When is it time to call it enough?

H

HU-C

Guest
No, if it's good, it's good.
You could ask friends, if it's enough.
 

NobleWordz

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 4
Well there is no rule.

One thing to do is play the beat and mute random stuff, that way you can listen to see if its has a place in you beat. You have to ask yourself, is this important to the beat? If i remove this will I lower the quality of the beat?

Try not to think to much about it, a simple catchy beat is better than a sympathy. Listen to some of Dr Dre's stuff, its simple but catchy.

Anyway, hope that was some help to you.

~NW~
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
Exactly, think simple...and especially if you gonna have a rapper over it, it probably helps if you emcee also as to what is gonna go good to rap over and keep the energy and overall mood of the track, I was in a session with Red cafe about 2 months back and the other producer I work with had a track he liked but there was a part that he flat out said that kills the energy of the track so he asked him to loop it and the track came out hot, in a way you should start to be able to tell when the track either loses energy or where you need to insert the loop after the hook.
 

Kontents

I like Gearslutz
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 5
Dre Is such a good example of a simple but catchy beat producer, but so is scott storch, its all based around the three levels in a beat, Highs, Mids, and Lows. Most of my beats have the basics of lows and mids then some highs, but when i try to make that style of beat thats intese but catchy, i seem to make it extremly crowded, like its packed with no room to move,especially with synth beats and when you think of music its 3D, so i try to pan it as much as possible so it doesnt sound so crowded.
i just thought i would see what people had to say about this topic and see if i could get some pointers.

Thanks for the responses,

Kontents
 

Sanova

Guess Who's Back
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 9
I aint read the whole thread so iono if anyone said this.

But remember, you are producing beats for a rapper. The primary goal is for someone to rap over your track so make sure there is room for a rapper. If you have a million instruments, goin thru different scales and shit to where it sounds like a movie score then you might have a little too much. As long as there's room for an emcee, you're cool.
 

5th Sequence

Hip Hop Head, Certified
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 198
you guys have covered most of the keypoints, i'm just reiterating.

make your beat with the artist in mind from the beginning. think chorus, think intro, thing 16 bar lyric section. The intro may build up the momentum as all of your instruments begin to introduce themselves and what melodies they are working with.. then it can go into the lyrics.. or into the chorus if the chorus is really good. Make sure that you are adding or subtracting instruments or doing something that has a change of momentum for your transitions.

This means taking out instruments or adding them, drum drop outs before you bring in an instrument or bassline or whatever.

The track needs to breath.... if you have several different instruments doing cool little melodies going on all of the time then you have no change in energy or "life" to your track. Give the melodies their own time frames to shine, and it's ok to overlap them too but dont let them all play at the same time all the time.

basically how i go about it.
 

DrOscillator

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
yeah, i agree with above
if you have too many different instruments running at once, take a bunch out, then drop them back in at different times of the song... you might never have them all playing simultaneously but they all can contribute to the complexity without making it cluttered if you do it this way
 
T

The Bastard

Guest
definatly quality over quanitity. i hear a lot of beats wit mad diffrent shit goin on makes em sound more like movie scores than hip hop beats , those beats disgust me
 

mikemat

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
A lot of people say watch out for too much crowdedness and such but at the same time I have to say the beat to P Diddy and BIGs "Victory" is my favorite beat of all time and its like a full blown orchestra with lots of stuff going on. You can have a lot of instruments but you can't have a lot of different melodies alltogether at once and you need to have good mastering so the rappers voice can still fit in with the song. Panning and compression are a huge part of making everything fit so learn up on that if you haven't already. Also maybe you have a good song going but you simply need a better sound for your brass or something that could make it a lot better. The trick is to not rush your beats and make sure it sounds great the whole time you are making it, for example panning and compressing it as you go. If you don't have a good foundation to build the rest of the song off of its not going to sound good in the end.
 
T

The Bastard

Guest
mikemat said:
A lot of people say watch out for too much crowdedness and such but at the same time I have to say the beat to P Diddy and BIGs "Victory" is my favorite beat of all time and its like a full blown orchestra with lots of stuff going on. You can have a lot of instruments but you can't have a lot of different melodies alltogether at once and you need to have good mastering so the rappers voice can still fit in with the song. Panning and compression are a huge part of making everything fit so learn up on that if you haven't already. Also maybe you have a good song going but you simply need a better sound for your brass or something that could make it a lot better. The trick is to not rush your beats and make sure it sounds great the whole time you are making it, for example panning and compressing it as you go. If you don't have a good foundation to build the rest of the song off of its not going to sound good in the end.
yeah its a full blown orchestra cuz its not actually a hip hop beat its a movie score to rocky,but thats a good example of how a lot of elements can be good too,what it al lcomes down to is how it sounds to yur ears if its entertaining you then there can be no too little or too much
 
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