Here's what we learn how to make in this
video
How to Make a Hip-Hop Beat in Ableton Live 10
Hello there my inspirations, my name is InspirAspir and today I'm gonna
teach you how to make a hip-hop beat in
Ableton Live now I really don't make
music in this genre
honestly I tend to lean towards future
bass or progressive house but I was
recently sent a sample pack by Cymatics
called Posty. This is a hip-hop sample
pack that provides several sound effects
such as drum loops, one-shots, as well as
some presets for example in Serum so if
you want to download the sample pack for
yourself I will leave a link in the
description below and you can follow
along with me as I make this video as I
dissect each layer of this beat I was so
inspired by the sample pack I actually
turned this beat into a full length track
basically what I'm saying is this sample
pack inspired me so much that as a
complete beginner as someone with no
experience in the genre I was able to
make a pretty decent hip-hop beat and
then I even expanded upon that and turned
that into a full song so huge shout out
to cymatics thank you for hooking me up
with this opportunity but that's enough
of me rambling let's get into this
actual beat. First and foremost we need to
set our BPM, I chose 82 next I went on to
making what I consider to be the most
crucial part of a hip-hop beat this is
the sub bass, the 808.
Here I made a MIDI clip and then I
assigned serum as my instrument
specifically I chose the 808 Trapstar
Serum preset provided in the sample pack.
Now I'm working in G minor and this is
what I came up with as my sub bass loop
fairly straightforward you'll notice
that actually it's just two notes this G
1 and D 2 and then repeated but then at
the end I cut the D short by half and I
instead play a C so pretty simple and
honestly it's fine I think it does the
job but I think it's a little bland so I
went ahead and I added these four notes
kinda gives it a little bit more rhythm
next I added in two more notes and then
just copy paste it elsewhere this A# and this F it's good to note the
808 Trapstar Serum preset is in mono
which means only one note can play at a
time so I went ahead and I added these
two notes right here this A# and
this F and you'll notice that they play
at the same time as this sustained note
so as this G is playing then I jump up
to this A# and then I made it
really short so it then will go back
down essentially the sound will glide
from this G all the way up to this A# and then back down
that's pretty good I would say the sound
design and the notes how they're laid
out are pretty good so let's go ahead
and add in some audio effects first I
added in a utility all this does is it
makes the sound mono rather than stereo
I added a little bit of camel crusher
which if you don't know is a free
third-party plug-in on the 808 it really
doesn't provide too much value but I use
it on other layers in this track and it
really helps provide some punchiness
I also added in some sausage fattener
which again more or less the same thing
and an EQ 8 this one's fairly important
here I made a low-pass filter at roughly
a thousand Hertz essentially we're just
cutting off those high ends we really
don't need them in our sub bass also I
added in this plugin called Kickstart
where during this flowy part when it
goes from the G to the A# I
automated the kick start audio effect so
the sound kind of dips ever so slightly
it gives it a little extra flavor so
right now at our current state this is
what our bass sounds like
next let's talk about percussion I drew
an another MIDI clip right here that has
a drum rack of samples assigned to it
the sample I would like to focus on is
called Posty Iverson kick - G. Short,
punchy, I like it so let's draw an a kick
pattern this is what I came up with as
my kick pattern all I did was draw in
instances of that sample you just heard
in the following pattern and so that
paired with the current state of my 808
sounds like this
so we're starting to get somewhere I'm
feeling it for my kicks I added in two
audio effects just a kick EQ this is by
default under Ableton's audio effects eq
8 drums and then one of these kick EQs and then i also added in a glue
compressor and lowered this threshold
just by a little bit by 2 decibels or so
essentially these two audio effects
combined make the kick a little bit more
powerful next let's go back to our 808
and change two things one let's add in a
sidechain to the kicks that we just made
if you don't know what sidechaining is
that's perfectly fine I've made
tutorials discussing it in the past but
essentially the short and sweet of it is
anytime a sound occurs this layer will
duck in volume ever so slightly so I did
that by adding this compressor right
here and I assigned it to my kicks layer
next I actually wanted to go back into
my 808
and I decided I didn't like this
sustained note it didn't quite feel
right so what I ended up doing was I
went back I'm gonna keep the same
layouts of my notes but essentially I'm
gonna have it so that the 808 starts up
again every time there's a kick you'll
notice it's the same note layouts but I
just had it so that they hit every time
there's a kick
the sidechaining plus adjusting those
notes really makes the kick stand out a
little bit better next let's move on to
our snares I did the same thing as my
kicks where I just drew in a MIDI clip
on a layer where I have a drum rack full
of snare samples specifically the snare
sample that I used that I really liked
is called Posty Psychotic Snare 2 - D# and then I drew in the snares in
the following pattern it kind of helps
if you play that alongside your kicks so
then you can kind of get a feel for the
flow of the song I also then went to
adding in some audio effects on our
snares specifically I added in sausage
fattener
if you don't have it not that important
not super critical I did also add in a
snare EQ one I also added an a little
bit of reverb just set the dry/wet to
17% something very low and a short decay
time and then finally I also added in
another glue compressor this time I put
the threshold down by about 7 decibels
all together this is what my snares and
kicks sound like be sure to go back to
your 808 and also add in another
sidechain to your layer of snares and of
course be sure to adjust each of these
side-chaining to your liking they don't
have to be duplicated tailor them to the
specific track that they're
side-chaining to. All together:
now let's add in a layer of high hats.
