Hip Hop Song Structure: Arranging a Track in FL Studio

1. Introduction: What music means to me is expression. Everybody has their own rhythm. There's a certain level of expression that everybody has. If you're constantly keeping everything in, you're probably sheltering that same very thing that could help inspire others in the world and that's exciting. My name is Isaac Duarte. I'm a music producer from Chicago and I also create content that you've probably seen all over YouTube, mix tapes, video game soundtracks. I'm all over the web. I'm very excited to teach arrangement because this gives you a lot more freedom to express your music. I know you have a lot of ideas and you have a lot of things that would sound incredible altogether. But if you want them to be as effective, they have to have their own time and their own space to shine. So that's where arrangement comes in. You're going to watch me break down the arrangement of this beat, and I'm going to give you a couple tips, as well as a couple golden rules that you can apply to your own production, so that way you get a better understanding of arrangement. I'm also going to provide a template for you that gives you a guideline and it shows you visually song structures of different songs. By the end of this class, you're going to learn what arrangement is, as well as an overview of how I approach arrangement. So I'm excited you've joined this class. Let's get started. 2. Getting Started: When you watch a horror movie, something jumps out and it scares you. There's music in the background that pops out. It's very emotion-driven. Just like that concept there, we're going to apply that to music with arrangement. You have all these musical ideas that have their own time to shine. They can't all be together at one time. That's what I'm going to teach you today. By the end of this class, you'll have a fully arranged beat and concepts that will help you from this point forward with all your other creative ideas. How are you going to follow along with me? Well, if you check the Project and Resources tab, you'll have access to this FLP along with the other resources, such as sounds, midis, and all of that. Even if you don't use FL Studio, you can still apply these techniques in Ableton, or Logic, or any other doll. A lot of these concepts that I'm going to teach you today are universal. Open your doll and let's get started. 3. Plan Your Direction: When it comes to arrangement, the most important thing is direction. Direction can mean a lot of things based on the genre and the type of sounds you pick. But for this one we're going to go in the dark direction and we're going to go in the more energetic direction. Everything that I do in this lesson will be tailored to fit that dark, ominous, energetic vibe that I want. I listen to a ton of songs and I do break down their structure. Lucky for you, I've given you guys a template all within this very exact project file, which you can get in the Project and Resources tab. In FL Studio 21, you can have multiple arrangements. This arrangement is where I have the finished beat, for the most part, finished. If I click Arrangement, I already have the precess already set for me. I have something that's 12 bars, 16 or eight. This is just something that I can go to quickly. If I have an idea that I like but I want it in a different structure, I could merge it or I could just adjust it, just go to 16 bar, because a lot of songs have 16 bars. Now at the top, I have different markers, and if you don't know how to create markers, all you have to do is click, hit Control T, and a marker will pop up and you can just label that whatever. Let's say random marker. You can just drag that around, move that around. It'll snap to grid. It's hard to see those markers, which is why I have things color-coded. Right here in the red, I have an intro which is four bars. The chorus is eight, the verse is 16, the second chorus is eight, the second verse 16, the third chorus is eight. Then I got the outro, and the outro really doesn't matter. It could be eight bars, but it really depends on what type of vibe I want the track to finish on. If you're like me who identifies color really quick, this should be a clear indicator for your arrangement. I have the 16 bar ready for you. I have the eight bar, which a lot of R&B songs, as well as a lot of rap songs now, they're having like eight bars, eight-bar verses. I have a 12-bar one where the verse is 12 bars because it's so fast that the 16 bar isn't necessary. Sometimes with artists when you play the beats, if they're going to go off of the vibe that they go off of, you're just going to have to go with them for that. A lot of times if they're hearing the beat and they're coming up with an idea, and they hear a verse in the chorus, but it bleeds over into maybe just a couple bars of the first verse, you're just going to have to go with it because that's their creative output. That's just how they see it. You could arrange it later if they allow you to. Most times their engineers are going to chop parts up and move them around to fit the artist's vision. Sometimes you have no control over that, but with this structure, you should be pretty good. If they do chop something around, it's going to sound good regardless. Now this is the beat. Now let me add a track so that way I can add these markers. Here's the intro. Here is the chorus. Here is the verse. The verse is 16 in this one. Then I'm going to save the outro because the outro, it's going to be a little different for some. Because it's all going to depend on the structure that we choose. I'm going to lock this to size and lock the content. That