Question on BPM/Tempo

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BeatMakerMan

New member
Hey guys, I'm new here so i'm not sure if this is the right place to put this but its the only place which says you can ask questions. If i'm wrong i apologize in advance!

Okay, so a rapper wants me to make a beat which is 180 tempo. I've only recently started beat making and normally dont use a metronome YET but I understand I THINK but not 100%. Does he mean like 180 basedrums or do snare drums/claps count too? This is very confusing and i cant really find any videos on this topic, any help would be appreciated :)
 
BPM (Beats Per Minute) is a measurement of speed similar to Miles per hour.

So just set your project tempo to 180 BPM.

What you need to know is how many verses/bars the rapper needs.
 
in addition think of it as 3 beats per second, that is 3 bars every 4 seconds, assuming a time signature of 4/4; i.e. 4 quarter note beats per bar
 
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I assume he wants half time drums (90 BPM)

Set the tempo to 180, place a kick on every 1st and third beat opposed to every first and second.
 
I never got producers who use 2x of the original tempo

why complicate

80-110ish= hip hop
below= soul, jazz
above=techno, dnb

simple
 
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Luka95 said:
I never got producers who use 2x of the original tempo

why complicate

80-110ish= hip hop
below= soul, jazz
above=techno, dnb

simple
Click to expand...

Working at X2 can be beneficial under certain circumstances because you are basically altering the resolution in relation to a fixed amount of pulses per quarter note.

Working at double time improves the accuracy of some primitive techniques, like inching the grid to find the tempo/loop length etc.

I often deliberately work at different resolutions and speeds in order to improve accuracy, for example I never tap from beat to beat when using tap tempo because it's far more accurate to tap twice over a bar than 5 times over a bar.
 
all that he said plus,

As a composer of real music to be read by real musicians, writing a piece at double speed means all the durations have to be doubled as well (only goes to reason actually), making it easier for said real musicians to read a piece at sight, which is the best most of us can hope for in this day and age of fast everything - rehearsal time costs lots of money as does performance time, so the less time an ensemble spends preparing a piece the more likely it is to be performed often, leading to royalties and therefore income for the composer
 
Thanks everyone, and I do make slower beats normally, but it's the rapper that wants it, not me.


hollandturbine said:
BPM (Beats Per Minute) is a measurement of speed similar to Miles per hour.

So just set your project tempo to 180 BPM.

What you need to know is how many verses/bars the rapper needs.
Click to expand...

16 per verse. Why?
 
which only goes to prove the point about double-time/half-time: it is all in the the way that you perceive the beat - I heard a fast beat so my timing is going to be smaller than yours - mine comes in at 1.29 secs for one bar of 4 beats, which is 186 bpm - I used a tap tempo tool I wrote to work out the tempo in the first place and it was jumping around from 184 to 189 bpm with an average of 186bpm after 30 odd beats
 
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Luka95 said:
I never got producers who use 2x of the original tempo

why complicate

80-110ish= hip hop
below= soul, jazz
above=techno, dnb

simple
Click to expand...

EDM have different "BPM", depending on the style. Although there's not a rule of thumb regarding BPM, DnB often falls into the 150-180BPM range, dubstep between 132-140BPM, trance 120-150BPM, psytrance 150-175BPM, dark psytrance between 165-180BPM, and so on. There's no way to tell that music done over 110BPM are only techno or dnb.
 
not often, most of the time I can tell straight up: comes from years of conducting and having several known tempos locked in as reference points; that and working with a watch with a second hand/second digit counter. I prefer to count beats and elapsed time and then do the calculations, but sometimes it is just quicker to use a tap tempo tool to do fast and dirty bpm recognition
 
I would classify that as 90bpm, but I could be wrong. I'm not sure of the exact technicalities that go into adjudging something like that.
 
Hey are you still confused on the whole bpm thing? I mean they told you what it means but do you know how to translate your bpm to your drums? And other music?

---------- Post added at 02:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:32 AM ----------

I use 140 all the time trap music lives at 140 lol
 
180 bpm is pretty fast, but its true that what can be counted as 180 can also be tapped at 90. The best thing to do is simply trust your instancts = even total non-musicians are able to tap their foot to a song, and 90% of the time the rhythm people naturally choose to tap their foot to is the correct bmp. This is a good example:

watch?v=VteSBWI5O_w

At the start you can quite "correctly" tap a beat of 90bmp, but if you're like most people and do it unconsciously you will probably be find yourself being pulled towards the faster 180bpm, as it feels more natural.

Most of the music you will deal with in your life will be 4/4. Take the bpm and divide it by 4 give you the number of bars per minute (e.g 120/4 = 30). Each bar contains 4 beats (or crotchets), 2 kicks (1 and 3 - the BEAT) and 2 snares (2 and 4 - the OFFBEAT).

Having said all that a natural 180 bmp is very fast for rap, so its probably half-time 90bpms.
 
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