Again same thing, MIDI clip MIDI track
drum rack specifically I chose the
sample Posty Congratulate Hihat I drew
in my high hats in this following
pattern I would suggest for you to make
them rather fast they're meant to be
short and played after each other very
quickly so this is what I created and be
sure to adjust the volume of your high
hats you don't want them to be too
powerful in this case I adjusted my
volume to be about negative 4 decibels
for audio effects all I did was add in a
hat EQ one same thing and then also a
glue compressor as well about negative
20 decibels now it's all coming together
let's see what we have
sounding pretty good so far let's move
on to the next element this is the pads
to make my pads I added in a MIDI clip
and assigned the MIDI track Serum preset
called PAD - Trapster and then I went to
working on the actual chord progression
itself
I built this around my 808s and this is
what I came up with any chord
progression will do this is again where
you can let your creativity run wild so
I went ahead and I added in an EQ eight
I chopped off some of the low ends at
around 400 Hertz and then a little bit
of the high high ends at around 14,000
just kind of gives your sub bass a
little room to breathe down here and
then this white noise up here will be
filled in later so we don't need that
now to make this sound a little bit more
interesting and a bit more vibrant let's
add in an OTT. OTT is also a free plugin
I believe that you can get if you don't
have it you can go under multiband
dynamics and Ableton by default also has
an OTT
preset and honestly they're very similar
to each other they're almost identical
so consider using that if you don't have
this exact plug-in but what this adds to
the track is the following so now that I
have this pad in the mix let's hear what
that sounds like with our 808 and our
percussion
so now our track's starting to have a
little bit of life it has some feeling
to it finally let's top it off with some
leads my leads are actually two
different layers which together sound
like this
and these aren't anything too crazy in
fact they're just an Arpeggiator of
my pads I just took the notes from my
chords pasted them over here and space
them out an eighth note apart as for the
sound design one lead sounds like this
this is a preset called PLUCK - Candy it
has an EQ 8 on it just to get rid of the
low ends so that 808 can shine a little
bit better and then it also has an OTT
which again pairs really well with this
sound here is what it's like without
that and then with it my second layer of
leads is very similar this is the preset
PLUCK - Psychotic this again also contains
an OTT and an EQ 8 but this time it also
has a sausage fattener and some glue
compressor without any of these audio
effects the sound itself it's actually
pretty similar but again the audio
effects really help elevate the sound as
you can see I grouped together my leads
and pads and overall on the on the
entire group itself I added a little bit
of an EQ and then some sidechaining
to the kicks of the snares I also added
some glue compressors and this auto
filter fades out at the end but there
are quite a few audio effects here so
let's hear what it sounds like without
any of these and then with them to see
what it contributes to the track
really helps glue everything together it
makes them mesh the final minor element
that we still have to add is a layer of
effects nothing too crazy this is just
some white noise so this is what I've
added in now all I've added here is two
layers of effects one of them a big
white noise crash and then one of them
is a reversed cymbal now these are
actually the only two elements of this
beat that are not from the Cymatics
Posty Hip-Hop sample pack these are from
a different sample pack called Abletunes
- thought I'd let you know the point is you
can add in any sort of crash some kind
of impact here as some white noise and
then EQ it so that it only really takes
up the high end some high frequencies
and then I also sidechained these to the
kicks and snares so then finally all
things considered everything combined
here is what we have this is our hip-hop beat
there you have it and like I said I'm a
beginner I'm not used to making hip-hop
this is my first time trying to make
this genre and honestly I loved it, it
was a lot of fun to make so thank you to
Cymatics for hooking me up with this
Posty Hip-Hop sample pack if you guys
are interested in checking it out
there's a link in the description below
feel free to go grab it, follow along
with this video send me songs that you
make with this sample pack honestly I'm
intrigued to see what you all can make
because I turned this into a full-length
song myself again dropping in one week
feel free to check that out hope you
learned a lot from this video feel free
to subscribe for future tutorials like
this have a good one