way if I move this around, it doesn't move. Now the structure that I have is the intro, which this is going to be the introduction to the main melody and the main sound that you're going to be hearing throughout the whole beat. The first part is the intro. Usually keep it four bars. The first two bars they hear and they're like okay, and then the next two, they get a sense of familiarity, like, I know where this is going. But then I switch it up because I jump right into the chorus. I'll break down the elements later, but with the chorus, this is where the most sounds are going to be. I'm not going to lie, this beat as hard. Well, the reason why this arrangement is effective is because this first part, they're getting introduced to the idea so they get a sense of familiarity. But then as soon as they feel like they're getting familiar with it, like, I know where this is going to go. It's going to loop over again. I introduce a new element, and then four bars later, I introduce a new element. I'll explain my golden rule later way more in depth, but I like to have the chorus go first because the sticky part is the chorus. That's the thing that people are going to be repeating, people are going to be like okay. This is not only catchy, but this is worth my time. If I introduce chorus first and then I introduce the verse, and then I introduced the chorus again, and then the second verse, but then the last time before the outro, I introduced a third chorus. I have three opportunities to make it stick into their heads, and that is majority of a lot of songs that you listen to today. One of my favorite producers is Max Martin. He's very known for his melodic math theory and his choruses are like under a minute. I found that a lot of catchy songs as well are the choruses within a minute. He just knows how it works and I heard that and my mind was blown. I was like, this is the structure that I'm going to go with and it works. I do a lot of other different structures, but for the most part, I like the chorus going first. Now it's your turn to get creative with your arrangement. Take one of your favorite songs, throw it into the FLP and use the templates as a guide to break down some of your favorite songs so that way you get a better understanding of song structure and arrangement. Next up is filling in the arrangement with the content that you've made. 4. Fill in Your Arrangement: Now that you have an idea of what arrangement is and you know the direction and you have an arrangement selected that you can use as a template, now it's time we fill all of that stuff in with the ideas that we've created. That means the melody, the drums, and some additional things to give it a nice transition. There's two types of arrangement that you can do. You can do the first one which is having all your stuff in a pattern like I have with my drums, and then just making them unique and changing little stuff here and there or you can separate everything into its own individual pattern. There's really no right or wrong way to do this. Just to emphasize and show you, I'm going to separate all the patterns just so you can see each individual element while I arrange the speed. What you're going to want to do is right click the pattern and then hit "Split by Channel". If you're somewhere here, all you have to do is just click this piano icon and you'll see all the other patterns visually. Just hold Shift and select all of these, top to the bottom, and just drag the drums over. Now you have this. Some of them are going to be short depending on the pattern that you have, so just stretch them out. Now let's drag over the melody and the bass. I'm going to move this all the way down and then move this over. I'm going to delete these two because I made those unique, and I'm just going to do it in real time to show you. This is all that you should have when you separate everything. Should look like this. The first thing that we're going to do is Copy and Paste this 1, 2, 3 times. Now for the intro, I just want the roads to really shine. Let's just delete all of this. For the first half of the course, which is right here, I want the bass playing, but I don't want the 808 playing. I do want the pad playing, but I don't want the pluck playing and I don't want the violins playing yet, and I don't want the kick playing yet. I want the kick to be introduced with the 808 so the impact is more felt. So it should sound like this. I'm going to take out the bass when the 808 comes in. Now we're going into the verse. But I want to switch some things up, so I'm going to copy this pattern from the verse over 1, 2 times. This is the most important part of the chorus because that's where all the sounds are going to be. So you could switch something up there, but to transition it into the verse, I'm going to take the kick, the percussion, as well as the snare back just a little bit, as well as the high hat, just so it can transition into the verse a little bit smoother. Let's hear how that sounds. Sounds sick. We're going to delete two of the violins. We're going to delete the pluck, delete the pads. I want to duplicate the piano. Simply click the "Piano" and make unique. I'm going to delete these notes right here and I'm going to bring it down. Just gives it a different vibe. It pitches it down so that way I don't have to add additional melodies. I'm also going to take away the kick and 808 in that portion. I like that, so with the snare row, I'm going to take this out for this pattern, and I'm going to have the turnaround come over here, so all I did was pull this pattern back a little bit. You could also use the chop tool and hold Shift and then right click, and