Advice For A Recording Novice

OGBama

Moderator
If you are an MC and you record how and when did you get started? I'm solely a Rap lyricist, but have no one to produce for me (keep in mind I'm Black and female, so much of what I know about relationships regarding music is the "quid pro quo" scenario that plays out in popular culture via "Love & Hip Hop" which I don't see me getting into consciously and/or unconsciously as I have morals) and I refuse to buy beats online as I feel it's questionable from a legal standpoint. I want to learn how to produce (but with no goal of selling beats) but have no formal musical chops (down the line I plan to get piano lessons in a not too distant future but I'm about learning one thing at a time) so what should I do?
 
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I've been doing this since I was 14. (Rapping, singing, writing, producing) I Have been ripped off by producers and management. It forced me to take matters into my own hands and learn the craft for myself. It takes patience but if you can sit in on studio sessions of other artist, read the latest on daws and producing software and hardware. Teach yourself if necessary. Always remember this is an extremely hard field for women, because we're never given the respect to know that we are just as good if not better, and what's between our legs matters more than our talent. go to your local community college where the may have audio production programs and copyright law to help you get started. Start with basic software like mix craft to get you started. The main piece of advice I'll give you is stay true to your art and morals. Be patient trust God first and never compromise your learning this for yourself. You'll feel so much better knowing you're a tripple threat.
 
I couldn't find the reply I sent earlier so...

Well, this happens all the time when your primary asset is talent and will alone. That equates to a "dream of being..." and for most things, money is the easiest currency to work with. I say beats are everywhere and of every type and style imaginable. Contact those beatmakers and producaz and lease/rent/whatever until you create something viable (releasable/use-able etc) and then worry about what it takes to make your record exist in an official format.

As a rapper, what ARE you WORRIED about?
In almost every case, it's fantasy disaster scenarios that will never happen.
You fear:
1) You will record over a track and make it famous (without anyone hearing if before?!) and the produca will reSELL the beat and somebody else will profit off your hard work. Like YOU rapped over a track and made the TRACK famous, but not yourself.

2) You will lease a track and make a hit and then the beatmaker will up the cost 9000% so you nor your (future) label will be able to afford it...

3) Someone will hear your song and buy your beat and steal your vision.

Beatmakers have similar concerns and it makes this whole system difficult, if not pointless.


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If you're a rapper, you should own a microphone and a means to record yourself.
Basement level is using your phone so you can capture, evaluate and practice...

I can't imagine in 2016 someone wouldn't get a descent interface and mic and start recording on their own.
Bump up with reflexion filters and such.

Musically, like I say with building a studio, the most important thing is the ability to create and from there- you bump up the quality level slowly, over time. You can record your vocals over ANYTHING and remix after. You can do all the 'rhyming over tags' and looped instrumental sections and even rips from the internet/youtube and get your craft on point.

When you have something to showcase your talent (beyond the dream of being a great rapper) it's easier to get others to take you seriously. So you should get some demos made ASAP. From there, you PAY for studio time. Once you're paying, you don't have to barter/negotiate/trade/deal with all sorts of extra concerns.

After that, you start talking about records and not beats. It's way easier to work with someone on a record than go back and forth over beats. At any rate, you should have several sources of music and keep a stream of interesting projects on your plate.

If you're a rapper, get to rappin.
 
well I am putting my 15 year archive of beats onto youtube. ALL ROYALTY AND COPYRIGHT FREE WITH NO TAGS OR VOICE OVERS. I WILL NEVER ASK FOR $$$. Feel free to use anything up there. If you make a hit and make a million bucks...cool just credit me lol. Like/subscribe and check the channel often because I will have HUNDREDS of beats coming in the next few months. CLICK FOR MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL Maybe that will help your creative process.
 
I sell non-exclusive beat licenses on band camp for $10. It's an additional $25 for the trackouts:

pbpp.bandcamp.com

You just gotta figure out what you want to do, and do it. Ain't no secret to this shit. Don't try to get it perfect. Perfection will come with practice. You want to focus on getting it done. Get the song done. Get the mix done. Get the cover art done. Put it out. Don't waste time.

Ultimately, you'll do it however is most comfortable to you, but you should really just focus getting things to a state of "done." It's a lot more difficult than you think.
 
You try different methods for recording. You can get more ideas from the google too. Try again and again you will succeed.
 
