Keyboard use for making beats

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Spike1

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I am in the process of taking piano lessons and was wanting to know how much knowledge of the piano/keyboard would I need in order to make beats? What is the best way to proceed?
 
if you want to make beats, i would suggest drums instead of piano.
 
i think piano would be an excellent instrument to learn no matter what style music you play. you will learn music theory, sight reading, song structure, timing, develope your ears, develope technique on the keyboard, and learn rhythm, bass, and lead. percussion would come pretty easy with all that stuff under your belt.

if i were you, i'd stick with piano even after you start learning other instruments.
 
Though i do use my keyboard for controlling beat samples on my computer, i dont use piano techniques for this at all. But maybe i mistunderstood your question :D

Anyway, learn to play piano - i completely agree with TravisinFlorida.

Carsten
 
xistenz said:
if you want to make beats, i would suggest drums instead of piano.
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I disagree 100%...making beats especially hip hop doesnt require alot of variations like other genres....Piano is probably best..but doesnt mean after you take years of piano that you are gonna be able to make a hot beat.I know two producers who are friends of mine and they have no musical background...and have gold singles and a platinum plaque..for hip hop and R&B...and I consider alot of there beats more musical..especially whith some of the simple style beats today....I once stated to him that I might take lessons.to help in making beats(I make em as a hobby)he said alot of keyboard players he ran into in the studios couldnt make a beat...I witnessed first hand a guy was playing the motif..playing stevie wonder songs,boys to men etc and I was like damn hes hot...but he could only recite songs....creating is a whole other thought process
 
50cal said:
I disagree 100%...making beats especially hip hop doesnt require alot of variations like other genres....Piano is probably best..but doesnt mean after you take years of piano that you are gonna be able to make a hot beat.I know two producers who are friends of mine and they have no musical background...and have gold singles and a platinum plaque..for hip hop and R&B...and I consider alot of there beats more musical..especially whith some of the simple style beats today....I once stated to him that I might take lessons.to help in making beats(I make em as a hobby)he said alot of keyboard players he ran into in the studios couldnt make a beat...I witnessed first hand a guy was playing the motif..playing stevie wonder songs,boys to men etc and I was like damn hes hot...but he could only recite songs....creating is a whole other thought process
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?????

you want to make great beats: learn drums.

you want to make OK beats: learn piano.

i started playing piano when i was 6, yes i learned all about theory, sight reading and all that jazz. then i started playing drums when i was 11, and i was completely lost. 5 years of piano has little effect on one's ability to create drum parts.

my $.02
 
I started with piano. I got the theory down first and then the drums were easy. All i did was try to copy what i heard. I'm not saying piano or drums are the best way to start. It depends on the person. If you would like to make beats and you are learning piano, try to pick up on the melody of some mainstream beats and remake the beat. You might wanna do this with some of the older 90's and earlier mainstream beats because i don't know how they are getting away with what they are doing now.
 
drum lessons to make beats this is new to me...every beatmaker i know never took a lesson at all....You can take all the drum lessons and piano lessons...doesnt mean you gonna create good music....Its with in each indidvidual....some have it..some dont...now if its in you..sure lessons wil help...but be honest with yourself..is it really with in you?Most people who make beats have an ear....drums in hip hop and R&B are not hard...unless you wanna play and record live drums...If you have an mpc I feel drum lessons aint gonna help...unless you are a rythmless individual..lets face it some people cant even clap on beat...or dance on beat..The drums are the easiest part of making a hip hop and R&B.....It does take a bit of effort of getting the right drum sounds...I think that the biggest challenge is getting all the instruments you use to sound good together....
 
What do you mean 'make beats'??

Play individual hits using the keyboard connected to a synth? Programme drum patterns using a keyboard? Create single drum sounds from scratch? Use the keyboard to trigger drum loops?

You wouldn't need piano lessons to do any of those.
 
