How to get started with creating a basic hip-hop tune?

luckylucky

I'd like to experiment with doing my own hip-hop tune just for a bit of fun.

Is there any particular software that I could use and get started with easily?
Is there a way of extracting the instrumentals from a tune?

BLITZ_Molloy

The most popular program tends to be Fruity Loops or FL Studio as it's now known. Other people tend to favor Reason, Cubase or a rake of other programs.

There are techniques for making instrumentals of vocal tracks but it's quite tricky, the results aren't perfect and you need an accapella. People tend to cut parts out of tunes and use those to construct something new.

I'm not a producer. Try making a topic in the beatmaking forum here www.irishhiphop.com/forum where the lads hang out and they'll give you more comprehensive advice. Handy to have someone to ask as well because these programs are pretty fecking complicated.

Boom_Bap

There are some freeware applications available, they are very basic but a good place to start. They come preloaded with drums and effects and have the same concepts as the studio orientated software such as Cubase or proTools.
i would suggest tinkering with these first so that you get familiar with structure and layering to see how you get on. They would work on a basic PC/laptop with normal soundcards and processors which is handy.
Try to stick to 4 bars first and loop them, then expand upwards.
If you enjoy it and get used to it then invest in better software and hardware but be warned...it can get very expensive

There are also 'games' for the PS3 and XBOX that you can get which are simple enough to use.

Best of luck with it, andd as Blitz says, get over to the production forum, the guys over there will be able to help you out.

DOC09UNAM

Get Atomix VirtualDJ, Downlaod some of their add-ons, and then look for accapellas (http://www.acapellas4u.co.uk/).


look for Jay Z - Instrumentals, good album to get you started.

Nolanger

Hip Hop eJay

Boom_Bap

Nolanger wrote: »

Hip Hop eJay

yeah, that's probably a nice and easy one to start out on, preloaded with samples etc and very intuitive.

Executive Steve

You're best off going to the dance music production forum on here for advice really.

Hip Hop Ejay is a toy, and isn't really worth your time

You should have a look at either Ableton Live, Reason or Fruityloops - they're all very good "all-in-one" packages, it's perfectly possible to get professional results with them if you know what you're doing and there's oodles and oodles of tutorials on sites like Youtube etc.

If you really want to get into making Hip Hop beats, you should start building up a sample library as soon as possible, go through old films, DVD's, games, charity shop records, Funk and Soul cd compilations etc and look out for any bits of music where you have either a nice string section or piano playing by itself, or look ot for the bits where the band stops playing for a few bars and the drummer does a quick little four bar solo - those bits will be the building blocks of your tunes; try and find a breakbeat or a sample that noone else has ever used before.

Bear in mind that teh quality of your tune is only as good as the quality of your samples, so try and use the best quality sample sources you can (ripping samples of youtube isn't a strong look, it will always sound like ass unfortunately)