Canadian Musician - January / February 2020 | Page 31
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