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How to Make Beats: A Step-by-Step Guide for Aspiring Producers

August 13, 2024 Matthew Lane

So how do you make a beat?

All you are doing is placing sounds in whatever order you choose, to produce one cohesive chain of sounds.

This can be referred to as a beat, an instrumental, a song, a track, music, or a snippet (sample of a beat).

A beat can be played by itself, or, accompanied with vocals.

In this section we broke down beat making into several key elements for you to understand and review:

Sound Selection

You need good sounds to make a good beat. Sound selection, simply put, are the sounds that you choose to make your music.

Whatever sounds you choose are up to you, you should consider your genre, style etc.

We suggest that you not only take your time picking sounds when making a beat. We suggest you take your time when searching for, and downloading drum kits, sound presets, samples, and other types of sounds online.

There’s plenty of free drumkits, sound presets, and samples you can download online. Just search for example “Free Drum Kits” on YouTube or Google.

If you’re just starting off, download some free kits. Once you find your niche sound (rnb, hip hop, trap, trap soul, edm, etc..), you should then download or purchase more specific kits to cater to your sound.

There are other sounds you can search for and download such as sample loops (which we cover in another section), effects like a bird chirping, or someone laughing; this can also include VST presets (sound presets for your VST, Electra X for example).

The VST’s on your DAW come with presets, however you can download or purchase more for enhanced quality / selection, these are known as sound banks or sound presets.

Also note that certain sounds are simply popular right now, therefore using new, popular kits, can put you at an advantage. Again however, the creativity of beat making and the sounds you choose, are totally up to you.

Melody

This section is aimed specifically to melodies as a whole, and recording / creating melodies.

There are two ways to create a melody, you can place in notes, or you can play notes on a midi keyboard. We recommend playing your melodies. We say this because being able to play an instrument will carry beyond a DAW.

When recording a melody on a midi keyboard, we suggest hitting the record button before you have a pattern ready to go. Oftentimes you will play your best pattern first. Beats are not meant to be over complicated, what you come up with first or second more times than not will work.

You can always edit your recording or not placement as many times as you like, this is a major benefit to using a DAW.

When selecting sounds for a melody (just like any other instrument), you want to pick high quality sounds. This means in order to create the best melodies you need to have the best VSTs with the best sounds.

You want sounds that mesh well. You want your patterns to not be too repetitive. If your melody is too repetitive; switch the melody up by adding new sounds, filters, or whatever makes it interesting.

Don’t hesitate to layer sounds, especially chords. This will create a more full, unique sound. This does not always work like magic but you should give it a try.

Sample

You have to understand the rules of engagement:

You need to understand if you can even sell the beat that the sample is on.

Once you figure that out, then you get a good sample (sites like Looperman, have royalty-free rights, so you can use them for free).

Then learn the DAW system so you can manipulate the sample. Once you get that done, you figure out the metronome sound, then you layer the snares, kicks, hi-hats etc on the sample.

Again, we suggest checking out Looperman to grab easy-to-go free melody loops. There’s also tons of free and paid loops included in drum kits and sample packs that you can download online.

Drums

This section is dedicated to the most commonly used drum sounds when making a beat. Drums set the mood of the track, drums give life to the beat.

Drums are a feel. There are an infinite amount of drums, so this topic is very diverse by nature.

Our advice is to listen to the genre of music you want your drums to sound like. If you like reggaeton drums, listen to reggaeton music.

Once you get a feel for the sound, get drum kits based on the sound you want.

Once you get the kits, add your own flair to it.

Always tap the drum rhythm by hand. The drums should flow through your body.

Hi-Hats

Hi-hats set the pace of a beat. They can be used to emphasize more uptempo parts in a song. They can also be used to slow things down.

Hi-hats off all of these sounds is the hardest to describe.

The key to hi -hats is to make it flow with your beat.

Different genres of music have different, popular hi hat styles. Trap beat hi-hats for example tend to be more erratic and choppy. R&b hi-hats and underground hip hop hi-hats tend to be more smooth and steady.

