Today I’m here with an in depth, step-by-step deep dive into Hip Hop /R&B instrumental “Ridin’ Music”, bringing you a full beat breakdown. Rather than shooting a quick beat making video like usual, I wanted to bring some more detailed insight into all the the elements that made up this track and how the beat actually came together.
When creating this beat, I had envisioned a Hip Hop, R&B crossover style. Namely a rapper on the verses, with a melodic R&B singer on the hook. However, given the structure and overall sound of this beat, I think it would also work great as a new school Hip Hop song, or even a new age neo-soul or contemporary soul track.
Quick History on this Beat
This beat was originally started months prior to its release and I was working on my older laptop at the time, which I’ve recently replaced with this newly built desktop workstation. Because I don’t always finish my beats right away, I had a number of incomplete sessions on my laptop that I just needed to finalize (i.e. add a couple of additional elements, finish arranging, complete the mix, etc). This was one of those tracks.
And so instead of trying to finish these sessions on my laptop (as I was actually exceeding my memory limit with over 20 active audio and MIDI tracks, haha), I decided to export the audio stems for what I had already started, and finalize the process using my new desktop computer.
NOTE: I was using an older version of Ableton Live on my laptop, so I wasn’t able to simply copy the session files over to my desktop – hence the reason for rendering the individual stem files.
So now that you have a bit of context, let’s get into the beat breakdown.
Beat Breakdown – “Ridin’ Music”
1. Main Synth Melody
This main melody line is actually composed of three layers of synth sounds found in Spectrasonics Omnisphere.
Quick Tip: Layering Sounds – Layering your sounds is an excellent way to add more depth and width to your beats, and overall just bring a fuller sound to your production. One of the common things I’d noticed in some of the recent music showcase submissions is that some of the sounds used were very thin. Stacking multiple sounds with proper EQ, panning and additional processing like automation is an excellent and relatively easy way to fix this. There aren’t necessarily any rigid rules or guidelines for this, so you’ll want to experiment with this. And most importantly, let your ears be the judge. It may take you some time to dig through various sounds, but it can really make the world of difference in making your tracks sound a lot bigger using a single melody line.
2. Additional Layered Synths
In addition to the first three synth layers, I stacked another three sounds to the main melody line to add even more depth. A mid-frequency synth, a subtle “noise” synth and a lower register synth with automation.
3. Drums
Next I went ahead and introduced the kick and snare into the mix. I pulled the kick from one of my custom drum sample packs and created a custom snare comprised of the primary snare, subtle clap, reverb snare and a tambourine.
4. Hi Hats
Two filtered (HPF) drum breaks make up the hi hats for this beat. The first is panned slightly left (around 10L) and the second is panned slightly right (around 10R) to widen and give more stereo effect to hats.
5. Strings
This strings patch was the next layer, which I added a high-pass filter to with a semi-high treshold.
6. Sub-Bass
I use this sub bass patch in a lot of my beats, and that’s one of the reasons I included it in the TCustomz bass sample pack. This bass sits just under the lower synth I added in step #2, and fills up the bottom end of the beat.
7. Transition Synth
The first of many sound fx and transitional sounds that were added to really spice up and make this beat unique. This one plays at the four bar mark of every 8 bars.
8. Strings FX
Another great fx sound. This string effect one was pulled from a miscellaneous sample pack that I’ve compiled over the many years of making beats.
9. Transition Synth #2
Just messing around with another Omnisphere synth sound, and came up with another cool fx synth transition.
10. Lead Synth
The primary lead sound that drives the main melody line for the hook. I layered, EQed and panned four individual synth sounds for this.
Preview the core elements for this beat breakdown:
Next we get into some of the extra “sprinkles” of the track – filler sounds, vocal samples and additional fx.
11. Atmospheric FX
This short atmospheric sound fx was cut from a record years ago. I just added a little delay and EQd it a bit.
12. Transition FXs
Chimes and a few riser effects were added next.
13. Synth (arp) FX
An arpeggiator synth for some additional filler.
14. Vox Sample
Vocal sample #38 from the TCustomz vox sample kit vol. 1. Added a ping pong delay to give it a bit more stereo effect as well.
15. Scratchy Synth
A subtle, “scratchy” sounding pad/synth with some light filter automation to fill up some empty space.
16. Vox Sample #2
Another vox stab I sampled and further EQd to mesh with the mix of the beat.
17. Electric Piano / Glockenspiel
Three glockenspiel and electric piano sounds were stacked for this layer.
18. Guitar Sample
A super dope guitar sample that randomly got worked into this track at the very end. Very glad I found this!
And the only additional effect was a vinyl static fx I looped to play in the background throughout.
Preview and Download This Complete Instrumental here >>
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About the Author
Travis Cole has been operating TCustomz Productionz, LLC full-time since 2011 and hopes for it to serve as a source to help many music artists, producers and entrepreneurs worldwide achieve their dreams of success.
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