subject: Make Your Own Rap Beats Stand Out [print this page] When making hip hop beats using computers i notice that a lot of people starting out make some simple mistakes. Their beats could be so much better, but there is a tendency to focus too much on one thing. With a little bit of creativity and versatility it's very simple to make an outstanding beat and really raise the bar for yourself as a beat maker.
Hip hop is a dominantly drum-beat driven style of music, everyone knows this and it's obvious if you listen to rap and hip hop at all. But what might not be so obvious to a lot of people is that the songs that tend to stick in people's minds and become hits are the ones that don't focus one just the beat alone. As with any good song, there are many different parts, and the more you can come up with a good part for the song that is not just the drum beat, the better your song will be.
A lot of great hip hop songs have great bass lines, and since rap and hip hop was formed out of soul, funk, jazz, and African styles of music this is no surprise. All of these styles of music have prominent bass lines. Use your bass lines wisely in your hip hop beat making. Match the bass line, or synthesizer line, or whatever you're using to support your melody, with the beat. Use it to carry the melody and accentuate the beats, and you songs will sound like they have a lot of body and movement.
If bass isn't your thing, don't stop with just a drum beat. Add some tambourine parts, shakers, hand claps, and hi-hat syncopation to make the beat interesting and vibrant. If you're not too keen on all of this percussion, use several synthesizer parts that play off of each other. Horn parts do wonders to add gravity and emotional range.
