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S2E17 – A Song vs. a Beat vs. a Loop

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There is a struggle for new producers, and that is turning a loop into a beat (or a song).

In this episode I share with you what I think the difference is between a song and a beat.

A loop is just the absolute beginning stages of a beat or song, and it is very hard for new producers to get passed the point of a LOOP to a beat or song.

In my opinion, a song is a beat with vocals/lyrics. The vocals immediately complete the song, and make the actual beat creation process a lot easier, because the beat doesn’t have to be so full!

A beat is a lot harder to know when it is done, but a trick I share in this episode is to first build out the arrangement, then when the chorus comes in, truly listen and think… “Does that sound like a full chorus that completes the song?”. If it doesn’t, well then maybe you need to add another instrument on!

Yes, both a song and beat are made up of individual loops, but it is your goal as a music producer to train your ear for what is catchy, and be able to put all those different loops together to make it into a BEAT or a SONG that is catchy, and captivates your listeners.

If you missed the live stream from last night, you can watch it here.

Also, if you want to learn how to create powerful melodies as a music producer, definitely checkout my Piano Lessons for Producers course!

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S2E17 – A Song vs. a Beat vs. a Loop

  1. Season two, episode 17, a song versus a beat versus a
  2. loop. Before we get into the episode, I want to remind you you can download my free
  3. book. It's called Five Keys to a Successful Beat.
  4. It's gonna teach you a lot of valuable things about being a music producer using FL
  5. Studio. You're gonna actually see results in your learning, you're gonna get a fast
  6. workflow, you're gonna learn how melodies work, how a key and a scale works, tons
  7. and tons of valuable information.
  8. Again, it's a totally free book.
  9. You gotta sign up with your email.
  10. You just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash five keys.
  11. So in this episode, again, I want to talk to you about a song versus a beat versus a
  12. loop. Now, these are my own opinions, so you might see it different out there.
  13. But I think a song has lyrics, okay?
  14. It has vocals, so you know it has the beat, but in addition to the beat, it has
  15. lyrics over top. And the thing with the song is that in some areas, a
  16. song is a lot easier to make because the beat doesn't have to sound as full.
  17. Okay, if we talk about just like a beat, the beat, in my opinion, typically has to
  18. sound pretty full, or the instruments have to match each other extremely well.
  19. So that is really really catchy.
  20. When we talk about a song, what are all the elements to make a song?
  21. Well, first of all, you need your instruments, you need your drum loop, right?
  22. Just like a beat.
  23. But when you create a song, the vocals take precedence over
  24. everything. Everyone listens to the vocals, and you do not need as many
  25. instruments in the song when you have a vocal because automatically the song
  26. sounds a lot more complete. Now, when we go to a beat, it's a lot
  27. harder to know when the beat is done, right?
  28. When you are the beatmaker, when you're producing the beat, and if you made all your
  29. different instruments, let's say you have seven different instruments, and maybe it
  30. still doesn't sound complete to you.
  31. You know, you can keep adding instruments in, there's no rules, but when you have
  32. vocals, it automatically kind of completes the song, even if you had like
  33. three instruments or four instruments, and how you can differentiate between the
  34. verse and the chorus is simply because of the words that are spoken, right?
  35. If we have a chorus, well, typically in a chorus, the words repeat from chorus to
  36. chorus. Now, if we talk about a beat, well, when you make the chorus, well, how you
  37. know what is the chorus? And I tell you, when you make a beat, there's kind of two
  38. different ways you can make a beat.
  39. There is when it comes to your chorus, you can just keep adding all your
  40. instruments. So let's say you had a piano, guitar, a lead, a bass line, you know,
  41. all these different sounds, you can just add them all in, and now that's your
  42. chorus. That's one way to make a chorus.
  43. Another way to make a chorus is to actually change the notes and the chord
  44. progression and stuff like that.
