Can't get a drum pattern to match my beat?

Whitelexluger

New member
I'll make a really hot beat with no drums but whenever I add the drums it doesn't sound right. I tried a bunch of different patterns, but they all sound too slow. I feel like with the tempo of my beat I wont be able to find a pattern to match it. Could this be true? Can certain melodies not become beats?
 
Do you use a particular time signature to make the "beat" or do you just freestyle? The tempo of the track is like a guideline or a boundary. It lets you know when to start and stop and is basically the backbone of percussion based music. You should, at least, have a rough idea of the tempo range that you are working in before you start writing chord progressions and melodies and such.

Are you using smaples or loops? You can loop or chop a sample and it can sound great... Until you put a beat behind it. If It doesn't fit, it just doesn't fit. There are ways around that like time stretching and the like but again if you don't even know the approximate tempo of your project, then that is useless to you. Some commercially sold loops are not chopped very well so if you are using those you may need to trim them up a little to get them to loop exactly as you want them to.

My suggestion to prevent this from happening in the future is to lay down a very basic drum pattern, beforehand, or use a metronome to help you keep time.
 
Do you use a particular time signature to make the "beat" or do you just freestyle? The tempo of the track is like a guideline or a boundary. It lets you know when to start and stop and is basically the backbone of percussion based music. You should, at least, have a rough idea of the tempo range that you are working in before you start writing chord progressions and melodies and such.

Are you using smaples or loops? You can loop or chop a sample and it can sound great... Until you put a beat behind it. If It doesn't fit, it just doesn't fit. There are ways around that like time stretching and the like but again if you don't even know the approximate tempo of your project, then that is useless to you. Some commercially sold loops are not chopped very well so if you are using those you may need to trim them up a little to get them to loop exactly as you want them to.

My suggestion to prevent this from happening in the future is to lay down a very basic drum pattern, beforehand, or use a metronome to help you keep time.

I make the beat in Fruityloops. I start by usually messing around with melodies I hear in songs and put them on my instruments. Then I just keep adding to it and I usually do the drums last (I noticed thats what most producers do). And Ill make like a hot brass beat and be thinkin "I got a banger" Then i add the drums and it slows it down and makes it souind way less intense and kinda weird, no matter what drum pattern i use. But If I speed up the tempo, then the regular instruments dont sound right. There has to be some way to turn these hot melodies into beats right?
 
I make the beat in Fruityloops. I start by usually messing around with melodies I hear in songs and put them on my instruments. Then I just keep adding to it and I usually do the drums last (I noticed thats what most producers do). And Ill make like a hot brass beat and be thinkin "I got a banger" Then i add the drums and it slows it down and makes it souind way less intense and kinda weird, no matter what drum pattern i use. But If I speed up the tempo, then the regular instruments dont sound right. There has to be some way to turn these hot melodies into beats right?

Do you know how to count rhythm? That sounds like your problem. Knowing how to count rhythm will help so that you will never have these types of issues again. For example, when I would sample something, i'm counting the rhythm in my head to get the right part. I might chop out, for instance, two measures of a horn solo, then rhythmically splice it up to match my drum track. I may cut up the two measures into quarter note or eighth note pieces to arrange them over the beat. I don't even touch timestretch.
Here are some resources that might help you out if you are willing to take the time to learn:

Note Duration

Measures and Time Signature

How To Count Rhythms
 
Last edited:
You are not most poducers...

Timestretching is altering the duration of an audio sample without affecting the pitch. In other words let's say you have a vocal sample. You want to speed it up to match the tempo of your song but when you do, the vocal sample sounds like Alvin and the chipmunks. If you time stretched the sample, you could speed it up without getting the "chipmunk" effect. This is not magic. You can only stretch a sample so much before the sample starts to sound like doo doo. For instance, if you stretched a sample that was recorded at a tempo of 65 bpm to a new tempo of 140 bpm it, most likely, will sound like crap. But if you stretched a sample that was recorded at 65bpm to a new tempo of 70 bpm or 72 bpm it, most likely would sound pretty good (if done correctly). Look up "time stretching fl studio" on Youtube and you will find a s*** ton of tutorials and
explanations on this subject.

Also, you are not "most producers". You have to find a method that works for you and, apparently, the way that you are doing things now is not working. It doesn't mean that you are not a good producer. It just means that you have to change up your workflow and maybe, rearrange the order in which you do things. I think if you laid down a simple kick/snare pattern as a reference before you started composing your melodies, you would solve your problems. You are working in FL Studio. You could do this in the step sequencer with 2 clicks of the mouse.

I see that your screen name is WhiteLexLuger... This led me to the assumption that you make trap Music. If that is the kind of music that you make, then the drums may not be the reason that your beat sounds "slow". Look at your Hi-Hat patterns. That's where the "speed" in a Trap track comes from. The ear percieves that things are happening faster because of how the hats move/sound.
 
Last edited:
As the guy above said, you are not "most producers" and you should just do what works for you and sounds good. Try making the the drum patterns first and then start adding the other stuff wonce you have a cool drum rhythm, it ain't that hard. For trap music, hi-hats and extremely important to keep that speed.
 
Like the guy above said, tapping out a basic rhythm for the kick drum would be a good start, even record it on your phone or something, bring it in to your daw and then match up some kicks to your taps. then you can do the same for the snare. Use fast hi hats if it feels too slow, don't be afraid to be a little loose, human touch does wonders for drum patterns. Triplets, shuffles, swing .. it's all good in electronic music.
 
people have come up with way better responses than I ever could, but one thing that I tend to do when I start a beat, is throw on a real simple pattern of hi-hats, just so I have a real tangible idea of the rhythm of the track. It helps me not come up with melodies etc that don't necessarily fit.
 
Back
Top