How do you give your beats that little something?

Liontari

New member
So I'm a musician for a quite a while now, the harmonies and melodies ist not troubling me. But what I do have a problem with is figuring out what elements are missing in my beats. Most of the times I feel like they miss that little cherry on top, to be real good. I do changes in the patterns (I use Fl Studio Producer) and rises and breaks. But I'm not too familiar with the characteristics of most of the genres. And because of that I sometimes get a beat, that is fully in a genre, with a sound that's completely out of place. But I don't notice that until other mention it. I try to listen to more hip hop, to get a feeling for the genres. But do you know a method to find out what's missing in your beat? Might it be an instrument? An effect? Some small little details, background noise or ambience? For example I have this West coast beat right now and I really feel stuck on it. I'm quite happy with the general idea, but it's still missing something to become a full track. Is it an instrument? Is it somebody mumbling in the background? Ambience? Dj scratch? I don't know.

I am open on any advice on how to find out in general what's missing on a beat, to become professional and alive. On how to arrange your beat in a way that makes it alive and exciting. Or on my beat directly. I will try to post a link to a small excerpt of my beat, not mixed and everything.
 
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Thank you for your reply. It may sound fine, but it's not on a professional level I think. I made some improvements now and finished it. I feel like I found what was missing. I added some shouts in the background, more breaks and drum variation, a thicker layered bass and a hook in the middle.

soundcloud.
com/user-405796566/fresh-gangsta-west-coast-beat
 
I think it sounds pretty good actually. I still have to agree with you though, it's not 100% perfect in terms of the sound design, but then again nothing ever really is. I thought the bass and drums were the biggest things to keep tweaking. I'd try finding a different bass patch and swapping out the snare drum sound as well. I'd also keep away from the cymbals a little more (not the hats, the crash and ride) and maybe just use the crash 1-3 times throughout the entire piece and cut out any of the rest. You might be surprised at how difficult it is to get the sound design of your drums perfect. Little things like the general tone, ambiance (or lack of), grit v. clean sound, etc. are really what set apart the professional beatmakers from the rest of us. It's just something you gotta keep working on and trying to develop a critical ear for.
 
-->The Funk Junkie

Thanks for your advice, it's really helping! Are you referring to my finished version or the first version i posted?
 
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