Making The Beat | Three Different Techniques (Pt.2)

In part one of our 3 part series on how to approach making a beat, we talked about sampling.  In part 2 we’re going to discuss a very different approach to making beats in hip-hop: the Keyboard Approach.

What is the Keyboard Approach?

The Keyboard approach is simply playing the beat, whereas in sampling you would search for a sound that you liked, chop it up and loop it, then use that sample to produce a beat. With the keyboard approach you play a melody, bass riff, horn loop, etc. The sounds you use may be the stock sounds from your software but when you put those together when composing a beat then everything is original – from the notes you play to the melodies and rhythm you are creating.  It’s all original and all your own.

How’s it done?

Now you don’t have to have a full studio with keyboards, trumpets, violins, flutes, drums, etc to follow this approach.  Most music-making software puts a whole studio in your computer. This is the most common way for doing The Keyboard Approach. Using software such as Logic or Reason and an external keyboard such as the M-Audio Keystation 88es. We won’t go into the details of hooking up equipment, but basically one you are all set up when you press a key down on the keyboard it triggers, or plays, a specific sound in the software. You set up the software to tell it what to play; for example a Grand Piano or a string section. If you take a look at the software and click around with your mouse you can play the sounds that if offers. In this case, the keyboard is the same as clicking with the mouse, so in essence, your keyboard is a glorified mouse.

What sounds can I play? The sounds that you can play are dependent on what your software sequencer offers. Many offer some great sounds out of the box but there are plenty of places where you can buy additional sounds.

The way the software knows what to play when a key is pressed is done through what is called MIDI.  MIDI is basically a language that allows tech pieces (like your computer and keyboard) to talk to each other and understand each other. Your keyboard is speaking the same language as the software. So when you press a C note on your keyboard it tells the software “hey, play the C note right now” and your sequencer will play a C-note. What sound it plays it dependent on what you set it up to – you can tell it to play the C note in a piano, flute, or whatever you set it to.

That being said, most keyboards are not really keyboard, but rather what is called MIDI controllers since they are really just controlling what MIDI notes are being played. M-Audio has a slew of MIDI Controllers with a wide range of features.Personally we use the pro-station hooked up to Logic

We won’t get too much into the details of MIDI and all its features and all the nitty gritty details of how it all works.  As long as you get the basics – you press the keyboard and you hear sounds, notes, melodies.

Hooking up the keyboard to to a computer is by far the most popular. However there are also keyboards that come with sounds built in such as Korg M3.  Here you can play the sounds straight from the keyboard and record them into your software or hardware sequencer. Additionally, you can play live instruments and record those as well – just check how ryan leslie gets down.

Quick side note:  Sampling vs Samples

It’s worth clarifying the difference between Sampling and Samples. Sampling, as described earlier, is taking a piece from a record and perhaps chopping it up and looping it. At that point what you have is a sample – it’s a discrete sound like a piano look from an old Leslie track that you flip into a beat. The software such as Logic and Reason are full of samples  thousands of them. They range from every note a popular piano will play to some drum sounds to even loops. The difference is these samples do not come from records. Music artists, producers, engineers, go into the studio and play all the notes of a piano and record each one. These are then packed up and put into the software. So they are samples of musical instruments, but do not come from records. Sampling is taking a small part of an established records and creating a stand alone sample from it.

Why Would You Use The Keyboard Approach?

The Keyboard Approach offers some great advantages.  Five of the biggest advantages are:

1. You don’t have to worry about sample clearances.

One of the major attractions to the Keyboard Approach is the producer does not have to worry about clearing samples. In our last post we described how clearing samples is one of the disadvantages of Sampling. When you use the Keyboard Approach this is not a concern which means more money in your pocket.

2. Full Control

The Keyboard Approach to making hip hop beats gives you full control over your sounds – everything from how much it is compressed, to the amount of reverb, to how strong each note is played and when exactly they are played. Full control gives you more precision when developing your beat and composing your song.

3. Many Many Sounds, fairly easy to go through

Many software packages offer tons of sounds pre-installed and you can always find more sounds and virtual instruments all over the web. With the Keyboard Approach there is no shortage of sounds and they are fairly easy to go through to find something you like. Just click on an instrument, press a couple keys and see if you like what you hear.

4. Allow your creativity to go wild

With virtually unlimited sounds and effects, there’s almost no limit to what you can produce. The number of combinations of effects and sounds is endless.

5. Hear the beat, play the beat

Ask many producers and they will tell you quite often they hear a beat inside their heads first. When Sampling you have to listen to crates of records until you find something close to what you want. The Keyboard Approach allows you to instantly play that beat (provided you have the skills to play what you are hearing in your head). It’s very instant and right away. You hear a beat in your head and think “yo that’s dope.”  Just fire up your PC, get on the keys and lay it down.

What are the Drawbacks?

1. You need to know what you are doing on the keys, son

Many producers who take this approach may claim they are real musicians, but you really have to know what you are doing to create a solid, complete beat. If your knowledge of scales, melodies, rhythm, chords, and music theory is limited so will your beats. You have to now how to arrange your notes and music to create a thorough rap beat. However, with time and practice, understanding even some of the basic concepts such as chord progression will allow you to quickly create some nice tracks.

2. Many many sounds and tons of gear

-The flip side of having a ton of sounds is it’s a lot go to through and can be overwhelming to manage all the sounds. Producers will have gigs of sounds that they have never gone through.  Can make it harder to develop your sound if you are constantly using new tunes

One of the great misconceptions of producing is the more gear the better. We mentioned at the end of our last post about sampling that back in the early days of hip hop production,producers turned something out of nothing. They didn’t have much but was creating masterpieces. Just because you have way more sounds and technology does not mean you are going to be any better. In fact time exploring is time away from practicing which is exactly what you need to develop your skills.

3. Hard to recreate that sound you like.

You may like a sound, a certain feeling from some of your favorite hip hop records. May be tough to recreate that sound that was developed through sampling using some of the newer technology.  Not that it can’t be done, but with all the overwhelming options it may be tough. There are definitely plugins available to help you create certain feelings such as a warm sound. But getting to a very specific sound you hear and replicating it can be painstaking and may require a ton of knowledge about audio engineering and that just comes with time and practice.

The Keyboard Approach gives you a world of freedom and control. It allows you to start from scratch and craft the entire beat without Sampling. It requires some understanding of music theory if you want to create a solid beat. The major advantage is there are no sample clearances so nothing for you to clear and you have a ton of freedom.  You’l create loops and sounds that no one else has access to and it is easier to create your own distinct sound.  And like we mentioned in our last post, the most important aspect to producing is to be yourself and create a sounds that represents you, not someone else. If the Keyboard Approach works for you, by all means go all in and make it happen.

Keep checking back at our blog to learn about beat-making

ColeDash

This post was written while listening to: Get Rich or Die Tryin’ – 50 Cent