Let the hi hat control the pace of a beat, imagine an artist laying vocals over your hi hats if you ever get confused.

Open Hi Hats

Not to be confused with regular hi-hats. An open hi-hat is what it sounds like. More open and a longer sound.

If we had to sound it out it sounds like ‘tsssssss’. You hear this sound a lot in classic hip hop and r&b beats.

Open hi hats, like rimshots, aren’t always used in beats. You have to see if it is a fit, don’t force this sound in the beat if it does not sound. If used properly it can add more bounce to your drums.

What an open hi hat typically does is connect the kick/808 and the snare/clap.

Next time you are listening to hip hop or r&b music, pay attention to how the open hi hat is used.

Kicks

The kick is the bounce to the beat. The name ‘kick’ is a great name for it, because that perfectly describes its usage.

When a beat is stale, the kick is what takes it up a notch (as with the 808). Therefore the kick is best used during more up beat parts of a song.

You can do a lot with the kick to make it sound better or stronger.

You can increase the velocity (although this should only be used for emphasis).

You can increase the volume.

You can stack the kick, you can increase the level adjustment, you can add gain.

Whatever you do, make sure you add some type of tool to prevent it from clipping in the final mix.

As far as patterns go, take you time and create something that flows with the beat.

When making the beat, we recommend adding the kick after adding the hi hats.

Snare

The snare marks the consistency, and the tempo of a beat. It’s that crack in the beat that keeps the time for the musician.

A rapper knows how to pace their rhymes based on the snare. It is very important to have this element in every beat.

Choosing the snare sound, like any sound sets the feel/mood of a beat.

A great snare is essential to getting the sound you want out of a track, you want it to hit as perfectly as possible.

A strong crispy snare can also bring out the lower end drum kicks/ 808 bases in the track and make them jump out even more.

Pay attention to these snare/drum layers as you want the drum kick, and snare to play off of each other, to really make a memorable track.

As far as effects go; you can add reverb to the snare. This is a very common technique in music production to give a layer of depth to the mix. This will make the snare sound wider.

Ultimately, the most important thing with a snare is sound selection.

The snare is one sound that NEEDS to be consistent throughout a beat, therefore picking the right sound is even more important because you will hear that sound hit over and over again.

You can add style to it, but it needs to be on tempo so an artist can expect its arrival and synchronize the snare with their vocals.

Mixing

This section is more advanced and we are going to dive right into the technical side of things, we understand as a beginner you may have a hard time grasping these concepts. Use this handbook as a reference guide for when you are ready to implement the following :

So what is mixing? Mixing is maximizing the potential of every sound in your track.

When mixing the gain level for a sound is important.

The gain level is the volume of a sound. Too much volume, equals too much compression.

Make sure you don’t have too much gain so you don’t over compress your track. You want the cleanest sound possible.

You want the gain level to be neither too loud nor too quiet.

You want the sound to be as vibrant as possible. You can use VST’s like Ozone to find the right mix.

With mixing; you should use plugins to take the high ends and low ends out. This is how you customize sounds and start being creative.

The high end are sounds on the higher end of the sound spectrum such as hi hats, vocals, or snares. The low end are deeper sounds such as bass, 808s or kicks.

Remember: there is no set way to mix, there are fundamentals, like not over compressing, don’t clip, you want your sound to be as clean as possible. Use your ears and be creative.

Arrangement

When it comes to arrangement, we break it down into a simple method. There are tons of videos, and songs with different styles of arrangement. The arrangement of your beat should tailor to the type of music you are making.

That being said here are our simple rules to arrangement:

Arrangement is like a basketball, imagine dribbling in one hand then switching it to the other hand. That is how a beat should flow. A beat should never be boring. There can be similar parts, but in general, the entire beat needs to have different parts all throughout. However, you will need to balance this out with repetitive elements. There is a yin and yang balance. One way to get better at arrangement is listening to your favorite songs and noting down the pattern on a piece of paper.
Switch the beat up every four bars. As noted above, you want to keep switching a beat up. We recommend every four bars, there needs to be a different element to keep the listener interested.
The changes can be as simple as switching up the melody, having a different drum pattern, or using some kind of filter. Note: you can also take sounds away, to switch up the melody, it is not always adding, it is also subtracting.

