How To Produce Your Best Beats

12 Tips To Increase Beat Making Productivity

Are you stuck in a rut with your beat making? Have you hit a creative roadblock? Or is it taking way too long and way too many attempts to make a decent sounding beat? Do you love making beats but sometimes dread technical hurdles and a faulty set up? The days of excuses and complaints are over because I have 12 tips to help you put your beat making troubles behind you.

1. Create A Beat Making Template – This is number one on the list for a reason. You don’t want to kill your creative mojo while setting up, or searching for the perfect instrument to use. Most programs give you the ability to save a custom template, some have premade ones for certain workflows. Use one and take note of the number of tracks you typically use, your go to instruments and fx as well as your favorite drums. My personal beat making template for Pro Tools has a few stereo audio tracks with time stretching enabled and set to polyphonic so when tracks are imported and dragged onto it, it automatically processes it for time stretching without affecting its pitch. Below these tracks I have several mono audio tracks for drums. Each track is already labeled (kick, subkick, snare, snare 2, hi hat 1 hi hat 2, toms, perc, etc.). All the drum tracks are routed to a bus for a drum submix. Every single track also has its sends activated for several buses (reverb, delay, delay 2). And every bus output is then routed to a master aux bus. All of this is designed to help me hit the ground running. (include picture of Pro tools screenshot)
2. Save Presets – If you have been making beats for a while you already know that you are going to eq that bass, or but a lo pass filter on a sample, or compress a kick. You might as well save those presets on the plugins themselves to help you get the right sound quicker. It may not sound perfect right away but you will have an adequate starting point. For example on a Waves REQ6 and the stock EQ7 I have presets for Vocal EQ, Lo pass, Hi pass, telephone effect, and a master eq for the overall mix. Saving presets is especially useful for trying to define “your” sound. If you find a cool setting on a tape saturator or filter effect save a preset to use on your other beats.
3. Create Drum Library of Your Favorite Sounds – why spend time trying to get your drums to hit harder when you can just start off with a great kit. Make it a point to always dig for one-shots (individual drum hits) and saving them in a folder. As you gain more experience you will notice some drums hit harder in certain beats in your catalog. Go ahead and export individual sounds from you best sessions. It will save you the trouble of having to recreate the fx rack in a new session (even if you have presets saved).
4. Make Finishing Beats a Habit – an unfinished beat is like that sink full of dirty dishes, that 10 page term paper that’s approaching the deadline, that back ache that you’ve been meaning to get checked out. Unfinished work will end up becoming a hurdle to overcome in the back of your mind making it difficult to get subsequent tasks done. For me, this behavior perpetuates a vicious cycle of procrastination. Just get it done, even if it’s whack. If you are not feeling the sample, set the sample aside and load up a new one. Do whatever you can to crank out a beat with an intro, verse, and hook section, have it repeat two or three times and export it for listening. Maybe you will end up liking it after listening to it in another environment or maybe you will realize what you need to change later on. When you do go back to it, it will be pretty close to being complete once you make necessary changes. Your mind must have the psychological victory of completing something. Challenge yourself to develop this habit by working to get to the finish line every instance you get seat time.
5. Get To An Elevated Mindstate: No, it is not time to spark up. I am not referring to the delights of rolling up fine herbs in a swisher sweet. Although, it can provide mental enhancement and expanded creativity in certain circumstances. This was an hourly occurence when I was working full time in a recording studio for four years. Actually, it was more like every 15 minutes with multiple fatties being passed around. But there is something to the altered mind state it provides. Drugs and alcohol cause us to lose our inhibitions therefore, placing us in a mindset where we are free to be creative. What I am suggesting is a sober alternative to gain that highly coveted elevated mindstate: meditation. There are many books on the topic out there that can help you access the inner workings of the mind. But if this is new to you, all I  recommend is sitting in your studio/lab/creative space in silence with your eyes closed for 15 to 20 minutes. Don’t lie down or rest your head because you will end up sleeping. Try concentrating on just your breathing, and then just the sounds your hear (or lack of sounds), and then attempt to focus on your reason for making music or what makes you happy blocking out any negative thoughts and doubts. Once you develop this habit you should be able to go into a production session with a clear mind and positive vibes. If you get more advanced, you may be able to access your creative subconscious. Trust me, it’s a good feeling when you feel like music and ideas are flowing through you rather than forcing yourself to make something that you think people might like. Another purpose for meditation is to train your mind to be able to maintain focus and concentration. Which is especially useful with so many distractions out there in the world.Speaking of distractions…
6. Turn Off the Internet, Phone, and TV. There will be moments when you either hit a creative roadblock or experience a technical issue. Rather than work through it our minds begin to resist and procrastinate. Temptation is irresistible at this point and the internet provides relief in the forms of pornography, viral videos, new music on Spotify, and even articles like the one you are reading right now. Even self help videos and books, online classes and tutorials can deceptively be a form of procrastination. You trick yourself in thinking that you are being productive when you are actually avoiding what you really need to be doing, making beats. I fall into this trap quite often. How many books do I need to read about setting goals? At some point they are all going to have a common theme: take action! So do yourself a favor and turn off the wifi on the laptop, put the phone on silent, and tackle that problem that you are afraid to fix.