50cal said:
drum lessons to make beats this is new to me...
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i know right, what a crazy assertion, that someone interested in "making beats" should learn to play drums. :eek:

there's so much more to drumming than most realize. understanding the mechanics of playing drums helps to create realistic beats. at the same time, knowing the "rules" of drumming allows you to intelligently/creatively break them. saying that learning drums is not the best way to learn how to "make beats" is like saying that learning how to drive a car is the best way to learn how to ride a motorcycle.

but if you only want to make uninspired, repetative beats with zero flavor, piano is the instrument for you!
 
xistenz said:
i know right, what a crazy assertion, that someone interested in "making beats" should learn to play drums. :eek:

there's so much more to drumming than most realize. understanding the mechanics of playing drums helps to create realistic beats. at the same time, knowing the "rules" of drumming allows you to intelligently/creatively break them. saying that learning drums is not the best way to learn how to "make beats" is like saying that learning how to drive a car is the best way to learn how to ride a motorcycle.

but if you only want to make uninspired, repetative beats with zero flavor, piano is the instrument for you!
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from the "beats" that i've heard, there's alot more going on than just drums. learning drums would surely help but that's a small part of the equation. i don't "make beats" but i've played around with it. alot of people think that if you can program a drum machine, you're good to go. i definately hear talent in alot of beats and i'd bet that very few of the guys writing them are drummers.
 
again drum patterns are not difficult in making beats....I guess Ill tell battlecat next time i see him he shouldve takien drum lessons,My boy raw steel..Touch tone...Chill from Comptons most wanted..I dont personally know quik...but ill ask Domino next time he calls if quik took lessons....oh yeah domino mr ghetto jam...he didnt take drum lessons.Its funny cause I dont know anyone personally who took drum lessons who make beats.Let me..just for a minute say you are right.Listen to the majority of hip hop songs....most are typical 16 bar verse..8 bar chorus....and repeat .you will hear alot of the same drums patterns from song to song....listen to even older songs in hip hop to today...alot are the same patterns.Its funny also cause I see on forums where people are wondering how to get good drum sounds..and i hear all this....well sample through an old analog tape deck add compression...eq it through a mixer resample it in mpc and then eq and compress on final mix....its weird cause the ones i know makin beats..majority of there sounds come from sampling from vinyl straight into there mpc..here is a sample my boys more recent beat... its called COMPTONS BACC

http://www.audiostreet.net/artist.aspx?artistid=34006

also check this myspace of an artist that was working with dj quik called amir..his myspace has dj quik and erik sermon,and my boy touch did the song called...the game is changing

http://www.myspace.com/amirdfr

these two producers make good beats...no lessons..just have a good ear...no complex sampling techniques for there drum sounds..
 
50cal said:
a..majority of there sounds come from sampling from vinyl straight into there mpc..
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oh, well if your idea of "making beats" is "rip them off from someone else", then by all means, learn piano :p. 'course, that doesn't help you use an mpc either :D

guess i just have a different idea of what "making beats" means than the hip-hop crowd.
 
50cal said:
Its funny cause I dont know anyone personally who took drum lessons who make beats.
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EVERYBODY needs lessons.

Nobody was born with the knowledge of how to 'make beats'.

Unfortunately, most of what 50cal is saying is true because hip hop and rap haven't been around long enough to have any real teachers --- those who are willing to share useful knowledge without feeling that they're compromising or ignoring their own music. You can learn basic drum theory - what drums make what noise and where they go in an arrangement - but that only goes so far in the hip hop world.

At one time, hip hop was a vital and progressive genre. Now it is a closed shop with strict rules and if Public Enemy was to come out with 'It Takes a Nation of Millions' today it would meet with a whole bunch of people saying that it just wasn't hip hop and would go nowhere.

You, 50cal, and you, Spike1 pretty much need to be your own teacher when it comes to 'making beats'. You need to design the curriculum --- meaning selecting beats that sound good to you and picking them apart to see what makes you like them.

Then equip yourself with the tools to try it yourself. Fruity Loops is a good start, but Reason is even better as a beat making program.

As your input device a keyboard is good but an MPC style midi drum pad that you play with your fingers, in my humble opinion, is better.


.
 
SSCIENTIST..I have an mpc3000,a motif rack and a roland jp8000



Originally Posted by 50cal
a..majority of there sounds come from sampling from vinyl straight into there mpc..

