump out rotten beats while a select few churn out the illest sounds and drums you've ever heard coming out of your speakers.

Having good software makes it so you can quickly piece together a complete track from scratch in no time and have it come out sounding professional. It's vital to make you own rap if your strapped for cash and ever want to go anywhere in the rap game.