Tutorials How to Make Beats - Part 5: Start With Drums

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* This is part 5 of an 8-part series of articles on how to make beats. Mostly aimed at beginners, even experience beat makers can benefit from these articles.

Part 5: Start With Drums
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Always Start With Drums

If you're trying to learn beat making, it's best to start with drums. The reason for this is because you will get instant gratification.

Think about it - by having a kick, snare, and hat, anyone can put together a very basic drum track. It's so easy to do something like this:

KICK - SNARE --- KICK - KICK - SNARE​

Right there, that's your first bar. And if the drum sounds you're using sound really good, then your basic drum pattern will probably make your head nod.

If you were to instead start your beat making journey by loading up a synth and playing with your keyboard controller, you might get a bit discouraged because most likely you'll end up playing a very basic pattern that could sound wack.

Let's face it - beat makers are not known for their instrument playing skills!

So start with drums and create a simple, 1-bar pattern. As your pattern loops over and over, you can start adding your hat, then a cymbal, etc. Then if you throw in an 808 kick drum, now you will have something that has some life to it.

Here is a video I did explaining some of the basics of drum programming:

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Drums Are the Backbone of Any Hip Hop Beat

Have you ever listened to a beat that had wack drums? I'm sure you have. I've heard plenty of beats where the melody was really tight but the drums were almost non-existent.

It's a shame when that happens because not only does it make their beat not sound that exciting, it also tells me that the person that made that beat is not putting enough time into their drums.

If you were to listen to some old school tracks, you can clearly hear the difference between their drums (most of the time they used drum breaks) and drums from today's tracks. Granted, if you use a classic drum break it will make your beat sound really dope, but it still shows you that back then they knew their drums had to be on point.

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There are some classic joints such as anything from Ultramagnetic MC's, where the drums are clearly at the forefront of their production. Many of their beats are heavy on the drums and just a few little sounds thrown in here and there. That's it! Throw a dope MC on top and you have a winner.

So put enough time into crafting your drum track. Find some nice sounds and layer them, then play with the EQ and compression - you will eventually get a dope drum track that YOU created.

Once you have that done, whatever other instruments you add will sound much better.

Further Reading About Beat Making

• 5 Reasons Why You Suck At Making Beats
• When Your Beat Doesn't Go as Planned
• Are You In A Beat Making Slump?
• 5 Things Hip Hop Producers Should Do More

 

[Undersound]

Interesting, most of the times I get the sample, try to come up with something good and then add the drums, bassline and other sounds. Might give a try to this way of doing it, more often.

 

[Memento Beats]

Interesting, most of the times I get the sample, try to come up with something good and then add the drums, bassline and other sounds. Might give a try to this way of doing it, more often.

I do it almost in the same way. I start with melody or sample and then I add drums. I think I have made only one beat when I started from drums. For me starting from drums is quite inconvenient but it is because of my workflow. In 99% of times I don't start with drums. However, I have to agree with @Fade that drums that sound good can save even the average beat and constitute the quality of the whole beat.

 

[Fury Beats]

I do it almost in the same way. I start with melody or sample and then I add drums. I think I have made only one beat when I started from drums. For me starting from drums is quite inconvenient but it is because of my workflow. In 99% of times I don't start with drums. However, I have to agree with @Fade that drums that sound good can save even the average beat and constitute the quality of the whole beat.

I used to do either way depending on my mood. I think it makes it flow easier if you have the drum back bone and then add melodies and sounds around the drums because then the sounds can meld easier with the overall vibe of the beat.

 

[Iron Keys]

I do it almost in the same way. I start with melody or sample and then I add drums. I think I have made only one beat when I started from drums. For me starting from drums is quite inconvenient but it is because of my workflow. In 99% of times I don't start with drums. However, I have to agree with @Fade that drums that sound good can save even the average beat and constitute the quality of the whole beat.

I used to do either way depending on my mood. I think it makes it flow easier if you have the drum back bone and then add melodies and sounds around the drums because then the sounds can meld easier with the overall vibe of the beat.

I go between the two - and I hate that. Kinda.

I start with drums if I feel the rhythm is something very specific that may not lend itself to melody playing first. Or if I just want to create a really prominent drum track that could exist without other sounds.

Other times I may start with sound if it's sound I'm hearing/feeling. And then after recording that you may "hear" or feel certain places the drums want to go.

I find when I start with drums first however, I really focus a lot on getting them right, where as bringing them in later I don't spend as much effort, because I'm matching them more to the sound as opposed to each other - so you may feel you don't even need hihats for example.