Tempo Basics for Hip-Hop and Rap?

[Mkvy199123]

Can someone explain the basics of hip-hop tempo? How does half time play into this? I hear people say beats are 90 bpm, so in their daw would they set the track to 180 bpm and play it in half time for more ability to create fills? Thanks

 

[mark1234]

That isn't necessary anymore these days cause you can zoom in so much in a DAW nowadays. You don't need Double-Time anymore. I think

 

[StylisshBeats]

Depends on you really, their really isn't a set tempo. For me personally, I base my BPM based on where I want the snares to sit, the build the kick and melodies around that.

 

[FoulPlay]

i dont do that double tempo stuff, i dont see the point. it does get confusing though when a track gets down to like 90bpm double tempo so its really 45bpm, but then is it really 45bpm or is it 90??? i guess it just all depends on how the instruments and drums are set up and how fast the rapper raps over it

 

[realshortorder]

It really just depends on your preference. 99% of the time I'm producing at double the desired BPM.

There is some history to the madness though.

Old school hip hop drums were usually sampled from funk tracks and played at a much lower or higher BPM. Keep in mind this was mostly done with analog equipment.

Modern trap owes a lot of its existence to FL Studio - which back in the day had a default BPM of 130. However, if you stretch the sequencer out to 8 beats and put your kick drum on the 1 and 5, your track is now 65 BPM since it is half as fast. The listener wouldn't know that you were producing at 130 unless you showed them.

The point is, the BPM you produced the beat at is irrelevant to the listener. The above example should be called 65 BPM.