I’m back with another sampled Hip Hop beat making tutorial. In this video, I break down the process I went through to make the instrumental “No Illusion”.  Hopefully this will offer some additional insight into my beat making process, rather than just another re-creation video.

The full-length, HQ & untagged beat, “No Illusion”,  is available for INSTANT DOWNLOAD at www.TCustomz.com

Video Transcript:

What’s up guys?  I just finished up this new beat.  And for this video I kind of want to break down the beat a little more and not just re-create it. But actually give some commentary and show the process that went into the beat.

Alright, so I started with the sample. That’s how most of my beats come together – find a sample first, or if I’m going to make a composed beat, start with a basic melody and then build from that.  So here’s a little preview of the sample that I used. *Plays sample snippet*

So the main sequence from the beat used that part of the sample, and then towards the end I actually picked some more of the guitar and made another sequence with that. So I went ahead and chopped up the sample *Previews sample chops*

I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it or even what kind of drum pattern I wanted to do.  So what I did first was I went and I found a drum break to start and just kind of give a foundation for the overall groove of the track and beat. And the drum break sounds like this. *Plays original drum break snippet*

You can probably hear the bass in that drum break, the bass starts coming in pretty early.  So I ended up just using the first… not even the first bar.  I ended up taking a piece from the earlier part and making it into a one-bar loop.  And once I had the one-bar loop, I figured out that the tempo for the break was right around 87 BPM.  So that’s what I set the BPM for on my beat.  It wasn’t exact, so what I ended up doing was using the Ableton warp engine to kind of warp my main kicks and snares, and make sure the they’re on the grid and that everything lines up. And then just let all of the ghost notes and everything fill in between.  So after I did that, this is what it sounds like. *Previews modified break-beat*

So then I started working with the sample.  And overall, you’ll hear that I used the main melody as it was kind of in the sample.  But I didn’t just loop it.  I had to do a lot of precision work on the chops to make sure everything fit.  And then you’ll hear some fill-in notes… that I kind of did a reverse effect on to fill in some  gaps, because like I said it wasn’t just a loop.  So here’s what the first sequence sounds like *Previews first beat sequence*

And like I mentioned, towards the end of the sample, I ended up chopping up some more of the guitar and that’s what I made my second sequence from.  Here’s some of the chops *Triggers sample chops from pads on MPD32 controller* - And this is how the second sequence came together *Plays second beat sequence”

Once I had my two main sequences and the drum break going – the overall groove and structure for the beat – I went ahead and beefed up the drum sounds. I ended up running a parallel, or New York style, compression for the drum break just to kind of emphasize some of the main kick and snare notes, just to give it a little more substance.  And then to make it stand out even more, I ended up layering a kick and snare underneath of the drum break to emphasize those main notes. So here’s the break *Plays newly processed drum break* – The snare snaps a little more… and bring in the sample. *Plays first beat sequence*

So next in line was a bass line.  I just ended up making a pretty simple bassline, just to give it some low end.  And so from that point, it was basically just to fully sequence and arrange everything out, and make it into sort of like a song structure – maybe give it a hook or something.  I ended up using the first sequence overall, for the main verse – for the 16s, and then the second sequence was my eight for the hook.

This wasn’t a crazy complicated beat in terms of the number of sounds that were used – sample, drum break, kick and snare, and bass – but I spent a lot of time trying to get my chops right.  I don’t like my chops to be sloppy.  And then definitely having that second sample sequence breaks up the monotony and doesn’t necessarily require you to add a lot of crazy extra instrumentation or anything like that.

So that’s pretty much it. That was pretty much the process for this beat.  I hope that offers you all some insight.  Again, drop a comment and let me know what you think.  If this was helpful – if I talked about something that you want more details on, drop a comment and let me know.

I’ll catch you guys in the next video. Thanks for watching! Peace. *Final beat plays at end*