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Season 2 ·

S2E13 – How to Make a Real Beat (Sampling vs. Original Compositions)

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Here is an OVERVIEW VIDEO covering the beat we made in this podcast episode. Make sure to listen to the podcast episode to learn how the beat was put together:

I always talk to you about the two ways to make a beat.. that is Original Compositions and Sampling.

Also, this episode is the first episode at 256Kbps for better audio quality when hearing the different frequencies better when making a beat. Episodes are regularly at 128Kbps to make the file size smaller, but I noticed at 128Kbps the hi-hat sounded significantly degraded.. I hope you enjoy this episode!

In this beat, we make a beat from scratch! I personally like making Original Compositions because they are 100% your own copyright, and I really like finding different melodies that compliment each other, and that suit the drum loop it self.

Everything you heard was live as I recorded this episode. I edited up the audio to give you the best listening experience, and tried to lower volumes when talking so you can understand what’s going on.

Listen carefully as I pick through the drum samples, and finally decide on the 3 drum samples which I clearly play for you to hear how different they sounded… One had a nice low-end (could potentially make mixing harder)..

Also notice how powerful the layered snares were after turning them down in volume! That drum loop was SO FULL.. and it only had 7 SOUNDS USED!

Again, the Xclusive-Audio Drum Bundle TRIO sounds are available on my website!

But the best way to purchase them is through my SAFE SPOTS Bundle.. You receive my SAFE SPOTS Book, Course, and the Xclusive-Audio Drum Bundle TRIO sounds, which are used all throughout my SAFE SPOTS drum loop training curriculum.

These are the drum samples I recommend to my students. I use them often in my courses. They offer VARIETY and QUALITY, are 24-Bit .WAV, and contain over 2,300 drum samples!

Finally, if you’d like me to teach you how to make beats like you heard in this episode, then definitely check out GratuiTous’ FL Studio course membership! There’s over 26 FL Studio courses, teaching you how to use your DAW and how to make a beat.

I also offer FL Studio lessons for a more personal 1-on-1 experience. Please email me any time you have FL Studio questions, or would like to see an FL Studio tutorial on a certain topic.

Original Compositions Sampling

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S2E13 – How to Make a Real Beat (Sampling vs. Original Compositions)