  45. Like you actually create a different melody from what the verse is, and this is a
  46. much more involved process. Like, in my opinion, when you just add instruments on
  47. and they're all still following that same chord progression, that is by far the
  48. easiest way to make a beat because all you have to do is just add and remove
  49. patterns. It's by far the easiest way.
  50. If you want to try the approach of switching up the chord progression, like I
  51. said, it's more involved, it requires more music theory.
  52. it can give you a really special sound.
  53. if you guys want to check out one of the beats where I've done that, it's called
  54. Love Shall Prevail. I think it's off of Beat Tapes by Gratuitors Volume 6, but in
  55. that track, I actually mixed up the chord progression from the verses to the
  56. chorus, and I really think that track turned out really good.
  57. It sounds very, very emotional, very, very powerful.
  58. And again, I used my single guitar note trick on that track.
  59. But the majority of my tracks, I don't do that, and the reason is because it's a lot
  60. easier to make the beat and to keep adding on, you know, essentially you're stacking
  61. instruments, and you know, they're all playing their own different melodies, but
  62. they're all working together. But on the beat, it's hard to know again
  63. when that chorus is done. And that's a question I get a lot from you guys, and it's
  64. also something that even today when I'm making the beat, I still don't always know
  65. when the track is done. But when you are making the beat and you're working on the
  66. chorus, the best way to test if you think the track is done, is you know, let's say
  67. you've made a whole bunch of instruments, build out the arrangement a little bit,
  68. get your verse going, you know, get your intro going, kind of start building some
  69. structure. Now, once you've listened to like the verse for a little bit, then once
  70. it hits that chorus, if that chorus is not hitting hard, like in a sense where yeah,
  71. that chorus sounds full, it really compliments everything else.
  72. So, what I'm saying is when it goes to that chorus, if it is not giving you that
  73. emotion of a chorus, well, then maybe yes, maybe you need another instrument.
  74. I want to talk about a loop. Now, this is a big struggle when someone is newer, is
  75. they don't know how to turn that loop into a beat.
  76. All right, if we're talking about a beat.
  77. Because again, with a song, you could just have one or two loops in your drum loop
  78. and then vocals, and typically the song can sound pretty full, and that's just
  79. because the vocals take precedence and we always listen to the vocals.
  80. But if you make a drum loop and you make a loop over that drum loop, you know,
  81. sure, you've got a little catchy melody going on, but now you want to turn that loop
  82. into a beat. Okay. So a beat is just instrumentals, no vocals.
  83. And if you want to use like one shot vocals, I still consider that a beat.
  84. But a song is like when you have all your different verses, your chorus, bridge,
  85. right? It's a song with lyrics that could be on the radio.
  86. A beat is much harder to make sound full, but a lot of times when you just have a
  87. drum loop and one loop or maybe even two loops, it's really hard to
  88. turn it into a beat. And I always tell you that as a music producer, what you need
  89. to teach yourself is you need to train your ear for what is a
  90. catchy loop. And when you add in these different melodies, they need to go
  91. together and they need to complement each other.
  92. Now, sure, that could be sound selection, so that it makes your mixing easier as
  93. well, you know, everything standing out, but even if they are fighting each other in
  94. terms of frequency, they still need to complement each other in terms of their
  95. melodies, right? And when I say melody, I I really essentially I'm talking timing,
  96. right? Where you were placing your sounds, how long that note is.
  97. Are you doing some note nudging?
  98. You know, it doesn't always need note nudging, but these are the things that you
  99. should be applying to turn those loops into a beat.
  100. Okay. So a loop is not what you ever want, right?
  101. You know, like the loop is like the very first melody with a drum loop.
  102. Like that's like a loop. That's like super basic.
  103. But you as a music producer, you need to learn how to blend
  104. your melodies so that they're catchy.
  105. And you need to train your ear for what's catchy and what's repetitive, because when
  106. things are repetitive, they don't sound good in music.
