Production: The Triple S
Making beats consists of 3 parts: Synthesizing, Sampling, and Sequencing. This article will discuss the basics of each and my personal methods for achieving a good sound.
Synthesizing
Synthesis requires the use of a keyboard or virtual synthesizer plug in. Most synth ‘patches’ consist of at least one oscillator or white noise generator. An oscillator generates a simple or complex tone such as a sine, square, or saw tooth wave. My favorite wave to use for bass is the saw tooth. Sawtooth waves are built from many sine waves harmonically layered on top of one another. When using a Low Pass (LP) Filter with added resonance you can achieve a sweeping sound that will cut the higher frequencies and boost the frequency band the filter is currently set at. This is the most common synthesizer sound and is used in many songs such as The Headhunters – Chameleon and The Parliament – Flashlight. These two songs use what’s called an envelope to control the movement of the LP Filter, and is commonly referred to as “rubber band bass”.
The envelope is generally broken down into four parts Attack Decay Sustain and Release (ADSR). The Attack is how long it takes the envelope to reach its max level, the Decay then determines how long it takes to reach the Sustain portion. If sustain is used the note can be sustained indefinitely at that level till it is released. However if Sustain is at %100 than the decay becomes obsolete. The Release determines how long it takes the envelope to decay after the note is released. Using this method one can emulate acoustic instruments. For instance a Marimba would have a short Attack and Decay, no Sustain, and a long Release. Where an Organ would have full Sustain and no Release. When you find a sound you like you can then record each note, or record a riff to a metronome. This is also commonly referred to as Sampling. The most common keyboards are actually samplers, or “ROMplers” (Read Only Memory Sampler) because they use samples of synthesizers that you can not alter.
Sampling
This is a big one. Many people skip synthesizing altogether in favor of samples. A sample is a digital audio file of any conceivable sound. This sample can then be altered with an Envelope and Filter much in the way the Waves of Oscillators can be. Many producers, such as RZA, Madlib, and Premier will sample a soul, jazz, or funk record and loop the main riff to then layer with sampled drums. The most common samples I take are of drums. I will listen to a piece of music and wait for the part where all other instruments drop out and there is a “Break” in the song. One can also often find naked drums at the beginning of a song. Once you have a drum part you want to sample you have to record it and edit it. There are many audio editor programs to do this with and all are basically the same. I generally will sample one to four bars of a drum break and trim it down so it will sound like a continuous loop. At this point I will then extract specific drum hits, such as a Kick, Hihat, or Snare to later Sequence my own drum pattern.
Sequencing
Sequencing is the process of organizing sounds over time, much in the way sheet music does. A sequencer can be a hardware MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) based machine, or a software program for your computer. A common Sampler/Sequencer is the Akai MPC, which can then trigger an external Synthesizer using MIDI. All sequencers essentially achieve the same thing, but all go about it a little differently. I prefer a “Piano Roll” Sequencer that can sequence chords and fast notes. The Piano Roll is most similar to sheet music. Many trance and house producers prefer using “Step Sequencers” which only trigger one note at a time and are always looped. The benefit of Step Sequencers are that they don’t require a keyboard to input notes, and are much easier to use.
My music always starts with a Groove. A Groove is a repeating rhythmic phrase that drives the track. For instance Reggaeton has a very specific boom clap clap Groove that practically defines it as a genre. While jazz uses a “spang-a-lang” swing groove that is then improvised over and accented with the kick and snare. Often my songs will start as a groove in my head that I will accent with either a kick, snare, hi-hat, or bass line. The shortest phrases I create are 2 bars. You can count 2 bars by counting one 1, 2, 3, 4 twice. The 1 will start on the kick drum, and the 2 will generally land on the snare. Most hip hop verses are 16 bars long and the chorus is often 8 bars long. So the best place to put a fill, or “turn around” is at bar 8 or 16. I find that hip hop and electronic music often have the most varied types of grooves. While in most popular hip hop the snare drum does land on the rhythmic count 2 and 4 it can still be defined as hip hop even when it doesn’t. Usually the Bass Line will follow the accents of drum groove, but bass can also have its own groove that compliments the main rhythmic idea. In genres such as Dubstep and Electro house, the beat is very simple while the bass is complicated. But not in the notes it plays, rather in rhythmic use of the Filter. Listen to my song Cassette to get a good idea of creative rhythmic use of an LP Filter on a Sawtooth wave bass line.
Well, hope you learned something!
Tags: Beats, Production Tips