Canadian Musician - January / February 2020

DIGITAL MUSIC Note: This column was republished with permission from iZotope’s Beat Making 101: How to Make a Beat, written by iZotope copywriter Griffin Brown and available at www.izotope.com/en/learn. Developing Your Beat-Making Abilities Regardless of your particular style, approach, or the tools you use, there are several ways to help improve your abilities as a beat-maker: Make a Lot of Beats There really isn’t a shortcut to becoming the next great beatsmith; the easiest way to learn how to make beats is … to make beats! Through repetition and trial-and-error, you’ll not only find rhythmic techniques that work, but also your own style and flavour. While there are certainly plenty of standard techniques that people have come to expect, there are a ton of beat-makers who only blind- ly follow these methods. Find a way to give the standard grooves your own spin. Soundalikes If you’re looking to learn these standard tech- niques, a great exercise is to make “sounda- likes,” or replicas of other producers’ beats and tracks. Take one of your favourite beats and recreate it, trying to copy not only the rhythm and notes, but also the actual drum and instrument sounds themselves. This helps to shine some light on the rhythms and me- lodic phrases that professional beat-makers use, as well as to develop your sample choice and sound design abilities. All of this helps to eliminate the mystery in what your favourite producers are doing when they compose a beat. Timed Challenges A simple beat really only has five to 10 total elements; therefore, once you’re comfortable making a beat, try setting yourself a timer and creating one before time runs out. This forces you to think fast and helps to accelerate the learning process. With their limited number of elements, simple beats shouldn’t take too long to make, so you can get in a lot of practice in a short amount of time. Making beats – and making music in general – is just a muscle that you have to develop. Once you’re comfortable with your own creative workflow, it’ll take less and less time to create a beat that you love. Making Beats with Your Own Samples Recording and composing with your own samples is another great way to gain some perspective on beat-making. Instead of rely- ing on sample packs or databases, construct- ing a drum kit from the ground up requires you to think critically about each sample’s function. A kick drum, for example, needs to have some low-end thump as well as a punchy higher-frequency transient. I’ve used everything from a door shutting to slapping my office chair as a kick sample. The beat I was making in this scenario called for a somewhat industrial feel; there- fore, I recorded myself hitting a metal trash can with a pencil for my hi-hat. Instead of beat-making with the mindset of “these are the samples I have, so this is the beat I can make,” I had the freedom to first conceptual- ize the beat and then find objects that could achieve that vision. I found this process to be less constrictive than simply throwing a beat together, push- ing me to actually understand what I was do- ing rather than basing my composition on my tendencies and habits. Tools for Beat-Making There are plenty of resources out there to support those who want to improve their beat-making abilities. A deep sample library is the most help- ful tool in this learning process. Inevitably, the samples available to you will affect your composition decisions. Recording your own samples is great but can be pretty tedious, so using a sample database like Splice.com pro- vides quick and broad access to tons of sonic possibilities. Expand the number of samples you have to work with and you’ll invariably be forced to create different ideas, helping you find your own flavour when making a beat. A MIDI controller with some drum pads can also be helpful for beat-making. While you can certainly set up a drum groove by click- ing MIDI notes into your DAW, being able to play the drum groove helps to internalize the process of creating rhythms. The more that you feel rhythm, rather than simply concep- tualize it, the easier it will be to create beats that resonate with people. Lastly, beat-making apps for smartphones can help to speed up the learning process. As we already mentioned, the best way to learn beat-making is to make a lot of beats. A mobile app can allow you to work on your skills while on-the-go and make the most out of a train ride or doctor’s office waiting room. Check out the full blog post - along with many other helpful resources - by going to www.izotope.com and clicking the "Learn" tab. CANADIAN MUSICIAN 31

Canadian Musician - January / February 2020 | Page 31