  107. You need to train yourself to learn how you can create melodies, which you know,
  108. obviously they always repeat. A beat is essentially a bunch of loops.
  109. But if you're stuck at just a loop and you can't go further than that, you need to
  110. keep practicing your melodies so that you can get to the point where all your
  111. different melodies can complement each other, that when you add them in and when you
  112. remove them, that you can start building out your arrangement.
  113. Another thing I will tell you that I talk about a lot is sometimes one
  114. melody is powerful and it holds its own.
  115. And then sometimes other melodies they complement these prominent melodies, if that
  116. makes sense, okay. But by their own, they don't hold much weight.
  117. So, for example, if you have your drum loop going on and you play some of these kind
  118. of weaker melodies in your beat, they're gonna have no weight, they don't sound very
  119. good by themselves because they're they complement the other melodies, and again,
  120. you gotta train your ear for when you're building out your arrangement, that they're
  121. all blending together. Okay, so that's it for this episode, right?
  122. We have a song, which, in my opinion, is a is a beat with vocals.
  123. And not just like one-shot vocals or anything like that.
  124. Like I'm talking that you wrote the lyrics, someone recorded the song, and now you
  125. are trying to mix and master that that it could potentially be on the radio.
  126. That's a song. Okay. And because the vocals are over the beat, they really take
  127. precedence, and the beat doesn't have to sound as full.
  128. And you know that it's a song because it just all works together, and the vocals
  129. really make that happen. When you have a beat, we as music producers, it's
  130. very hard to know when is that beat done.
  131. And again, I told you to test, build out your arrangement, let it hit the
  132. chorus, and listen for does that chorus sound full?
  133. If it doesn't sound full, well, then yeah, you're probably gonna have to add some
  134. melodies or work on it to make that chorus you know feel special because that's what
  135. everyone usually listens to a song for or to a beat for is the chorus, right?
  136. And again, I mentioned that when it comes to the chorus, you can just add on
  137. instruments, or you can take it to the more advanced approach, and you can try to
  138. change up the chord progression, which can give you a special sound.
  139. And again, you can check out the beat.
  140. It's called Love Shall Prevail.
  141. Again, I think it's on beat tapes for Gratuitors Volume 6.
  142. And then finally, a loop. A loop essentially is like one of the first or second
  143. loops in your track. You have a drum loop, but again, that's the struggling point
  144. for a lot of people is they don't know how to take it past the loop.
  145. And again, I want to stress that when we are making our loops, we are programming
  146. them ourselves. We are not using, you know, MIDI packs or pre-recorded drum loops.
  147. We are creating our own drum loops for one-shot drum. samples
  148. We are making our own melodies from our own MIDI keyboards, or even if you want to
  149. click in your notes, right? But you want to learn how to turn those loops
  150. into a beat that is catchy, full, and then when someone listens to it, they can
  151. enjoy your beat, which is essentially like a song without lyrics.
  152. But a beat is a little bit harder to complete because since you don't have those
  153. lyrics, sometimes it's hard to know when is the beat complete.
  154. All right, so again, that is the episode.
  155. I'll give you guys a little update on behind the scenes.
  156. So, again, I got my prescription glasses, which I have never needed in my life,
  157. but they do seem to be helping me on the screen, so that is good because for a while
  158. there I was needing to take a lot of breaks from a screen, and it really kind of
  159. slowed down productivity. it really came down to also just being
  160. wiser on the computer with my time.
  161. So, you guys always feel free to reach out to me.
  162. Again, I have FL Studio courses, FL Studio Books, they're also for beginners,
  163. intermediate, and on the lower end of the advanced spectrum.
  164. And if you would like me to ever talk about something about music production on this
  165. podcast, like if you have a question and you just can't find your answer, again, you
  166. feel free to reach out to me on my website, it's gratuitous.com.
  167. You can use the contact form, and I hope you guys have a good
  168. day.
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