Adding more to beats?

[Mist]

I'm a rapper and make my own beats, I've made a lot of electronic music in the past so I did a lot of layering and progressions.

I find that I can only add a few layers at the most without it drowning out my rapping. Even more so a rapper I collab with has a low pitched voice and raps fast at times so it's even more limiting what I can do with him.

I spend like 30% of my time making the beat and 70% writing and recording. I know it's more about the lyricism than the beat and I'm trying to follow that rule but I wish I could do more with the beat besides variation of drum patterns.

Sometimes I'll change up the beat back and forth 16's and add a bridge. But I wish I could have more layers going on in general while leaving space for rapping.


ANy tricks?

 

[OGBama]

What kind of beats do you like to rap over? This is what should be answered as you want to leave breaks for vocals always e.g. don't construct beats that have too many instruments in them aka "busy" beats.

 

[Fade]

I always say that beats should sound minimal in order to leave room for the vocals, but it really depends on what the beat is. What sounds you are using and how loud they are in the mix. You could have have some loud sounds and still rap over them (think way back to Public Enemy), so maybe for you it's an issue of mixing?