5 RULES TO MAKING DOPE TRAP BEATS!!!

Are you an aspiring Music Producer? Do you want to become the next Metro Boomin? MikeWillMadeIt? or Lex Luger? Well that can't be that hard, right? All you need is a sample loop from 'looperman.com' or 'splice' or one from the thousands uploaded on YouTube, you slap in some drums and a loud 808 and then BOOM; History is made, right?.... WRONG!!!

Before I start proving my point, go on Youtube and search the term 'type beat', there are hundreds of Trap Beats uploaded on YouTube everyday, to further prove my point, filter your search by 'upload date' and I'd bet my Midi Keyboard a Beat would have been uploaded 30 minutes ago. Now with a beat catalogue that huge, then you should be expecting that at some point some beats tend to sound repetitve, because we all learn to make beats on YouTube from Beatmakers that are not particularly geniuses in Music Theory, now I'm not saying if you don't know Music Theory you can't make good Music, you definitely can, but think about it... Can you be better than someone who knows Music Theory?? I don't know, I'll let you decide; Learning to make trap beats from someone who's not that proficient in Music Theory will lead to you having a 'formula' for making trap beats, I'm pretty sure we both know what this formula is, come on gang, let's say it together in 3.... 2..... 1... 'LOOP/SAMPLES, DRUMS AND 808'. (oh, wait.. Did someone say Sugar and Spice?).

DISCLAIMER: I'M NOT SHOOTING SHOTS ON THE USAGE OF SAMPLES AND LOOPS, EVERYBODY LOVE THOSE. TO BE SAFER I'LL PRETEND YOU MAKE YOUR OWN MELODY AND USE 'MELODY' MORE.

Ok, ok, ok... I know what you're thinking, 'But, dude.. A melody, drums and 808 is literally what a Trap beat is made up of '.... If that's what you think then you are absolutely right, so what in Jupiter's name am I trying to say?? Let me try to explain what my whole blabbering in this article is all about; If there are thousands of trap beats on Youtube, to be the next big thing, you need to stand out. Music is an ART, there are times when you listen to a song and you experience that type of feeling you get when you see the cutest girl in the whole world, there's a difference between the songs you play through in an Album and that one song you always put on repeat, and as a producer, I know you are yearning to make that type of Music.. That's the Producer Dream, and trust me, simply slapping drums on a melody probably won't make that type of Music, it's not that simple..... UNLESS you follow the 5 rules I'm about to give you, Now that's simplicity at it's finest. Without any further ado, let's get straight to it

1. DON'T SPAM YOUR DRUMS!!!!!. You don't need to pull out your glasses, you read it right... As absurd as it may sound, you need to spend more time on your drum patterns, mute your main melody and if your drum pattern on it's own is not bouncy, then there's something wrong somewhere. We probably all know this but if you don't let me help you out; your drums should consist of the Hi-hat, snare or and clap, open hat, and Kick. (THIS IS NOT THE DRUMS COMMANDMENT, YOU CAN INCLUDE OTHER INSTRUMENTS LIKE PERCUSSIONS AND ALSO EXCLUDE SOME OF THE ONES I LISTED). Most producers tend to go too crazy with the Hi-hats... Please don't. 'Ric Flair Drip by Metro ft Offset' has a one-step linear hi-hat pattern and you can't listen to that song without bopping your head. My personal formula to make a bouncy drum pattern is to not clash the drums, I love using clap and Snare, but I use the Clap as the main snare on grid, and the snare as a support. my kicks and snares RARELY stack on each other, they do sometimes but mostly not. I add the hi-hats lastly, to add the final sauce to the pattern, be careful with your hi-hat rolls, don't overuse it, and put them where the kicks and snares are most underused. You can also add a little bit of swing to your drums to give it that tiny offset human feel.

2. DO THE MOST WITH THE MELODY!!!!!. Now this is relative to your mood and the type of beat you're making, Gucci Mane's Met Gala ft Offset didn't have any melody at some point, but hey, it was gucci and offset, unless you're featuring rappers of this caliber, please take your melodies seriously, If you use a sample, find a great one you resonate with..... That's not all, what type of sample is it?? Is it Plucks, Strings or Vocals?... Oh, it's strings? great, add a pluck pattern to it. Plucks are broken chords (Maybe I'll talk about it later). Is your sample a Scary attacky Bell? well compliment it with a spooky violin. What I do is, I add a lot of Melody patterns and I interchange them when I'm arranging the whole beat, so when people think they're starting to understand how the beat is going... BOOM, SWITCHUP!!!!!!!.

3. DO GIVE ROOM FOR THE ARTIST!!!!!. Sometimes, some trap beats don't have kicks to their 808's which may sound like a crime, but is quite understandable, Rappers have more room to flow and talk better without some loud kicks distorting their words which might lead to more aggresive compressions which nobody likes, I'm not saying to start making a catalogue of kickless beats or using fart sounds as your kicks, but before you stack one more melody on top of each other, you need to first think of the artist and that poor audio engineer who doesn't deserve the stress of making it sound excellent but having to compress too much at the same time.

4.DO SWITCH UP YOUR BEAT!!!!!. I talked about this a little bit earlier with the use of Melody, you can have different patterns of melodies, you can X2 or 1/2 the speed of a melody, I use fruity slicer to create new variations of samples, I use different sound presets for the same melody; instead of 808s sometimes i use BASS.. I love using bass, you can even change up the drum pattern, you can use different 808 sounds at one point, you can transpose to a different key. the possibility is endless, you just need your producer creativity, and pro tip, don't be hasty to finish up a Beat, I promise, you make better decisions with patience and you become more proud of the outcome.

5. DO LEARN MUSIC THEORY!!!!!. If you read my article to this point then I mess with you for real, and if you're here then you deserve to know this, to make great beats, you need to know more than just humming some melody on top of your head and trying to find the key that sounds like that on your midi keyboard, while this works, I promise there are melodies that I can't hum at the top of my head because of how hard it would be, diatonic chords, minors, and runs based on a chord, chord voicings... A lot of things you can benefit from learning Music Theories, and I promise you, it's not even that hard, YouTube is where I learnt how to play the Keyboard, Bass and Lead Guitar and drums, and you don't have to be an absolute expert or spend months for you to start implementing these things in your beats, when I want to play things I can't physically play on my Midi Keyboard, I just go click click clickity clack away on my mouse. By learning Music Theory, I've been able to make sounds that sticks to the head. Remember you can still be a good producer without learning Music Theory, but with Music Theory, you can be BEST!!!!.

And that's it people.

So Hey, this is more of an introduction, I'm not much of a writer, but if I can get a couple of likes, I may write more helpful tips for Music Producers... Thank you and Have a NICE ONE.