This is the first of a collection of drum patterns that you can use to get started making beats. As part of the Drum Patterns series, we will post an audio track of a drum pattern along with and image illustrating how it is sequenced. These drum patterns are here to help influence and get you stared making a banging beat.

Here’s the first pattern:

And here is what it sounds like:

Hope you enjoy!

Rhudeisland Records now offers the stems (in addition to the mp3 file) for the beats in the Heavy Hittaz series! Now you can get that beat to fit your lyrics and talent as you should; no more being constrained to a predetermined layout.

What are stems?

All beats are made of several parts – typically the drums, the bass, and other instruments such as strings, pianos, organs, horns, etc. When you purchase a beat online all those parts are put together in one file (like an mp3 or wav file) and that makes up the beat. The stems are each individual part of that beat in a separate file such that when you play all the stems at the same time, they make up the beat.

Flexibilty

The beat in an mp3 file is laid out a certain way and that’s all you get. Stems give you the flexibility and control to allow you to determine all the different parts of the song and how they are laid out – the A, the B, the hook, the bridge, intro and outro. It gives you the power to decide what instruments play when and you can take out instruments at any point, or out the song altogether – something you cannot do when you get a single mp3. Don’t like the horns? Take them out! Love the beat but not feeling how the bridge was done – no problem, with stems you can edit it with ease and get it to your liking.

In addition, mp3s are compressed files – meaning they lose quality from the original track. Now, we offer high-quality mp3’s (320kbps – anything less is not high-quality) along with our stems (24 bit wav files) that allows you to create a clean, crisp, professional mix. After all, the goal is to get your music out there and get heard, if your music is sounding muddy or unprofessional, no one will listen.

An example of what you get

Say you had the following beat made up the the drums, bass, keys, strings, and synths:

Not too bad, but what if you waned to take out the drums right before the keys kicked in for a nice effect; no problem:

Or, let’s say you just wanted the hi-hats to play, and then the kicks to come in later, and then the snares to build up the beat:

Or maybe you want to switch it up and drop the keys, lower the strings, and really make the Caribbean steel drums stand out, and add extra kicks at the end; easy:

Instead of being constrained to just however the mp3 is laid out, you can edit it as you best see fit. This helps you as an artist create the best track possible for yourself.

So how do I edit the track?

The internet is a wonderful place and on the web you can find a number of free audio editors such as Audacity. Most macs nowadays come with GarageBand which is a phenomenal program. Check this list of free audio editors in case you already don’t have one.

Why don’t you just sell the beat?

We don’t just sell the single beat since our services are here to help you create a solid track. Well produced music is the result of the artist and producer creating a track to suit the artists’ needs. Now we would love to get in the studio with each and everyone of you, but since that is not possible, we help bridge that connection. Instead of saying “here is a beat, take it as is” we allow you the flexibility to change it up to match your lyrics or how you as an artist best see fit.

Nowadays most producers are using some sort of updated piece of technology to make their drums, whether it’s the top of the line MPC, Fruity Loops, or Logic, most producers plug in some kicks and snares and sequence their drums to create a drum track. This is great, but there’s more that can be done to give your drums a fresh feel and help ya track. One of the ways you can tighten up your drum track is by dropping the drums.

Dropping out the drums, or muting the drums helps give ya track more feel and mixes it up so it’s not the same drum loop over and over. Try using them right before the hook or bridge, or even when ya emcee spits his hottest line so it really stands out.

Here’s an example of what we are talking about…as the track plays listen to the drums, eventually they will be muted for a nice effect:

Additionally, you can just mute most of the drums except one part, say for example the kicks. Here’s an example where the snares and hi-hats are muted, leaving only the kicks:

Remember, just because you might have made a sick drum pattern, don’t short-change yourself and stop there. Add some variety and mix it up to create some nice effects. Dropping out the drums is just one of the many techniques you can do – we’ll be definately dropping more techniques in the future so stay checkin in…oh and if ya feeling the track, it’s called Street Envy and is a free download from our downloads page.

don’t forget to check out Rhudeisland Records for the hottest instrumentals that’ll get you heard!

Our first free mp3 download: Street Envy

Street Envy

note: you may have to do a right-click -> Save As…or Save Link As… in order to save the file

Don’t forget to check out Rhudeisland Records for the hottest instrumentals that’ll get you heard!

Basslines are just as important to music production as the drums are. They serve to complement the drums and fill out the lower end of the frequency range. Basically, they provide the *thump* in your tracks, they’re the *boom* in the jeeps with the boomin’ system, they’re the part of the track that makes the car shake as you roll leanin’ to the side.

In this post we’ll show you: 1) How effective bass lines can have and the impact they have on a track, and 2) how to create a simple bassline.

To begin with, let’s listen to a drum pattern with no bass:

Not too bad, but we’re going to add some flavor by adding the following bass notes:

So when we out it together, this is what we get:

sounding better already, right?

All that was done was the bass notes were played the same time as the kick to help accentuate that part of the track. It was one bass not we used, but you can vary the notes to get different effects. Here an example where, instead of playing the same bass note, different bass notes are played:

As you can see it gives the track a different feel. The bass notes played are part of the same chord and are played in the same scale. Chords and scales is a whole ‘nother topic and we’ll definitely get to that is later posts. The point is you can play different notes if you like to get a different feel for the track you are producing.

So far we just looked as simple bass notes that are layered on the drums, but we can play longer notes too and have a whole bass line. I also added a couple extra notes here. Check it out:

In addition, you can keep adding and make a whole bass riff. The more you add the more the bass will line will stand out. Check it out:

The images below are snapshots of drum patterns sequenced in IDrum.  Copy the same patterns in your program to get the same beats:

The One Two Drum Pattern

This is the basic, kick-hat-snare-kick-hat-snare.  Of course in this example there are hats that play at the same time as the kicks and snares.  You can simplify it and only have the hats in between the kick and the snare.  Mix it up and try different variations.

The Double Kick

This is the same as the One Two only a second kick is added.  The Double Kick typically gives a more aggressive feel to the beat.

The Double Kick Offset

Similar to the Double Kick, except the third kick is offset just prior to where it would be in the Double Kick.  Still gives the aggressive feel of the Double Kick, but mixes it up a bit to add some flavor.

The 2-3 Kick

This is similar to the Double Kick but adds another kick right before the third kick.  Again, adds more to the beat and can be used in a variety of tracks.  A key point here is you usually want that extra kick to play a little softer than the other kicks.  This gets to the the human feel of drums which we’ll cover in another post.

Rhudeisland Records Logo

Whatup Hip Hop?

The Rhudeisland Records Blog is here kid.  There’s much work to be done, much to be said, but yo let’s set it off with the essence of the hip hop sound: drums!

Here’s four classic drum patterns found all throughout Hip Hop.

The One Two

The Double Kick

The Double Kick Offset

The 2-3 Kick

This just a lil sumthing to get it started, we just warming up….