7. Design Your Workflow & Simplify Your Setup. When you make a beat, what do you start with? Do you work on the drums first? Or do you cut up a sample to get the project started? Work with the easy parts first. The key is consistency. In basketball, players rarely jump into a game without warming up first. You start off with a few layups and as your heat up, you begin to shoot farther and farther away from the basket. In my approach I tell myself I just need to make two different loops, one for the verse and one for the hook. If I can accomplish that, all of the other parts will be much easier. As for my home studio setup, I just have the bare minimum that I need for my workflow. The aforementioned beat making template takes care of everything I need for the session and my gear supports it. My home studio consists of an audio interface with outputs connected to studio monitors and a mono reference speaker, a turntable and a sm57 mic connected to the inputs, and all of my backup hard drives and flash drives already plugged in. I used to fall into the trap of thinking that I can start making better beats when I get (fill in the blank) piece of gear. I wouldn’t start until I got it, and when I did, I was spending time figuring out how to integrate it into my beat production. Instead of trying to master it, I would either get bored of it or continue the cycle of clamoring for the next piece of gear that was popular or new. We live in a society where products are constantly marketed to us and we are targeted with pinpoint precision. It is important to maintain a glass half full mindset. Rather than focus on what you don’t have, recognize what you already have and all of the potential you possess with what is already there. The opposite frame of mind will just delay progress and possibly bury you in debt (like me).
8. Schedule an “Experimental” Session. Set aside separate time to experiment with sounds, techniques, and plugins. This can take up alot of valuable beat production time and you might end up mind fucking yourself into hating everything you are producing in the session. Remember the concept of saving presets and designing your template. This is a great time to find out what FX and techniques you like. When its production time, it’s as easy as switching on a plugin and making a quick decision. To increase productivity you must develop a habit of making timely decisions. Save the knob twisting and turning for your experimental session. Such sessions are perfect for implementing that new technique you just learned from youtube.
9. Practice and Memorize Relevant Keyboard Shortcuts. Pro Tools is my weapon of choice because of the amount of editing control I have over the sounds. Yes, I can achieve similar objectives with other programs, midi controllers, and hardware but I don’t have all that. Don’t need it either. Knowing the ins and outs as well as keyboard shortcuts allows me to make quicker decisions. In PT there are at least 5 ways to complete a task. The first two are using your mouse and the other is using the menu bar. Using only these two methods would be like watching paint dry. For example There are multiple ways to copy a loop: cmd + D, option + drag, C then V, cmd C then cmd, F6 toggle to loop function then click and drag. The method you use will depend on your objective. The Avid Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcut guide is a whopping 75 pages long! Do I know all of the shortcuts? Absolutely not, I have tried nearly all of them and have recognized the ones that are useful for what I need to accomplish. With practice, you can operate the keyboard like a piano player. I highly recommend using a keyboard with a 10-key number pad. Consider this one of your most important pieces of outboard gear.
10. Define Your Sound/Brand. Know yourself and your intended audience. Developing an elevator pitch of what your style is and why it’s good will give you a starting point and an overarching goal to achieve. When you have direction, staring at a blank canvas seems less daunting. One of the biggest mistakes I have made is trying to be something I am not. I went through a phase where I wanted to stop sampling and play all the sounds myself. I got down on myself because it wasn’t working out and I was better off sticking to my strengths. In my post on how to become a unique producer, I highlight 8 questions you should ask your self when figuring out your signature sound. When designing for his brand Off-White Virgil Abloh refers to defining his own “personal design language” and using it as a sort of cheat sheet for creating all of his work.  
11. Perform In Front Of An Audience. If you really want to get the creative juices going and you are feeling bold, try making beats in front of a bunch of people. Once I felt comfortable with my sound and workflow, I began booking custom beat making sessions for clients. The pressure of paying customers breathing down my neck helped me produce with satisfying results. But what happens if you have creative block? Truth be told, I have never had a client beat making session not go as planned. I have actually had more success in making beats on the spot verses playing a list of beats and hoping the clients purchase something. I most likely got a confidence boost from the client’s belief that I can actually produce something to their liking. The fact that I was already getting paid was a motivating factor as well. From these sessions, I found that creativity compounds when working in a collaborative atmosphere. The artists would recommend songs to sample or they would describe the type of beats they desire. This removes much of the guesswork in laboring towards a finished product. The same is true with collaborating with other beat makers as well.
12. Time Pressure and Accountability. Another trick which is similar to performing in front of people is producing under a deadline. I don’t mean just setting a date that you want to finish a track nor do I mean promising a friend you’ll show them a new beat tomorrow. I am referring to stepping out of your comfort zone to get your adrenaline going. This can be in the form of joining a competition with a large crowd or announcing on social media that you will be dropping a new project on a certain date. I used to enter beat battles in the Bay Area (competitions where producers go head to head and play beats off of a cd in front of an audience who picks the winner in a beat producer tournament). One organizer of such events, fellow producer Phillip Drummond, gave competitors songs to sample a couple weeks in advance. The “sample challenge” challenge typically had a them such as The Beatles, Rock n Roll, Reggae, etc. From my point of view, this was a great way gauge my skill level against other producers and the challenge helped me develop new techniques. However, even with plenty of time to experiment and produce the ultimate beats, I still procrastinated as if the task was like a 20 page research paper for Sociology 103b at UC Santa Cruz all over again. The anxiety would go on until 24 hours prior to the event. Just like my college student days, I declared to pull an all-nighter and just like my college days I loaded up on Red Bull and got nothing done until the sun came up. Then finally the reality of the situation hit me and I would begin producing after lunch and completing the assignment with a couple hours to spare. I ended up winning 2 out of the 4 of the sample challenge events I entered (I lost one because I forgot to produce 1 of the 4 tracks I was supposed to make). I do not recommend procrastinating but I learned that time pressure can be a valuable motivator when used appropriately.  

What are some other methods to increase productivity? Try these 12 tips and enjoy the process.