Chord Writing Basics

This is a very basic overview of chords. This is an advanced topic that dips more into music theory, we will cover more of music theory in the next volume.

Need to Know 4 Basic Chords (how to put together and find them from random notes in seconds):

Major Chords - In music theory, a major chord is a chord that has a root, major third, and perfect fifth. When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a major triad. For example, the major triad built on C, called a C major triad, has pitches C–E–G:
Minor Chords - In music theory, a minor chord is a chord having a root, a minor third, and a perfect fifth.[2] When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a minor triad. For example, the minor triad built on C, called a C minor triad, has pitches C–E♭–G:
Diminished - Diminished chords are formed by combining the root, flatted third (minor third) and flatted fifth of the major scale (1, ♭3, ♭5). ... On your piano keyboard, to form any dim chord, simply hold the root note and each time skip two keys and play the key to the right of the two keys you skip.
Augmented - An augmented chord contains a root note, a major third (M3) interval, and an augmented fifth (aug5), which is a perfect fifth (P5) raised one half step. Think of an augmented chord as simply a major chord with the top note raised one half step.

What Makes a Great Producer?

If we could sum up how to become great at beatmaking in 1 sentence:

Make beats a lifestyle, watch tutorials, and get feedback.

The Lifestyle

Shape your life around making beats. Everything you do should be a conscious effort towards making higher quality beats.

Know what you have to do in your life to make the best beats that you can make.

For example; if you focus better, and therefore make better beats during a certain time of the day. Try to make beats during that time.

Do you need to eat or drink anything? Maybe coffee helps you focus better. Whatever works for you.

Do you make better beats when no one is around, or do you prefer to collaborate?

There’s tons of little nuances that make you feel more comfortable and allow you to be in your zone.

An easy thing you can do when making a beat is putting your phone away. This will help you focus much better.

Avoid people that negatively criticize you making beats, or the quality of your beats. Get rid of all negative objects or associations in your area while you make beats.

Consider cleaning up your beat making area or studio (whether that be at home or abroad). An uncluttered environment equals an uncluttered mind.

Surround yourself with positive and relaxing imagery. Make yourself as comfortable, relaxed, and happy as possible when you make beats.

If you ever find yourself making uninspiring beats, or what's known as ‘beat block’, simply take a break for a couple of days and come back.

Watch Tutorials

Tutorials will give you ideas and knowledge on how to use your DAW to make better beats.

The key is to watch tutorials in a way that does not suppress creativity.

That means watch tutorials on specific subjects such as kicks, snares, tools, mixing, or arrangement.

Try not to watch too many tutorials where someone makes a beat a certain way, it will make you feel as though you have to make a beat that exact way to be successful.

A safe alternative is listening to popular music. Focus on both your genre and music outside your genre. This can give you a great ideal of structure as well as creative ideas for your music.

Avoid looking at tutorials (or getting feedback) from artists that aren't making great beats. I know, it seems obvious, but learning from people that aren't much better than you may only confuse the process.

Get Feedback

Getting feedback on a beat is a surprisingly easy thing to do, but most producers don’t want to do this.

Let me tell you though, feedback can help you improve much faster.

Make beats, get feedback, implement feedback. It is a simple formula to success.

Easy places to get feedback online: forums, Reddit.

You can get feedback offline as well. Remember: get feedback from beat makers that are better than you.

Feedback can be extremely helpful in guiding you towards a more comprehensive beat. Once you start getting less and less negative feedback, and more positive feedback, your beat is near perfect.

