Making Hip Hop Beats in FL Studio

FL Studio has been used by beat makers for a decade now, and the software is now on its 11th release. You can use FL Studio to create any type of music and even record vocals if you want. I am going to discuss the basics of FL Studio and what you can do with your new skills to make money selling beats. Producers make more money than rappers, so let's get this money!!

Learn tricks and techniques to making trap beats, r&b instrumentals and more. There are literally thousands of free video tutorials online and we will show you the best tutorials for beginners so you can start making beats on your computer today.

The basics to making beats in FL Studio...

FL Studio is a very complicated program at first, especially if you have never used this kind of software before. If you have experience making hip hop beats with other musical equipment then you shouldn't have a problem with the transition to a digital audio workstation. If you have never created a beat before then you will want to practice playing a keyboard and start watching tutorials to see how its done. There is no article or written content on the web that will help you when it comes to making music, you need to hear it and watch it in action. Below you will find 3 video tutorials that I feel are the best tutorials for beginners.

There are many free resources online for sound kits and samples so you can easily get new sounds to work with if you don't like the stock sounds that come up FL Studio. It's very easy to load in new sounds and you can find plenty of video tutorials for this on YouTube.

These are the things you will face when you first starting using FL Studio - looking up a bunch of silly things like how to import a new sound kit. Videos are crucial, however most of the videos on YouTube suck and don't do a good job at teaching us how to make beats. This is why it takes most people months to learn just the basics of how to create a beat and then most producers lose their motivation and quit. Don't be that guy, follow the FL blog RSS feed below to get the best online tutorials for both advanced and beginner level users.

After you created your first hot beat, you probably realized that it didn't sound so hot once you put it on a CD and played it in your car. This is because you didn't mix your beat correctly, so you will need to learn about the FL Studio mixer and how to mix your instrumentals to sound good in most speakers. If you fail to mix your instrumentals correctly they might sound horrible in some speakers and great in others.. instead of sounding good in all speakers.

This is what most of the advanced FL studios consists of and it requires you to have professional studio monitors. You can find decent affordable studio monitors for around $100-$200 if you look for them. Mixing instrumentals will consists of using various plugins, such as an equalizer, compressor, and other filters. Once you understand how to create a beat you can start looking up tutorials for mixing a beat.

Most people, including myself, will spend forever looking at YouTube videos when they first start making beats. This outline I'm giving you will make the process quicker, as I wasn't sure what I needed to know and when I needed to know it. Create a beat, mix it, and sell it. There are many VSTs you can download that will help you mix music, I recommend purchasing a book on mixing music to learn everything you need to know. I usually recommend videos, but there are very detailed books on mixing music out there, and some come with CDs or downloadable content that you can refer to.

Learn how to make a trap beat and watch a video that someone made of their remake to Nicki Minaj Beez In The Trap. They literally remade the entire beat in FL Studio...

Now that you know how to compose and mix a beat in FL Studio, you can begin selling your beats to hip hop artists online. Some beats are easy to sell and some aren't, after awhile you will figure out what style beats sell and you can make more of them. This is all part of creating your own sound that rappers, as rappers will want to have a distinct sound and you might find a rapper who decides he wants you to produce his whole album or mixtape.

The number one marketplace online for purchasing and selling hip hop beats is probably SoundClick.com, although there are many more. Some producers rely on social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook to market their beats to hip hop artists, and YouTube works especially well.

If things go well you should start your own website and gather the emails from your website's visitors, as these are rappers who might potentially purchase a beat in the near future.

Midi controllers are useful, as it is hard to make beats with only a computer. Having a keyboard or drumpad present can make it easier for you to come up with hot sounds. Plus, if you know how to play the keyboard you can make beats all day.. if you don't know how to play the keyboard then you can start learning so your beats will sound better...