XISTENZ YOU SAID...

oh, well if your idea of "making beats" is "rip them off from someone else", then by all means, learn piano . 'course, that doesn't help you use an mpc either
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Unless you Mic up a drum yourself and record then you will be using a sampled drum sound...whether you sample a drum from vinyl or use drum sounds from a sound module like triton/motif/fantom..they are all samples....and true taking piano lessons wont help you use an mpc...or any sequencer/sampler/drum machine.....but if you cant learn how to use an mpc..then you have problems anyways..cause an mpc is extremely easy..especially the older models.

XISTENZ YOU STRESSED

guess i just have a different idea of what "making beats" means than the hip-hop crowd.
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Aint nothing written in stone,but what is your idea or way of thinking when it comes to making beats?There is no right or wrong answer...whatever works for you....Im just enlightening those with information Ive gotten from my friends..and trying to spread the knowledge....So who ever reads this they can do there own thing..maybe take what i said with grain salt....I mean this knowledge is based on experiences from beatmakers who have platinum plaques....scored movie soundtracks...songs in movies etc....In case there was any misunderstanding..I never said piano lessons was gonna make you a better beat maker...however if i was to take lessons it would be piano....

For those who are scratching there head at what im refering to as a beat maker..i use this term because in hip hop and R&B the title producer is used losely to someone who makes the instrumental/beat...so if i said producer...It would be even more confusing because most beatmakers know of nothing when it comes to being a producer...although some would say otherwise...
 
50cal said:
Unless you Mic up a drum yourself and record then you will be using a sampled drum sound...
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i'm not talking about drum sounds, i'm talking about beats. of course, we all use individual drum samples to make beats. but what you're talking about is sampling entire loops from other sources. i've got nothing against that, but it's not "making beats" it's "sampling", the guy playing the drums on the record is the one making the beats.

50cal said:
XISTENZ YOU STRESSED
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no man, not really. just that being a musician for most of my life, and producing my own electonica for ten years, i don't see how anyone can say that learning drums is not the right direction to go if you want to "make beats". i don't care how many gold or platinum records you've seen on other people's walls, learning to play the drums will make you a better beat maker.

i think what i'm calling a "beat" is not what the rest of you are calling a "beat". my beats are only drums, sounds to me like you guys are calling everything but the vocals in a rap song, the beat.
 
xistenz said:
i'm not talking about drum sounds, i'm talking about beats. of course, we all use individual drum samples to make beats. but what you're talking about is sampling entire loops from other sources. i've got nothing against that, but it's not "making beats" it's "sampling", the guy playing the drums on the record is the one making the beats.



no man, not really. just that being a musician for most of my life, and producing my own electonica for ten years, i don't see how anyone can say that learning drums is not the right direction to go if you want to "make beats". i don't care how many gold or platinum records you've seen on other people's walls, learning to play the drums will make you a better beat maker.

i think what i'm calling a "beat" is not what the rest of you are calling a "beat". my beats are only drums, sounds to me like you guys are calling everything but the vocals in a rap song, the beat.
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yes, them hip-hopper's call there thingy ma jigs "beats". that would include the drums, bass, pads, synth lines, instrument samples, etc. that's what i was originally trying to get across. arranging all that stuff requires a good ear and sense of style and i think piano would help in developing that.
 
XISTENZ...when I said
a..majority of there sounds come from sampling from vinyl straight into there mpc..
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when refering to sounds..I meant simple drum sounds...like a hi hat..a kick...I wasnt refering to sampling a loop....

then you said

think what i'm calling a "beat" is not what the rest of you are calling a "beat". my beats are only drums, sounds to me like you guys are calling everything but the vocals in a rap song, the beat
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true...In united states when someone refers to a making beats they are refering to making an instrumental...drums and keys,and pads,strings/synth...

with all that being said common sense woulkd tell you that if what you are trying to make is drum patterns..go ahead and take drum lessons...but if you trying to make beats....piano.would be the route to go


SPIKE1...you started this thread and bounced?...where ya at?...what were you refering to when you made this post?
 
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