building a beat

When making a beat how many sequences are their spouse to be and how do you know when its time to make a new sequence? my beats sounds the same throughout the whole song i don't know how to make the chorus and when to put it .Can you please help me out and explain or make a video on this

Easiest way is to analyze songs you like and listen to what the producer does and when and how he does it. No easier way, and no way to explain arrangements in a forum post. There do exist lots of articles in online and print magazines. Try consulting these.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_structure_(popular_music)

83dude wrote:Easiest way is to analyze songs you like and listen to what the producer does and when and how he does it. No easier way, and no way to explain arrangements in a forum post. There do exist lots of articles in online and print magazines. Try consulting these.

Exactly!

Really the best advice I can give is to listen to a lot of music. Mostly the genre that you prefer to do but listen to a lot of music. Not just words but the music and how it is structured, various ways it changes and/or repeats. Do not do the same and have your creations sound the same, but study and apply.

Changes can be quite subtle for verses, choruses, bridges, and breaks, but the artists' voice is also an instrument that can change the flow of your music....

Listen to a lot of music. Almost anything YOU want to improve in takes practice, study, and practice.

i'm pretty formulaic with how i do my beats, i usually do an A section of 16 bars (either 16 bars straight or two seperate 8 bar sequences... if you've got just a 4 bar loop you can use seq edit to duplicate the 4 bars using copy bars, then i'd suggest changing the drums a little bit in the last bar of each set of 8 as a transition)

then a B section that's a chorus. it's pretty common for the chorus to be a shorter loop than the verse, i'll often do an 8 bar chorus and loop it twice, maybe add different detail in the second loop, or alternate the drums, add a different drum fill)

then you can go back to the same verse, try adding or taking away components or add some variation with track mutes.

sometimes you'll want to do a C section, this can be a different verse with a new 16, or just an 8 bar bridge that leads into or after a chorus, for a C section you'll usually want to change up the rhythm and feel a lot and especially the bass line, you can also strip it back, do a build up, whatever, something to justify it being a different section and not just a slightly different A section. another alternative might be to strip the beat back and do a solo feature with an instrument/chops, blow out some of your fx for the section, throw out a vocal sample you like, whatever.


the other type of beats i like to make are simple A-B-A-B-A-B loops where i do two 8 or 16 bar sequences that flow nicely into one another, it's easy then to add variation later when you're mixing in a DAW by using envelopes on filters, muting/reversing parts, whatever.

those are my main styles, of course i change them up how i feel to suit each beat, and listening to how other artists approach arrangement as suggested by 83dude is the best idea. i'd suggest you count out the bars in your head or out loud as you listen, i do it like 1 2 3 4, 2 2 3 4, 3 2 3 4, 4 2 3 4, 5 2 3 4, etc. etc. count out how many bars artists you like leave for each section, whether they stick extra 2 bar lead ins between their sections or whatever...

thank you

fdodds wrote:then you can go back to the same verse, try adding or taking away components or add some variation with track mutes.

yo shon.
ive been meaning to work with a bit of "track muting" on some of my shitty lil beats.
how does it work?
i make a copy of a sequence then just track mute on/off and it will automatically be recorded in the sequence? or do i have to press over dub so that the automation is saved?

Normally for R&B and commercial pop its intro, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, verse, bridge extended chorus, outro

I usually do a 4 bar track and add all the keys, samples,etc, this usually becomes my chorus.

Then I copy it and start taking stuff out and this becomes my verse.

Music today, especially rap, doesn't deviate from the groove too much. Elements are added during the chorus and taken away during the verse and breakdowns.

Once you build a foundation that you know is tight, don't **** it up leave it simple.

Lampdog wrote:Whenever you hear a change in a beat it's most times a different sequence, more flexibility in separate sequences than creating long ones.

I still feel that Akai carried this over from hardware into the MPC software and it was a mistake.
With the on screen display and mouse control they definitely should have put more thought into the evolution of song mode or long linear patterns.

Working with songs on the Ren should be easier and more fluid than it was with the hardware MPCs but it's still pretty much the same.

One of the things that has made a lot of people like working in FL is how easy it is to construct a song and work on the different sections.
Even the MV had a much better grasp on song construction than the MPC software.

Then again Maschine hasn't gotten it right either so there still is time.

The key is that instead of having to deal with patterns what would be the equivalent of a pattern would simply be the area of the timeline you choose to loop.

Having the MPC Software sit on a computer screen and not offer some method of doing this is a fail.

Right now we still have the classic MP workflow of a pattern for the different sections of a song but have to put them together with the old school MP song mode.

Instead we should also have the ability to throw say 64 bars up and work on various sets of bars in a loop mode to define and build the various sections of the song.
Even if it was such that you were simply dropping markers that the MP would use to define where patterns stop and start.
This would allow the MP to show them the same as it does now.

As it is now song mode is more of a visual representation and all you can do is drop sequences into a song in real-time you can't actually work on the elements.

A change like this would be pretty easy to incorporate without disrupting the MP workflow people know and love.

THE ADVERSARY wrote:The key is that instead of having to deal with patterns what would be the equivalent of a pattern would simply be the area of the timeline you choose to loop.

Having the MPC Software sit on a computer screen and not offer some method of doing this is a fail.

Right now we still have the classic MP workflow of a pattern for the different sections of a song but have to put them together with the old school MP song mode.

Instead we should also have the ability to throw say 64 bars up and work on various sets of bars in a loop mode to define and build the various sections of the song.
Even if it was such that you were simply dropping markers that the MP would use to define where patterns stop and start.
This would allow the MP to show them the same as it does now.

As it is now song mode is more of a visual representation and all you can do is drop sequences into a song in real-time you can't actually work on the elements.

A change like this would be pretty easy to incorporate without disrupting the MP workflow people know and love.

This already exists in MPC software...

You know any sequence can be longer than 2, 4, or 8 bars...

Change bars to 80 for example. First Bar to say 9 and Last bar to say 16. You can have loop mode on or off and move course to Bar 9 (or before If you prefer) use mouse on screen or fast forward on hardware.

You can work within any 'range' of your sequence like this... so you can have X number of bars that consists of the entire length of your song, and work within any one long pattern in song mode

According you what U mentioned is a fail and you saying "Even if it was such that you were simply dropping markers that the MP would use to define where patterns stop and start."

You totally missed the point.

The software should allow you to throw bars up and then define a region of the timeline that correlates to the equivalent of a pattern thus allowing you to still work like a MPC.
So it would be more like you drop 64 bars then you define that bars 1-8 = Patt01, 9-16 = Patt02 etc.
From the hardware it would look the same as it does now since it would simply display patterns but from the software it would look more like a linear song.

Song mode has a view like this now from the software but you have no control within it.

This would make structuring a song a lot more fluid from the hardware or software.

THE ADVERSARY wrote:You totally missed the point.

The software should allow you to throw bars up and then define a region of the timeline that correlates to the equivalent of a pattern thus allowing you to still work like a MPC.
So it would be more like you drop 64 bars then you define that bars 1-8 = Patt01, 9-16 = Patt02 etc.
From the hardware it would look the same as it does now since it would simply display patterns but from the software it would look more like a linear song.

Song mode has a view like this now from the software but you have no control within it.

This would make structuring a song a lot more fluid from the hardware or software.

Why don't you use plugin mode for that?