However, as they say success can be a bad teacher, that means people telling you your beats are awesome all the time doesn’t help. It makes you feel better about your work but it won’t help you improve. That being said, have thick skin, don’t be afraid to ask for feedback.

Online Marketing

It is not a secret that the internet has expanded the reach, and possibilities of digital products such as beats.

Knowing a bit about internet marketing can help you gain exposure as a music producer.

We broke this section down into a couple of sites that we have personally used and have had success with marketing beats online.

As this book ages, there will be more websites to market your music present. As a recommendation, you need to be conscious of what is trending in the industry. There will be always some form of technology/social media that people gravitate to.

YouTube

YouTube is a very popular online video sharing website. To have success here you need to create good graphics/videos and upload your best beats.

For more views, you can name them type beats (beats that are like major artists or genres).

For instance ‘Eminem type beat’ or ‘r&b flute beat’. This will get more views simply because these are terms that are being searched for at a higher volume.

If ever you have trouble finding good keywords to use, try a site like keywordtool.io/youtube.

Keep the simple formula: good beats + good graphics = more views. Constantly work on improving both of these and you will get better results (more views on your beats).

Instagram

Many serious artists are on Instagram. It has become a must in the music industry.

Take your Instagram profile seriously. Don’t make it too spammy, promote it, nurture it.

Instagram is a great place to network and meet new artists. Instagram is also a great place to connect with artists that found you on other sites like YouTube.

Take cool photos of your work, maybe snippets of your beats, and upload it.

Develop an online personality, and establish your brand, you never know who's looking.

Future Producers / Illmuzik

I dedicated an entire section to Future Producers (futureproducers.com) and Illmuzik (illmuzik.com), both are popular music production forums.

On these sites you can find just about anything producer related on there.

You can get great feedback on your work from a truly constructive environment. There’s a lot of successful producers on there that post regularly. You can mingle, and learn a lot from them in a comfortable environment.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud makes it very easy to upload music, and it has enough popularity to make your time worthwhile.

We suggest you build your SoundCloud account in a similar way you would with YouTube. The major difference is with SoundCloud you do not need to create videos.

We have had good success on SoundCloud, we believe it is worth using.

Email Marketing

Now here’s a secret to selling beats online and getting placements (getting your beats used by artists): you don’t need a website to have success, just email your contacts.

Email marketing, or sending your beats and building relationships with clients via email works great.

One of the great advantages of beats are that they are a digital product, and can be sent to artists completely over the internet.

Here’s another tip: when you upload your beats to YouTube or SoundCloud, be sure to include your email with every beat, so artists know how to contact you.

Understand that you need to build a relationship with artists to use your beats, and buy beats..

We can tell you from experience, one artist or manager can make you $200 / month or more. You don’t need 100’s of random people or a sophisticated internet marketing funnel to make money in this industry.

You just need to collect emails, send great beats, and listen and respond to the artists you are working with.

Not sure how to get emails? Here’s a neat trick: Ask and search. That’s right, just find rappers, and ask for their emails.

A lot of the time, the artist’s email will be in their Twitter or Instagram bio. Also try searching “send beats” on Twitter and check out the tweets. You can find some great emails just bu\y searching for that phrase. Be sure to introduce yourself, send your best work every time, don’t spam.

The Ultimate Guide to Beat Licensing

If you want to sell beats to artists it is important to understand beat licensing. There are two types of beats typically sold in this industry, lease beats and exclusive beats (also referred to as “non-exclusive” and “exclusive” beats).

Leasing Beats vs. Exclusive Beats

First, we need to know the meaning of these two licenses.

With lease beats, the producer has the right to sell the beat multiple times to different customers.

With exclusive beats, the producer can only sell the beat one to one artist. That artist that purchases the beat has exclusive rights to its usage.

Lease beats are less expensive and can be sold more, however they often do not include royalties. When the lease, or usage limit of the beat is reached, the customer has to purchase the lease again. These types of beats are more often sold to beginner to intermediate artists.

Exclusive beats are more expensive but can only be sold once. They often include royalties. They do not have a usage limit.

