notice/intro: this post is not technical. it will not teach you anything. but i bet you wonder sometimes... "am i talented enough? do i have what it take to be a big producer?"
We all try out best to get success, be it making a living from music, getting rich from it or being famous. and we all wonder what makes successful producers successful, and will we ever get there.
Well, i have been successful (depends on how you define success), and i have know a lot of successful producers, some of them personally, some of them just by following their work and interviews in the past 10 years. i also got to know a lot of people before they became successful, a lot of them were friends, which i shared a lot of thoughts, fears and theories with.
these are things i believe makes a producer or a beatmaker destined to success.
Most of them are related to talent, so you can't really put your finger down or tell if you have it or not.
That means if suck, you can still lie to yourself and keep living a lie, until you find out the hard way that you suck.
If you have the ability 2 b honest with yourself, and you don't have at least
half of these, this might be a good time to quit. stop reading this blog and go look for another hobby.
1. rhythm/timing/musical ear.
i ain't gonna explain, if you don't have that go find something better to do.
2. Groove. what's groove? ok, when you clap your hands to the beat, or sing, ot play any instrument, your body is trying to repeat a movement very precisely. but since we are not computers the time between each clap or note we play is not exact. we can't clap every 2.2 seconds exactly, it would always miss the beat by a 0.0026 seconds or something like that...
Now, i believe that every person has a unique signature of his "soul" or whatever, that make him miss the beat in a different way, a different amount of time, and that's groove.
when two people tap the same beat on a drum machine, or play the same notes/riff on a piano, the result will FEEL different. one will make a neck break, an ass move, and one will... not.
The catch - I know people who program drums on a computer. totally quantized. and some of them have kind of a groove, which others, using the same machine and the same samples, can't achieve.
So you either have it or you don't.
the only way to know, is when your shit is playing in a car or in the club. if the girls are moving to it, that's good (most of the time). if they leave the floor, that might be a reason.
3. Hype. look at pharrell Williams. i don't know if he's just that cool, or if he has a really good management team. enough said.
4. Patience. let me tell you something. they say pharrell Williams, dr. dre, timbo, all get something like $100-200K for a beat. even if they only get 1/4 of that, that's a lot of money for a beat you sometime make in ten minutes.
Why do they get so much money?
because they are famous and their name is a trademark, a brand.
Well. why is that?
I'll tell you right now - because they don't fail.
when you pay whatever you pay pharrell, 95% of the time, you will get a hot banging beat.
you will get a professional beat, guaranteed to be a hit, if you just market it right (and make a good song out of it).
and people are willing to pay such amounts, because they don't wanna take a chance, and they know that pharrell or timbaland or whoever they pay never made a bad beat.
yes, they had some beats better than other. but a really bad beat? that's hard to find if you take close look at these guys' history.
my tip: don't be greedy. don't release beats that are not perfect. and don't release beats before you are sure you are making professional sounding beats (and this might take a year or two since you start). don't be tempted by money, or by thinking you might get more clients if you give a free beat. Bad beats don't open doors. they close them.
imagine your sucky beat spread on the Internet, then people who hear it might not want to work with you, and not even give you the chance to explain. even when you are better, they might not know that what they are listening to is an old beat you made before you got better.
5. Persistence. this is probably the most important. i know talentless people who just did it long enough. suck enough di*ks, lick enough ass, sell enough shitty beats for $1.99, have enough friends who made it, or just keep trying until you get lucky.
I do not believe in luck, i believe in hard work, and having a plan. So don't wait for stuff to happen. do stuff yourself. no one will hear your beat, unless you make them, and if they do they won't recognize its your beat and that you are talented unless you make them understand. market your self (and go back to 3 - hype).
6. Pop education. if you listen only to rap music, i don't know what to say to you. you are not a musician. a real musician is made of 99% influence, and 1% of talent. 5% if you are really genius. Listen to popular music - rock, folk, hip hop, r&b, electronic, house... learn to appreciate the beatles, britney spears, puff daddy, linkin park, miles davis, aerosmith.... learn how to use chords, learn about songwriting, structure, arrangements, hooks and verses. educate yourself. it's free, you have tons of shit on the net (here is a good start), and all you really need is top just listen to loads of music, as much as you can. try to analyze what makes a song great, what makes a hit. what makes it funky or energetic, or sticky or memorable. or what makes it bad.
Stuff that might help, although not really necessary:
Creativity. that's when other beatmakers AND people on the streets say "wow i never heard something like that before".
Character. think timbaland. pharrell. you know their beats the second you heard it the first time.
Sound. make sure your beats get mixed and mastered well (what's that?)
When mixed bad or mastered bad, it might even fuck up your groove.
thump, sub bass, punch, are all affected by the way the song is mixed and mastered, and they all have to do with groove.