  1. Season two, episode 13, how to make a real beat.
  2. Now I've told you guys that I only really consider there's two ways to make a beat,
  3. and that's original compositions where you're playing your own MIDI notes on a MIDI
  4. keyboard, making your own song from scratch, or your sampling.
  5. Sampling is taking other audio, slicing it up, and being really creative with it,
  6. which allows you to get a very special sound.
  7. Alright, so in this episode, I want to do things a little bit differently.
  8. I'm going to make an original composition in this
  9. beat.com
  10. forward slash drums. Here's a couple of the kicks.
  11. You know, they're quite unique.
  12. They're not hitting really low though.
  13. That's a different kind of kick.
  14. Alright, so when using these drums, I often use
  15. multiple drums, and it allows me to get really cool drum loops.
  16. Like this, like this is a cool drum.
  17. Maybe we'll work with that. It's gonna have some bass.
  18. Something to be careful with this sound like this is because it has that bass,
  19. it might be fighting with the track later on.
  20. Alright, so it's a big cool sound.
  21. Just be aware of you might need some extra work in the mixing or something to get it
  22. to keep having that impact. So a kick like this,
  23. you'd only want to be using that once in a while.
  24. Otherwise, it's way too aggressive.
  25. But it's cool, it's a cool sound.
  26. Another cool sound. Alright, so I'm just grabbing some kick drums that I like.
  27. I have this kick drum, this kick drum, and this kick drum.
  28. I am going to get some snares.
  29. snares So we use on our two and four is most common..
  30. Very cool sounds Now again, when you are using sounds, you want to make sure you
  31. have 16-bit or 24-bit wave for the highest quality.
  32. Alright, so I'm gonna put my tempo to about maybe 92 beats per minute.
  33. I always tell you guys the easiest way to make a drum loop is you want to start with
  34. your kick drum on the one and then your snare on the two and the four.
  35. Now in FL Studio, it's really really easy to understand when you're looking at the
  36. channel rack. It goes four gray, four red, four gray, four
  37. red. And if I talk to you about safe spots, right?
  38. We have step one, step two, step three, step four, or it goes on beat, a in
  39. between, off beat, b in between.
  40. So kick on the one, snare on the two and the four.
  41. Alright, 92 beats per minute. So I'm gonna try to play these other drums and
  42. kind of fill up this drum loop just a little bit.
  43. Alright. So no a little
  44. lighter. So this this drum, I'm gonna turn it
  45. down in volume because it's gonna be a little too loud coming in.
  46. Okay, so watch. We'll be able to maybe kind of slow it
  47. down.
  48. This is okay. We're we're we're gonna work off of
  49. it. I'm gonna play this drum maybe one
  50. more time. I just kind of want to keep hearing that a little bit bouncing
  51. around.
  52. Okay, this is not this is not too bad.
  53. Now I always like to layer my drums or my snares and claps.
  54. Just adds a lot of fullness. Okay, gonna turn on them in volume though, too
  55. aggressive.
  56. Okay, so turn it down a little bit more, those
  57. snares. I'm gonna get a high
  58. hat. So again we have closed hats and open
  59. hats. So I'm just gonna try and find some sounds that kind of go with
  60. it. I always use my arrow keys when I'm using FL Studio going through the sounds.
  61. So I am hitting the down arrow.
  62. If I want to hear the sound again, I'm hitting right arrow.
  63. So that's kind of cool. So I'm gonna
  64. try to make a little like kind of melody with this kind of sound, like
  65. so.
  66. So right now it's way too static, right?
  67. Alright, so what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna put this shaker into its own
  68. pattern, and this is gonna allow me to have two different variations of this
  69. pattern. So what I'm gonna do to quickly give this variation is I'm just going to
  70. hit make unique. Then now you have two different patterns.
  71. So one of these shakers is gonna be playing, you know, just like
  72. this. And then the next one I'm going to just remove
  73. one of the hats and let's just get just bring it all back
  74. in.
  75. Okay, so it just has that last hit at the very end of the loop.
  76. So this drum loop is actually two bars, all right.
  77. So that is eight beats, and the high hat changes from
  78. bar one, and then in bar two, I just add one step on the hi
  79. hat. So here is the first part of the hi hat loop.
  80. Going back. All right, so it again just has that extra one high
  81. hat and it gives the listener just a little bit extra to hear, and that's all just
  82. from this drum loop. I only have one, two, three, four, five,
  83. six, seven sounds used in my drum loop, and it sounds like
  84. this.
  85. All right, again, listen to that extra high hat.
  86. Now, again, because I'm using high quality drum samples, it makes the process a lot
  87. easier. I'm not saying it's easy, but high quality drum samples definitely give more
  88. inspiration to what you are making.
  89. You know, they hit harder, and again, you guys can get these drum kits on my
  90. website. It's the exclusive audio drum bundle trio.
  91. Just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash drums.
