Making Beats

When making beats, the actual number of bars can vary quite a bit. Usually, the length of the song determines the bar length, but there are exceptions with drum samples, especially in songs with a warped timeline grid. If you’re making loops, it doesn’t really have to be that complicated.

One of the most common looping numbers when making beats of bars is four. This is usually enough to develop an indicative portion of a song, and then four bars can give groove, tempo and feel to a song, and so is great as a foundation or ’skeleton’ sample. The drum samples in the four bar loop can be organized as one total unique sample, with each bar being totally different from the last. However, most music producers in rap and RnB prefer to keep some element of comfort with the listener, and variance is the keyword. Varying drums from bar to bar using changes towards the end or velocity is much more effective at not inducing stress into your listener.

Following the common 4-bar loop is the 16-bar loop. Why sixteen? In urban music like gangster rap, the common verse sung by rappers is 16 bars. Artists like the Notorious B.I.G often rapped 20-bar verses and other uncommon lengths, but you can’t go wrong with sixteen if you’re trying to peddle your music to record label A…Rs and such. Adding variance when making beats and keeping the listener interested can be somewhat hard over this length, so your creativity will be called upon at many stages. Try introducing the hi-hat drum samples around eight bars into the music; this will keep your audience interested rhythmically.

When considering changes to the music while making beats, you can easily look beyond drum samples and even instrument patches and notes. The more advanced composers will start some new harmonic progressions or expand the note selection in current form. If you change multiple things at once, this is a very powerful message to your listener that things are not at rest; movement is in the air!

You can even try to see past the instruments and drum hits if you’re serious about arranging a masterpiece. Think vocals! Common techniques include allowing the singer or rapper to vocalize the first few bars in a very boring, monotonous way, before really showering in the feeling after that. Again, when making beats in rap or any genre, anything that keeps the listener guessing is viable.

With all of this on the table, you may be asking, “so what’s the easiest way to switch up the music when making beats?” The answer is indeed drum samples. It’s so easy to change the sequencing here, and your singer does not need to do anything different, and your keyboard player doesn’t need to come in again to lay down new harmonies for the song. It’s that easy.