Don't ever skip your vocal warm up before recording – you're not saving time trust me a warm-up is super important, even for rappers imo. I don't understand the refusal to buy beats thing you've got going on but if you insist on producing everything yourself, be prepared to read and educate yourself in theory and in a lot more of the processes involved in creating beats. Also make sure you read up on your craft. I can't tell you how many articles I've combed through regarding vocal fachs, vocal techniques, vocal this, vocal that etc. you have to do it or you'll be going nowhere fast in terms of improvement. Also seek feedback often...kinda hard to receive quality feedback these days though.
 
start with beats if you rap youll naturally rap over your own stuff anyway. not to say youll record everything, but you'll always be in practice. beat making i think makes you a better song maker because you have a vision for the track already. as for starting to make beats, pick a daw learn it. then go from there.
 
There's always ways. Depends how you want to try it really,


You could find unestablished artists/beatmakers on soundcloud/soundclick/forums who either offer tracks for download to use, or are willing to give free beats which is a good shout.
Or more established ones that might give you a beat to use, from tracks they've done it does happen.
If not straight up asking for beats, offer to collaborate with the artist, even if they openly say they are or not, it's always worth a try, especially if you enjoy their work.
I'd definitely try this, there are always people creating and wanting someone to work with, and take their work and build on it, so don't stop trying this until other options open up, you don't know where things could lead anyway, fostering good relationships especially locally in your scene and elsewhere is very helpful and can transcened just business and music as a whole.


If you wanted to find royalty free beats and the like to download there's a lot of sites of course to download from, but then you wouldn't be the only one with the beat so that's kind of an obvious trade off.
Or just searching like 'free hip hop beats', and there's people with free mp3's etc for use sometimes for non-commercial use though.
Found this randomly: for example SoundClick artist: SoundClick artist: FREE HIP HOP BEATS FOR YOU - FREE HIP HOP BEATS FREE RAP BEATS FREE INSTRUMENTALS LICENSE FREE FREE DOWNLOADS RAP INSTRUMENTALS

Seen this now for a while, it's a video site where producers can upload beats, then other users/rappers/vocalists, record a video with their lyrics on that beat, added a link to a producer I follow as well, the site might interest you a little: https://www.brapp.tv/sumgii


When it comes to producing your own beats you don't 'need' to know music theory and what chords are for what etc. If that gives your mind that feeling of safety via 'understanding' that's fair, you can learn theory of anything in life, but you're still skirting around the pool watching everyone else swim, when the only real way to learn is by jumping in and figuring it out through your own experience, creating good habits along the way so even when you aren't feeling inspired you'll stick at creating and doing what makes you happy in the long run.

It always takes practice and time like anything, and there are always multiple ways to approach things, cause you have to figure out what works best for you when creating, and trying different things out helps you figure that out. Ableton is awesome though, I and a lot of people I know use it, although I mainly use mostly samples or sometimes a keyboard if I'm messing around with ambient kinda stuff.
One friend I know mainly uses a lot of sounds from Ableton, or plugins/synths etc, so it's definitely just a process of becoming aware of how you like to do things, if it's like just on an MPC or all on a laptop or whatever, limitations in a way are valuable even if you feel they are holding you back from creativity, it pushes you to be more creative, and this a lot of the time is how people learn to find their own style by just using certain things and getting something different out of them, or using them to create something original to them. You can do a lot with a little.


You can make a lot of awesome art with the worst equipment, crappy pc's, broken mpc's etc, you don't need good brushes to paint a masterpiece, the vocals of one of my favourite uk hip-hop/rap albums out recently was recorded via usb soundcard, on an old mic with a sock for a pop filter. Obviously you might have some standards for what beats you want to rap on, and the style of the beats or who the producer is etc. However sometimes all you need is to take that step, and put yourself out there even no matter what and your intention to go on that journey to manifest the kind of future you want, that action will attract others, some people might not like it but what you think is the only important thing, believing in yourself, and taking action creating something is all that matters, and people will follow.
 
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Even if your city has no hip hop scene to speak of, it's fairly irrelevant in this day and age. Find someone to collaborate with online, get yourself a microphone and some cheap soundcard to serve as a mic pre/way to record your stuff on a computer. Learn enough of how a DAW works, so you can mix your vocals with the backing track you get from the collaborator. While getting full on professional results this way is difficult, acceptable demo quality is a fairly easy thing to achieve,

Learning how to make good beats takes a while (like years while), if your focus is on rapping and lyrics, the time you spend on beat making means less time for your main craft. IMO, getting really good at one thing is better than being mediocre at multiple tasks.
 