To be continued....
We all try out best to get success, be it making a living from music, getting rich from it or being famous. and we all wonder what makes successful producers successful, and will we ever get there.
Well, i have been successful (depends on how you define success), and i have know a lot of successful producers, some of them personally, some of them just by following their work and interviews in the past 10 years. i also got to know a lot of people before they became successful, a lot of them were friends, which i shared a lot of thoughts, fears and theories with.
these are things i believe makes a producer or a beatmaker destined to success.
Most of them are related to talent, so you can't really put your finger down or tell if you have it or not.
That means if suck, you can still lie to yourself and keep living a lie, until you find out the hard way that you suck.
If you have the ability 2 b honest with yourself, and you don't have at least
half of these, this might be a good time to quit. stop reading this blog and go look for another hobby.
1. rhythm/timing/musical ear.
i ain't gonna explain, if you don't have that go find something better to do.
2. Groove. what's groove? ok, when you clap your hands to the beat, or sing, ot play any instrument, your body is trying to repeat a movement very precisely. but since we are not computers the time between each clap or note we play is not exact. we can't clap every 2.2 seconds exactly, it would always miss the beat by a 0.0026 seconds or something like that...
Now, i believe that every person has a unique signature of his "soul" or whatever, that make him miss the beat in a different way, a different amount of time, and that's groove.
when two people tap the same beat on a drum machine, or play the same notes/riff on a piano, the result will FEEL different. one will make a neck break, an ass move, and one will... not.
The catch - I know people who program drums on a computer. totally quantized. and some of them have kind of a groove, which others, using the same machine and the same samples, can't achieve.
So you either have it or you don't.
the only way to know, is when your shit is playing in a car or in the club. if the girls are moving to it, that's good (most of the time). if they leave the floor, that might be a reason.
3. Hype. look at pharrell Williams. i don't know if he's just that cool, or if he has a really good management team. enough said.
4. Patience. let me tell you something. they say pharrell Williams, dr. dre, timbo, all get something like $100-200K for a beat. even if they only get 1/4 of that, that's a lot of money for a beat you sometime make in ten minutes.
Why do they get so much money?
because they are famous and their name is a trademark, a brand.
Well. why is that?
I'll tell you right now - because they don't fail.
when you pay whatever you pay pharrell, 95% of the time, you will get a hot banging beat.
you will get a professional beat, guaranteed to be a hit, if you just market it right (and make a good song out of it).
and people are willing to pay such amounts, because they don't wanna take a chance, and they know that pharrell or timbaland or whoever they pay never made a bad beat.
yes, they had some beats better than other. but a really bad beat? that's hard to find if you take close look at these guys' history.
my tip: don't be greedy. don't release beats that are not perfect. and don't release beats before you are sure you are making professional sounding beats (and this might take a year or two since you start). don't be tempted by money, or by thinking you might get more clients if you give a free beat. Bad beats don't open doors. they close them.
imagine your sucky beat spread on the Internet, then people who hear it might not want to work with you, and not even give you the chance to explain. even when you are better, they might not know that what they are listening to is an old beat you made before you got better.
5. Persistence. this is probably the most important. i know talentless people who just did it long enough. suck enough di*ks, lick enough ass, sell enough shitty beats for $1.99, have enough friends who made it, or just keep trying until you get lucky.
I do not believe in luck, i believe in hard work, and having a plan. So don't wait for stuff to happen. do stuff yourself. no one will hear your beat, unless you make them, and if they do they won't recognize its your beat and that you are talented unless you make them understand. market your self (and go back to 3 - hype).
6. Pop education. if you listen only to rap music, i don't know what to say to you. you are not a musician. a real musician is made of 99% influence, and 1% of talent. 5% if you are really genius. Listen to popular music - rock, folk, hip hop, r&b, electronic, house... learn to appreciate the beatles, britney spears, puff daddy, linkin park, miles davis, aerosmith.... learn how to use chords, learn about songwriting, structure, arrangements, hooks and verses. educate yourself. it's free, you have tons of shit on the net (here is a good start), and all you really need is top just listen to loads of music, as much as you can. try to analyze what makes a song great, what makes a hit. what makes it funky or energetic, or sticky or memorable. or what makes it bad.
Stuff that might help, although not really necessary:
Creativity. that's when other beatmakers AND people on the streets say "wow i never heard something like that before".
Character. think timbaland. pharrell. you know their beats the second you heard it the first time.
Sound. make sure your beats get mixed and mastered well (what's that?)
When mixed bad or mastered bad, it might even fuck up your groove.
thump, sub bass, punch, are all affected by the way the song is mixed and mastered, and they all have to do with groove.
To be continued....
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