How did you start making beats ?

[YannFer]

I'm starting this thread because I don't want to pollute @OGBama 's.

So how did you start ?
I mean what gear did you start with ?
How did you upgraded over time ?
How important was each gear for your learning process ?

I just want to share my story on this. And hear yours.

I started with eJay (2000). For you who do not know what it is, it is a cross between Tetris and a daw...
You piled up blocks of loops (like bass, lead, Fx). It had one drum machine. That drum machine had 1 kick, 1 snare, 1 clap...
It had a mixer if I remember correctly.
I couldn't do much with it but I did every fucking possible thing before I bought Magix Music Maker (2003).

Magix Music Maker was much easier to chop samples with. No VST, 1 piano, 2 synths (more like 2 presets of one shitty synth). Very limited again. But, man did I chop everything I could DL (remember Limewire ?)

Then, a friend cracked Reason. 2.0 I think. There was not much to it back then but I went crazy with it.

My bottom line is, I think people who begin their journey now are so lucky for all the features daws have... These softwares are so powerful now ! If you want to do something, you just click the button where it is written... It's a good thing.
However, I think some of us who struggled to layer two kicks or chopping samples without any auto-quantize of any kind are also lucky for what it taught us.
And I know I had it easy compared to the MPC crowd, the vinyl guys and generally speaking, the masters of this craft.

 

[SwayeeBoogie]

I downloaded a demo version of Fruity loops 3.3 after finding out that 9th wonder was using it around he was local
ocal to us because he was in NC right next to VA. I always wanted to try it out because of pete rock aND Premo. There was no youtube tutorials back then so I basically fiddled with it until i started to understand what I was doing. Opened the beat slicer and figured out what choppin was and went from there. Used it for about 12 years and a friend of mine told me that if I got some hardware that i would be able to chop even better with pads so i invested in the Maschine mikro when it first came out and he was right. People started wanting to rhyme over my beats at this point and i was invited into a collecteive of artists and producer's called Takeover 757 in my area. Eventually i made a decision to purchase the mpc live instead of the new maschine cuz all my partners have mp's so when we link up i can just load files straight into their set up when we go to studios etc and that's what im still rocking on.

 

[DJ Wax-Turtle]

I first had Techno eJay and some DJ Jean software. In the last year of high school I downloaded a demo of Fruity Loops. Than YouTube came out and I started watching all these MPC videos and thought it was the craziest thing ever. So I bought a MV-8000 and started taking it more serious. Than the 8800 but in the end came back to FL Studio cause I still had it on my Laptop. I found out how to chop samples in FL and never looked back.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I started with a single sampler on my mixer which I would record then overdub with a twin cassette deck, I soldered a phono output to my zx spectrum +2a and used it as a bass generator. Yeah the songs sounded fucking shit, but Id started my dream of making music.

Went on to Music 2000 on the PS1, then ejay, then cubase and eventually found and stuck with reason for a long time.

Before I ever made a beat I was a dj for a few years but eneded up wanting to make the music, not just play it.

Cant forget Acid Pro, used that for a while to make mixes the lazy way and as a master DAW to reason when I wanted to do remixes and use its timestretching..

 

[Fade]

True story.

So one night I was walking home and most of the time I would go my normal route but this time I decided to cut through an alley. I lived in a rough part of town (old school Irish area) but I felt safe. Anyhow, as I'm walking I thought I heard something off to my right and as I got close A FUCKING CAT jumped out! Seriously. True story.

As I was all "wtf cat", I turned back around to continue on my journey when I literally fell over a body. Now, everyone pretty much knew everyone in my hood but I didn't know this guy. I noticed he was dead so I looked east and west to make sure there was no one else around and I grabbed this bag he had and just ran.

I then made it home and checked this guy's bag and there was a key. It turned out it was a key to a locker storage place but I wasn't going to check that shit right away, so I made myself a sandwich and went to bed. Not WITH the sandwich, but you get the idea.

So the next day I went over to the storage place and I made sure I wore my hoodie and some shades because I know those places have cameras. I find the storage locker and the key worked! When I opened it up all I saw was like a beatmaker's paradise. All sorts of gear and vinyl, you name it. I wanted to jack that shit so bad but I didn't have a car so I had to call my homie real quick but he was acting like a bitch that day so I had to call my uncle. What you have to understand is that my uncle is an idiot but thinks he's a gangster. So he shows up and of course doesn't cover his face, so there's that, and then he sees the stuff and immediately wants me to take it to a pawn shop so we can sell it and split the profits.

