Hip Hop Beats: Three Main Ingredients for Cooking Up Banging Tracks
In order to make the kind of banging hip hop beats that you hear pouring from your radio these days, it is important to familiarize yourself with the essentials – the building blocks of proper beats: the kick, the snare, and “the percussions”. Creating hip hop beats is a subtle art form. Once you are able to understand the subtleties of each of these elements on their own, then you’ll be able to mix them together with the ear of a pro producer. OK, lets talk about the elements we’ll be using to produce our beats.
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Hip Hop Beats Ingredient #1: The Kick
The name “kick” comes from the term “kick drum” in a real drum kit – the largest and lowest drum in the kit. If you think of a hip hop beat as a BOOM – SNAP – BOOM, BOOM – SNAP, then the kick is the BOOM. The kick is used to hold down the beat and is usually always “on the 1” – the first beat of the bar.
The variety of kick drum sounds out there are endless. You have the classic 808 kick, which can be short and percussive or pitch-lowered for the kind of Miami Bass that rattles your car. There is also the round, low boom of a Lil’ John crunk kick and the high-pitched crackle of a Dr. Dre kick. The varieties are infinite – take some time and really listen to everything out there.
Hip Hop Beats Ingredient #2: The Snare
Now, the snare is going to be the most distinct element of your rap beat, so make sure you choose it with care. The snare is the SNAP in your beat, the response to the BOOM and will usually fall on the 2 and the 4 of the beat. The snare is going to jump out from the track and define the sound of beat in the listener’s head. Choosing your snare is critical, so it’s important to understand your options.
There are even more different sounds of snares than kicks. The can be distorted, full-sounding, super compressed, or highly filtered. 808’s and 909’s are very common, but almost always filtered and EQ’d to the point that they are original. Spend some time listening to your favorite beats and focus on the snare sounds – can you figure out what they are?
Hip Hop Beats Ingredient #3: “The Percussions”
If you think of the kick and the snare as the heart of the beat – steadily keeping the blood pumping, then what I call “The Percussions” would be the veins – carrying the blood to where it needs to go. “The Percussions” can comprise of many different elements: hi-hats, claps, cowbells, shakers, tom fills, snaps, or even baby cries (Timbaland). “The Percussions” is going to define what kind of genre your beat belongs in – Crunk, East Coast, Gangsta, etc. – so you really need to know what kind of beat your going for before you lay “The Percussions” down.
“The Percussions” will really determine the swing or groove of your track. They usually are placed outside of the strict beat – behind the beat for a laid back Southern Rap style, or ahead of the beat for a hyped-up Neptunes style. Usually the Percussions are placed lower in the mix for a more subtle flavoring. These quiet, not-so-obvious sounds are the real difference between an amateur hip hop beat and the slick, pro tracks you hear on the radio.
Tying it All Together
Spend some time getting to know these three main elements: The Kick, The Snare, and “The Percussions”. Listen to your favorite hip hop beats and try to focus on each element. Put together a collection of samples and then listen over and over – comparing and contrasting finished beats with the samples you’ve collected. Once you know these three main elements back and forth, the beats you make are going to be miles ahead of the competition.