I agree with a lot of what has been said already. Some great options have also been put forward. Ultimately however, it will always come back to the belief you have in yourself. The way you develop that belief or confidence is by creating music, whether by using free or paid for beats then putting your work out there for others to appreciate. That feedback will then be invaluable in terms of your areas of strength and areas for development. Remember, even the greatest artists that have gone before were seldom satisfied with their levels (Miles, Prince, Sly, JB, MJ, Elvis, Marvin, Bird, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone) always striving to do more to hone their talents. The key is to get something done, then you have a starting point upon which to build. As has been said above, put your work out there then reach out to others to collaborate. It's amazing what happens where a group of creative minds get together. Finally, I'd encourage writers to write, rappers to rap, producers to produce, singers to sing, musicians to play. Master your craft whatever gift you have been blessed with. Don't end up being a master of none. Play your position and become great at that. Good luck in your journey.
 
Ive written extensively on this subject on my website.
I have a blog on relevant topics to any indie artist on this
site . Heres about 10 articles to get you started Artist Resources Archives | Dj Smuv Beats - TheMixtapeMastr

But off top , id say
#1 read - alot - voraciously - any topic is fine but consume 30,000 words a day if possible
#2 invest in an inexpensive studio
#3 identify 1-3 producers you love working with and stick to their production
#4 never spend a $ if it doesnt make sense
#5 Listen to as much music NOT IN YOUR GENRE as possible
#7 never write a curse word or waste a syllable on them in your music

thats just a few off top
 
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Just buy 5 beat leases, a mic and interface and record / mix / master at home. Best way to get the mix and master sounding On point is to do it all yourself??
 
I understand you want to do everything yourself and not deal with others,
I also see it like this, it has been done before like j. cole, Kanye, however learning how to produce
Takes an immense time and i guess u have an actual full time job etc.
This will take up every free minute of your life for the next two years,
And you still have not released a track in this time, for a Rapper this is just a dream dagger...

I was the same, i have the equipment here, and since my son was born I have no time
The stuff is just collecting dust, this is my honest advice to you, take industry known beats,
Get audacity (free) get a mic you will probly spend about 150$, and that is all you need, you dont need to make studio quality music
You need to get a buzz going, you need to make the track and think this would be so worth paying for studio time to get a high quality recording.
And if you got your shit down you shouldn't need long either so it will also be fairly cheap.

Dreams cost money thats how it is,
But just look at all these rappers they all have mixtapes where they took industry known beats and flipped the song to a whole different meaning.
Check the games first mixtapes, where he kinda sounds like biggie, they went from meh to a this guy can spit

Then deals will follow ,then when ur earning money you can spend more time on producing as its freeing up time from your day job

Eventually your gonna do exactly what you want, but its one thing at a time.
And a special tipp, if you dont want people to reconise the beats look at french german russian rappers and get their beats as instrumentals via youtube

Hope this helps :)

Peace
Blitz
 
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Find a drum machine you like and a vsti synth. use ableton or something to play those instruments. sing along. look up videos on chord progressions.
 
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Constantly growing and learning more about music while not frying your ears from jamming too loud/too long get a decibel meter or app! have fun
 
I know what you mean when it comes to wanting to MC in a place where there isnt really a scene for it.

I started off writing since i was about 12 (im 24 now) and producing never came till I was about 15 but all along the only mentor and friend I had was the internet,
I clocked hours on forums and YouTube just learning and listening to freestyles and analysing rappers and flows etc. I know it sound obvious but thats the way I done it.
Now for the fact that you are a female I dont think that is an obstacle but more of an advantage for you, yeah its true people will probably look at the fact that you are a female first before noticing
that you MC but I think these days female MC's are starting to dominate and more are becoming known and respected within the game!

Long story short, dont give up, put the time in, always know that you dont know anything and hit me up for instrumentals!
 
Depending on your computer set up i would start with fl studio. It may be looked down on but I think it's the best place to start for a music novice and some dope beats can be made using it. It has a feature i feel isn't as known as it should be but you can hum, whistle a tune into edison and then convert it to notes in the piano roll. This allows you to take the melodies in your head and easily convert them into music easily and then use with any instrument you want. Past that producing is a skill you have to do a lot to improve. Id recommend taking part in the makinghiphop sub reddit competitions like one kit challenge or flip this challenge. They are good cause you consistently get new inspiration and sounds to try create with and i'm sure there are lots others on other forums. Other trying to recreate your favourite beats to learn new things its up to you and your sound. Hope any of that helped message me if you wanna talk more about anything more depth of producing. PS just Knowing how make and use chords can get you far although more music theory isn't bad as long as you dont let it limit you :).
 
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