Lack of inspiration

Hey, it's been a long time since i drop a beat i like. I tried a lot of things, find new samples, organizing my drums, play keys, try to work on my mixing skills...
Nothing works, my drums don't sound good and i don't like the loops and chops i found
Anyone been through the same situation? This has happened to me a few times, but never this long! I feel like i can't make dope beats anymore, if you have any advice it would be really appreciated!

dont make any beats for two weeks.. you'll be fine

even 3 days... 1 week...

truuuuust me... a break will work wonders

just listen to music, read, watch tv, go for walks (during the times you'd normally go make a beat)

Borat wrote:I feel like i can't make dope beats anymore

You're joking, right??! The last beat battle track you did was ace!

Don't force it. Let it come to you.

Every beat I make is never what I intended and will sound wack to me at first. But like Es-K said, take a break for a day or two and let it marinate. Most times when I come back, my mind is fresh and I listen to the beat again and I be like "thats doper than what I had in mind" and so I go with it.

Back in the days, I wanted to make song called Ill Green (before I took the name), and I had this vision of it but every beat I made I considered wack and wasn't according to the vision. I think I made 40 to 50 beats on a cassette tape trying to make that song. Then one day, I was bored with nothing to do and I played that tape while puffing some ganj and I was blown away by most of the tracks. Six days later I released the beats as an album called Ill Green but people thought my name was Ill Green and so here I am now.

Thanks for the tips. I'll try to do a break. My main problem i think is that i did not go diggin for a while(no real occasion to dig in my town the last weeks) so could not find new things to sample. But i've ordered a record that i know is full of dope samples
I will receive it in a few days, i think it would be a good occasion to start making beats again!

Coz wrote:

Borat wrote:I feel like i can't make dope beats anymore

You're joking, right??! The last beat battle track you did was ace!

Ha thanks! Actually that's the only beat I made for the last 3 weeks at least.

Coz wrote:You're joking, right??! The last beat battle track you did was ace!

Yes. ^^^


Maybe what you need is a REASON to make a beat. Find a remix competition or something that has some $$ for the winner. Find someone to collab with. Get something with a deadline. Find some vocalist thats just starting out that needs music. Do one for free just to see what happens. Set a deadline for the vocalist to finish. Try something where other people expect you to come through instead of just doing it for yourself.

If all else fails...

es-k wrote:dont make any beats for two weeks.. you'll be fine

Good luck!

Yes, maybe you're right. Stopping making beats for 2 weeks seems almost impossible to me I'll try a few days, and see what happens

As long as I have records, I don't think I can ever run out of inspiration. But I notice that getting new gear always makes me want to create.

true! new records , equipment always spark somthin..

Also.. work over some old shit.. make it fresh.. or make a new beat with that ol' material.
Somtimes I just load an old project in the MPC

Just got out of one of these....I just listened to sample material, looked into some new samplers, and also just spent a day or so working on my old Jeep that I've been meaning to fix up. Sometimes a break is needed, even when we don't want to.

ive been in a no inspiration rut for like 6 months before, just focused more on writing and mixing and stuff until i found the dope samples again and the beats came to me.
take a break.

when i got back into it, i found myself finding samples that werent the super dopest, but i could still flip something cool out of them. i used to just sit on samples that were alright, now i try and chop and flip them until i can try and make something good out of them. i guess ive gotten less picky with samples and the break has helped me create more stuff out of less i suppose.

dont feel u need to make beats every day or every week like dilla said just work when u feel it,

like i aint did beats for 3 or 4 weeks in that time i rearrange samples mix stuff down pick new default drums and review my last batch so when i feel the urge everything is queued up.

also re use drum from other songs u did so that u got a solid start point or try reflip something else u did with the same drums and sample but just a different pattern

Thanks for all the answers, finally managed to make a beat i really like last night(for the beat battle)!

Borat wrote:Thanks for the tips. I'll try to do a break. My main problem i think is that i did not go diggin for a while(no real occasion to dig in my town the last weeks) so could not find new things to sample. But i've ordered a record that i know is full of dope samples
I will receive it in a few days, i think it would be a good occasion to start making beats again!

Coz wrote:

Borat wrote:I feel like i can't make dope beats anymore

You're joking, right??! The last beat battle track you did was ace!

Ha thanks! Actually that's the only beat I made for the last 3 weeks at least.

Try just vegging out watching movies. Every time this happens to me I just smoke a lot of weed and start watching movies. Was watching a cheesy horror flick the other day and the intro credits started rolling ...BOOM. Ill sample!!! Dope samples don't always have to come from vinyl.

Pretty much as everyone else has said: take a few minutes away from samplers/instruments & break up your routine of making beats.

^when you get back into making beats, try making a track in a different style (not a different kind of hip hop, but something different like samba, dub reggae, post rock, whatever) or look for a sample source you haven't tapped before (live TV, radio, the crappy end of your girlfriend's CD collection).

Oh wait... You kinda did that in beat battle 12 (with that dancehall rhythm). This whole post's redundant now.