was it this tough for you at first?

so ive had an xl for a while now, no prior experience of beat making really, altho have been djing for years...always building up ideas of thing s i could sample etc when i finally got my mpc..

i know you gotta stick with it, but did others feel at times u were banging your head against a wall?

im pretty much fine with drums, im never gonna make a masterpiece but i understand how they work on the mpc and dont think that ll give me too many headaches...but today whilst trying to sample i got really down.,..

found a great sample, chopped it up, played out the tune i wanna make with it...
however im really finding it hard to put it over a beat, so i tried stretching the individual chopped up pieces, made them a bit longer, but it still doesnt seem to fit a beat...so it really made me wonder

u got ur sample, then what do you do, play and record the piece you want, then try to fit a beat over that...or do you stretch it to the beat? what do people tend to do or does it depend on each sample?

i tried to get the bpm of the whole tune i sampled from, and stretched my samples to that bpm, but it still doesnt sound right, that s why im wondering what bpm to set my samples to...

this is really vague..i hope someone can understand what im getting it...!

any advice welcome, im new to this!!

You are def a part of the club..... These things are a handful during the beginning... Everyone I talk o either on the net or in person has told me to stick with it and in a year or so i will feel fairly comfortable with it.....


You are def not alone... I have only had my MPC since Nov, but it is def kicckign my arse.... It is frustrating to say the least, but you have to put in the time in order for it to work out......

when your fukin wit samples, your using snippets of music that were fitted with another piece of music i.e. drums and basslines and shyt that wer on the original recording, but when you take a sample and mess with it, chop it up, strecth it or whatever, your effectively making it a different piece of shyt altogether. your wasting your time making a beat and then waiting to find the perfect sample - too long a process.

find your sample, flip it how you want to, then make a drum beat that really backs the sample. thats the way i roll and i think its agood method.

sure ther will be plenty of people on here use different methods, even i do sometimes, but try that to get you starteed, then your teqniques will evolve.

i live in the uk so pm me if have any more questions, i will do my best to help out.

thanks man, thats pretty much how i was gonna do it.. good to know i was on the right path...this is my first beat, and its taking me forever...what kind of time frame should i be aiming at to make a standard hip hop beat? (or better put how long does it take you etc?)

thats a real hard question to answer bro, but never worry about how long its goin to take you, the process will take as long as it has to, i think its better to take your time at a track and really work the ins and outs to get it right, but don't sweat yourself, take your time and learn your shyt. when you produce your first song, post it in the 'your music' section of this forum - its a guaranteed audience, and you may very well get some feed back on what people think could be improved or if they think you've got somethin good goin on.

Don't stress too much...

My first couple of beats were done pretty quick because I realized I just needed to learn. I find that making backbones for beats/interludes quickly are a great way to learn because you can switch between beats and vibes as fast as you like to keep it interesting...If you're stuck on a beat, sit on it for a while and move on to the next meanwhile...

You improve and learn new things with each beat you do. Doesn't matter how nice you think you're beat is now, make other beats and within the year you would do the same beat, only so much better...

Just keep at it and make sure you're having fun...If you think you're banging you head against the wall on something, do something else (make another beat, go digging, listen to some records, ... ).

Everybody has their own methods and workflow. You just gotta figure out what works best for youl.

If you try to put a 3/4 sample over a 4/4 beat it won't fit even if the BPM's are the same.......not saying this is your issue, but it's a common scenario......

Yeah but I love to **** with those and make it fit a 4/4 beat

speaking of timing, i got a 6/8 sample, you think i should condense it down to 4/4? any mc's have trouble with doin irregular time sigs when your in the booth?

djrag wrote:thanks man, thats pretty much how i was gonna do it.. good to know i was on the right path...this is my first beat, and its taking me forever...what kind of time frame should i be aiming at to make a standard hip hop beat? (or better put how long does it take you etc?)

I think the Midnight Marauder Program stated that the average bounce meter was 95 bpm.

Tribe Called Quest represent, represent....!

Anyway mate, brick walls aplenty trying to figure out this sheeeet! I think you're over-complicating the process. I hope you're not trying to make samples fit drums you've already got.

When you're starting out, keep it simple and learn the basics. Chop up the song you want to sample, create some nice loops, lay some drums over that. Make the bpm of your drums match the bpm of your sample and NOT the other way around. Add a bit of variation to the drum patterns to keep things interesting.

When I first started, I began with just sampling little 2 bar loops and seeing what I could do with them. Helps keep your timing a little tighter and your loops sound smoother.

I think we all know when you create a sequence of samples and beats, and it doesn't sound right. Just move on and try something else. Come back to it later. Maybe you have some new ideas after a week has passed.

Me personally, I try to listen to producers that I know are using MPCs to create their tracks. People Under the Stairs, Prefuse 73, RJD2, Jay Dilla etc for a bit of inspiration. It gives me somefresh ideas to try out when making my own beats.

Anyway, if you really need some direction, drop me a message. UK, innit.