how do I not ruin my beats by using too many "fillers"?

DJFREEMONEY

Artist/Producer
Hey everyone,

Fairly new here, and just getting back into making beats. Last time I was getting into the craft I found I was overloading my songs with too many 'sounds" possibly trying to overcompensate for the lack of vocals and i would ruin the whole thing and delete it. Anyway i'm a little apprehensive this time around to add anything other than the basics (instrument loop, bass, drums) as I don't want to ruin my tracks. any advice on where to start to gradually add more to the tracks to fill them out without overdoing it? all tips and advice welcomed.

DJFREEMONEY | Free Listening on SoundCloud

Thank you.
 
Obviously there's no rules but you could consider taking 3 things and making them the "primary" part of your track. Ex: drums, bass, and sample/primary instrument. Just make it a loosely followed rule after that to only have 2 or less secondary instruments playing at the same time as the primary parts. If you want more secondary parts, make sure you take out a primary instrument to create space (for example, a bridge where the main melody cuts out, and several other parts enter). But of course at the the end, any guidelines you set down are just made to be broken so... good luck!
 
Obviously there's no rules but you could consider taking 3 things and making them the "primary" part of your track. Ex: drums, bass, and sample/primary instrument. Just make it a loosely followed rule after that to only have 2 or less secondary instruments playing at the same time as the primary parts. If you want more secondary parts, make sure you take out a primary instrument to create space (for example, a bridge where the main melody cuts out, and several other parts enter). But of course at the the end, any guidelines you set down are just made to be broken so... good luck!


Thank you!
 
Funkie junkie is right - keep the concurrent instruments down...but do have your hooks lined up, rather like moving a spotlight on to each one, make it the focus, introduce each one, then maybe use another instrument or the vocalist repeat some of them again down the line in the song to reinforce it.

I also use a lot of beats, but never distract from the overall theme of the song, it's also a good idea to danger up the beats with maybe some saturation, glitching etc., just to add contrast.

Trust your ears and they will tell you if your overdoing it.

Hope this helps
 
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