  92. I'm going to load up an instrument with this drum loop.
  93. Virtual instruments I like to use.
  94. I really like silence one. I also like serum, like pigments, like Nexus.
  95. And another way I like to make beats is I also like to use a single guitar note.
  96. I don't do it all the time, but it does make a very, very powerful and special
  97. sound. So you can hear just a single note.
  98. So it sounds out of pitch, right?
  99. But watch this. So all right, so I'm gonna
  100. play that on my keyboard, and I'm just going to route that just to a little bit of
  101. reverb, alright. If you guys have my FL Studio template, you know how fast this
  102. workflow is. So I'm doing this as I'm talking to you, right?
  103. I just routed it to a mixer insert.
  104. I added some reverb on, and this is a
  105. single guitar
  106. note.
  107. Okay, so let's hit play because this drum loop is a little bit more gangster, you
  108. know, more rap-ish. So let's just see if we can kind of make
  109. more of like a nicer melody over it or something that kind of suits the drum
  110. loop.
  111. So it's all about just trying to find a melody that
  112. goes with this drum loop. Again, this drum loop is more gangstery, so maybe I'll try
  113. something more along that line.
  114. So go up a little higher.
  115. So I'm opening up an EQ on that, and we're just going to really cut the lows, and
  116. that's gonna allow this guitar to cut through with a lot more
  117. clarity. So without
  118. it, so without the EQ, right?
  119. So with it. So now what's gonna happen is
  120. the drum loop is gonna continue to hit hard, and now I can try and find a melody.
  121. So
  122. I'm gonna go to the U.S.
  123. So right there, that's a beat.
  124. Right? We have an awesome drum loop.
  125. We have one pattern that is giving variety, it's that hi hat.
  126. Once you really start listening to it, it really starts adding a lot of flavor, just
  127. that one extra hi hat, I'm telling you on the second bar, and then you have to find
  128. a melody that goes with it. So again, I was thinking that the drum loop was a little
  129. bit more, you know, more rapish, you know, rap, but I kept trying to find a melody
  130. that suited the drum loop. And in the beginning I was struggling, I wasn't doing you
  131. know, I wasn't able to find something quick.
  132. There was the part there like when I was trying to do it, doing like the bass line,
  133. and it was like like just couldn't get like the like so the sound itself, the actual
  134. guitar sound, it isn't a like a rap sound, it's too nice of us,
  135. it's too
  136. beautiful.
  137. Again, it's a single guitar note, and I show you how to make a beat like this in my
  138. platform. You go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash courses, and the course is
  139. called creating organic beats.
  140. All right, so it's included in the membership.
  141. You get access to all the courses there.
  142. But what I want to wrap up is I'm telling you guys so how to make a real
  143. beat. Okay, and I again consider original compositions
  144. and sampling are your two ways to make be.
  145. an awesomeat, I encourage you guys to come visit my website.
  146. It's gratuitouscom. I have tons of FL Studio training, and the best way is to join
  147. the membership. It's affordable, you can watch all of my courses..
  148. I have what's called the Course Pathways
  149. It's a page where you get access to all the courses and you can watch them in the
  150. proper order that I've laid out for you.
  151. And it allows you to learn in a really organized structure.
  152. You start understanding how to break free from watching videos and be
  153. able to make beats just like you heard today, right?
  154. Everything you heard, all the drum loops, playing the piano, it's taking me a long
  155. time to get to where I am. And it doesn't happen overnight.
  156. So if you're thinking, oh, I'm going to make beats in a week or in a month or in two
  157. months or in like a year or maybe even two years, you can get decent in a year for
  158. sure. In two years, yes. But if you really want to take it to that next
  159. level, it's about really understanding the tools and reading.
  160. Okay, I tell you guys all the time, you have to read to become a good music
  161. producer. If you are not reading, you're not gonna get better.
  162. Videos help, right? This podcast, I'm hoping is helping you or giving you
  163. inspiration or at least making you be aware of my brand gratuitous.
  164. But the goal here is for you guys to learn how to make beats so you can enjoy what
  165. you're doing and have fun with it.
  166. Because that's at the end of the day, you want to learn to make your own music,
  167. right? So I can show you all that stuff how to make drum loops, how to make some
  168. melodies, and then you can be on your way.
  169. So if you guys have any questions, you guys can always reach me at it's
  170. gratuitous.com forward slash contact.
  171. If you started to use FL Studio 20 and later, FL Studio is at a really, really nice
  172. state right now. If FL Studio would never get another update at this moment, like it
  173. works so good right now for workflow for enjoyment.
  174. Okay, so hope you guys enjoyed, and I will talk to you guys in the next
  175. episode.
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