Making a sexy, original R&B instrumental with the Akai MPK49 and Ableton Live – “The New Year” (prod. by TCustomz).

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I had released a couple videos over the past couple months of me playing piano, and I had a number of folks asking me why I don’t compose as often as I create sample-based production.

In all honesty, I really just thoroughly enjoy the process of digging old records and flipping them into something new and unique.  However, it’s not to say that I can’t sit down at the piano and create a fully original instrumental. And that’s exactly what I’m recording for you today 🙂

I typically stick to Hip Hop style beats, because, well… that’s what comes naturally to me. And even though I believe this track does contain some Hip Hop elements (namely the drums), I still feel it would work better for an R&B song, or even more like a crossover Hip Hop beat like this one.  And the fact that it’s piano-based and more of a smoother instrumental overall lends itself a little more to the r and b side.

The elements for this Original R&B Instrumental (step-by-step)

1. Drum break – I started with a really great royalty-free drum break to get the groove started. With additional processing including a basic high-pass filter to make room for my own personal drum samples.
2. Main Piano – This is sort of a “dreamy” piano patch using one of my current favorite VSTs, Spectrasonics Omnisphere. I also rolled some of the bottom end off as well.  Simple minor chord progression to carry the main melody of the beat.
3. Main Synth – This track more or less follows the same progression as the keys, but adds a much fuller and wider sound. Layering is great for achieving this effect!
4. Piano (secondary) – Using the same patch from the previous piano track, I used this instrument to fill in the gaps as I experiments with some various piano runs.
5. Drums (kick, snare) – The kick and snare sounds used in this beat are what give it somewhat of a hip hop feel. Crisp drums that smack you in the face, yet complement this style of darker soul instrumental very well.
6. Strings – Somewhat subtle throughout most of this instrumental, but the strings give another dimension of depth to the track. Great for taking up extra space and filling the track up even more.
7. Rhodes Piano – A more electronic tone than the previous two piano tracks, but a great contrasting sound.
8. Transition Synth – Simply a high lead synth that I played a quick and easy riff with to make a cool transitional sound.
9. Sub-bass – A straight forward, yet effective, bass line that simply follows the root note of the main chords. Nothing too complicated here 🙂 If you like this bass sound, you might like this Hip Hop bass pack.
10. Lead synth – An alternate high lead synth to really fill up the higher frequency space and add a nice contrasting melody line.
11. FX Stabs – Some really smooth FX samples I added to spice the beat up even a bit more! A little bit of reverb and basic delay.

Hopefully you enjoyed this original R&B instrumental posted in the video above 🙂 I went ahead and further arranged and mixed this beat and you can play and download the full version of “The New Year” here.

DOWNLOAD THIS BEAT “THE NEW YEAR” INSTANTLY >>>

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