I told him to shut the fuck up and just put it in the trunk (we had to make a few trips) and then finally I got everything home. I then started making beats from that day on and never looked back.

True story.

 

[Armani]

True story.

So one night I was walking home and most of the time I would go my normal route but this time I decided to cut through an alley. I lived in a rough part of town (old school Irish area) but I felt safe. Anyhow, as I'm walking I thought I heard something off to my right and as I got close A FUCKING CAT jumped out! Seriously. True story.

As I was all "wtf cat", I turned back around to continue on my journey when I literally fell over a body. Now, everyone pretty much knew everyone in my hood but I didn't know this guy. I noticed he was dead so I looked east and west to make sure there was no one else around and I grabbed this bag he had and just ran.

I then made it home and checked this guy's bag and there was a key. It turned out it was a key to a locker storage place but I wasn't going to check that shit right away, so I made myself a sandwich and went to bed. Not WITH the sandwich, but you get the idea.

So the next day I went over to the storage place and I made sure I wore my hoodie and some shades because I know those places have cameras. I find the storage locker and the key worked! When I opened it up all I saw was like a beatmaker's paradise. All sorts of gear and vinyl, you name it. I wanted to jack that shit so bad but I didn't have a car so I had to call my homie real quick but he was acting like a bitch that day so I had to call my uncle. What you have to understand is that my uncle is an idiot but thinks he's a gangster. So he shows up and of course doesn't cover his face, so there's that, and then he sees the stuff and immediately wants me to take it to a pawn shop so we can sell it and split the profits.

I told him to shut the fuck up and just put it in the trunk (we had to make a few trips) and then finally I got everything home. I then started making beats from that day on and never looked back.

True story.

this shit is Legendary. I wonder if Murda beats or any of these new fags have a story as wild as this...

 

[2GooD Productions]

So, your whole career is based on the belongings you jacked off of a dead guy... Lawd hav mercy with your soul.

Rumour has it that Fade doesnt actually make the beats, they are made by the tortured souls of those poor producers that lost their lives as he beat them around the head with his haunted mpc.

 

[2GooD Productions]

Imagine, every beat @Fade produces contains a subtle "thats my shit, mayne!" sample, which he never put in.

have you played a fade beat backwards? Just saying.

 

[Fade]

True story bro.

 

[2GooD Productions]

Im not eager to have some vatican priests storm my crib...

Yeah man, defo, its not the demons and satan you need to worry about, its those fucking paedophile priests

 

[2GooD Productions]

 

[skidflow]

I actually started making beats in the lunch room on the tables in middle school. Fast forward to 2004 and my cracked version of Fruityloops 4 and a 2gb pc. The struggle was and still is hella real.

 

[Armani]

Who the F needs DAW and instruments when you have some solid pencils. Real shit!

Doin it in a way that John wick likes

 

[2GooD Productions]

 

[Armani]

that's some solid shit to sample for drums real talk

 

[Armani]

Ok now I have headache.

 

[2GooD Productions]

that's some solid shit to sample for drums real talk

now thats exactly what a producer worth his salt would say

 

[2GooD Productions]

Lately i was thinking about to create my own samples from buckets, my acoustic guitar and a pair of bongos i have here. But id sure need a much better mic for this. :/

thats how it used to be done sometimes, if you cant make it, fake it. Sound fx guys in movies and old tv shows were able to create some great sounds that fooled us into thinking they were something else

 

[skidflow]

I wanna learn to playthis and be able to rock like this.

 

[Fade]

Nah but seriously:

I decided to get into beat making because at the time I was a battle DJ and I always loved music and the music side of music. I always wanted to figure out how those beats were made and what they used. I read tons of magazines and some books about audio engineering then even took some courses on it.

Then once I had some money saved up I got a Roland R70 drum machine, Akai S20, computer, Yamaha keyboard, etc. Not all at once but over time. I read all the manuals and got busy. It was so much fun figuring that stuff out then I ended up getting Cakewalk Pro Audio and made beats with that too, which led me down the path of software beat making. Over the years I've changed DAWs, editors, workflow, hardware, and now I'm loving my MPC 2500.

It's an ongoing process!