Be sure to discuss, understand, and be clear with the terms of your beat when distributing.

Let’s expand on the advantages and disadvantages of these two licenses so you can get a more concrete understanding:

Advantages of Selling Lease Beats

Multiple Selling: A single track can be sold for a few times to several customers. If you are a music producer, you will have the opportunity to sell the beat again and again.
Cheap in Price: As the producer sells a single beat repeatedly to customers, the leasing beats are cheap and affordable for newcomer musicians. It is easier to persuade an ametuer artist to purchase something $20/$50 versus $150-$2000+ (the typical pricing of lease and exclusive beats..)
Healthy Market: There is a good market for rappers looking to lease beats. For an up and coming rapper, you can get some pretty dope beats for an affordable price for a producer, it’s a great way to capitalize on the growing number of up and coming rappers. Leasing beats are more popular online than exclusive beats.

Disadvantages of Leasing Beats

There are some downsides to leasing beats.

Low price: You will not make as much money off of selling a lease beat. You are sacrificing the ability to sell it as an exclusive for whatever amount of money you accept for the lease. You can not sell a leased beat as an exclusive to another artist.
Lower tier artists / final product. Artists that can afford exclusive beats often deliver a better final product. This is because they can also afford better recording equipment, also they will be looking for a return on investment (ROI). If they spend $250 on a beat, that means they want $250 value or more in return, once the song is released. This means you can expect higher quality final products when you sell an exclusive beat.
Distribution limit: If you lease a beat, after a certain number of distributions, you have to re-lease the beat. That means you will have to contact the artist yourself or hope they uphold the lease limit (if you set one).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Dealing with Exclusive Beats

Let’s find out some positive sides of using exclusive beats.

Up Front Money: The producer can earn more with a single selling. There is no chance of selling the same beat twice. The upfront money is quite assured and often considered as profitable.
Professional: Exclusive beats are professional and the price of every beat justifies the seriousness or skill level of the vocal artist.
The Format of the Beat: The artist will often request track outs which are splits of each mixer channel. To do this on your DAW; search “how to track out in (Your DAW)” This allows the artist to do whatever they want with the beats.
Royalties: The scope of earning money does not close after selling the exclusive beats for the first time. A producer can make a deal about future royalties on publishing the music. This is quite fascinating for the musician too. A liaison between the seller and music artist will bring reputation for both of them.

The most disadvantageous side of exclusive beats is the price. The price is sometimes too high to afford for a newcomer or an artist on a tight budget. It can be much harder to find clients that want to purchase exclusive beats, the quality of the beat you make also has to be much higher to get these types of sales. It took about 3 years of practice for us to sell an exclusive beat for more than $200, whereas we were able to sell lease beats year one.

Our Recommendation

For newcomers, it is best to start with leasing beats. You are more likely to sell there when starting off.

After having a good reputation in the industry, the producer may start selling exclusive beats.

If you are interested in understanding the quality needed to sell an exclusive beat, just search for ‘sold beats’ on YouTube.

Above all, remember that the quality of your beats are important, but the relationships you build with artists are equally if not more valuable to your success.

Don’t worry too much about sales, the primary focus should be on improving your craft.

Conclusion

This handbook should cover all the basics of beat making. To follow up we recommend you subscribe to our channel: YouTube.com/SlimeGreenBeats.

We have plenty of videos and resources to further your beat making career. You can also message us at any time if you have any questions along the way!

We very much appreciate you purchasing this handbook, we understand that beats are a creative subject, and we did our very best to present our knowledge in words without limiting creativity.

We again hope you can succeed in the music industry as we have, we promise it is possible, we too started from nothing.

-Slime Green Beats

Links / References

Here’s are links to the websites mentioned in this handbook:

FL Studio: https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-download/

Futureproducers: https://www.futureproducers.com/forums/

IllMuzik: https://www.illmuzik.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/

Looperman: https://www.looperman.com/

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/slimegreenbeats

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