it's going to cut off the smallest portion. So it's going to sound like this. Now that we have the snare turning around, but we have to have this other portion from here to here sound a little bit more interesting because the kick and the 808 is going to come in. Let's go ahead and adjust some of these sounds right before it transitions a little bit better. I'm just going to move all these other elements. This piano keys here and I don't want that, so I'm going to Copy and Paste the unique one that we added. I'm actually going to change that a different color so that way you can clearly see that, the pattern is just pitched down. Let's hear what the Rhodes sounds like pitched up actually. So do the same process, Control up to pitch it up an octave, and then let's eliminate these lower notes. Let's hear what it sounds like. I'm going to eliminate the pad and the trem, the other pad that has a tremolo effect on it. Now that we have these two parts, we can change this part right here. I'm going to Copy and Paste these elements over 1, 2 times. I'm going to delete the violin, the Rhodes, as well as the piano keys. So let's hear this transition. Let's see what it sounds like with just the 808 instead of the kick. I don't know, I'm going to take out the pluck. I'll probably add the Rhodes back in. Now the reason why the chorus right here has so many parts, pretty much all the elements is because the chorus is known to be the busiest part. That's going to be the sticky part where the artist is going to say something melodically and it's going to have repetition to it, so people are going to listen to it and they're going to hear it over and over and over again. With the verse, I stripped everything from the chorus down into little elements and then I switch some things up because although the verse is important, people really remember the chorus more than the verse. Here is the thing, I have a decision to make. Do I want to keep this 12 bars or do I want to keep this 16 bars? Or I can delete this part, delete the second chorus. I can Copy and Paste the first verse and the first chorus over, and then when it comes to this four bars right before the chorus, I can switch it to a Reese bass, so that way it gives more distinction between the first verse and the second verse. It gives a little bit more wiggle room, so if the artist likes the synth bass, but they want to have it in a certain part, they also have that in the second verse as opposed to the first verse, because if they like the 808 before the chorus, or maybe they don't like anything there, I can add that in either verse and it gives them more variety. Now that we have the first verse and the first chorus done, I want to give a little bit more knock to the second chorus. I'm going to take out that Reese bass, and I'm going to have the kick in 808 come in. But for the second half of the chorus over here, I'm not really going to touch much other than Copy and Paste the 808. So that way there's clear distinction right there where it's familiar, but there's a switch up happening. It's not too many elements at the same time that throw the artists off. I'm going to cut this part off, it will be here, so that way it leads into the chorus. It sounds like this. Second verse, pretty much the same thing except over here as I explained. The Reese bass is introduced. Then I'm just going to copy and paste in second chorus over. And then for the altro, I should have the pitched up and pitched down keys, and then have the pad, and then have this all the way out. That's a pretty simple arrangement. Now, you could change up some of the patterns just to make it a little bit more unique, but for the most part, the elements that I have going on complements it but it also changes it just a little bit to give a variation. So your ears aren't tired of hearing the melody over and over again because it's only two chords. Now that you have an idea how to fill in the arrangement, you can start filling in your arrangement. Next up is the four bar rule and the transitions. 5. Use the 4 Bar Rule: Now that we have our arrangement together, it's time to apply the four bar rule and some transitions. It's easy, simple concept. Every four bars something has to change. There has to be a drop off, there has to be an addition of a sound, something could be pitched up, something could be pitched down. There has to be something small introduced. Reason being is because when we listen to music, a lot of times our ears catch on to what we're already hearing and we try to make it very familiar with something we've already heard before. If you switch something up every four bars, you keep the ear engaged in listening. Now, a way to help with that and to make it a lot more smoother is transitions. Transitions are perfect because you could use textures, you could use instruments with reverbs and all sorts of stuff. Now, if you don't know what four bars are, this is pretty much it. This selection right here, just four bars. If you're listening to music and you're having a hard time trying to understand because you can't see it visually, just count eight snares, that's four bars, at least that's how I identify it. Now let me explain here why the arrangement works so well and why there's little changes that trick the ear. This is four bars. Now, remember when I said that I want the people to listen to it and get an introduction to the idea, and just when they get a concept of what the idea is, boom, I switch it up to something that they don't expect. I switch it up to a reese bass instead of a 808 and a kick to build that tension up a little bit more because the introduction has some tension, but not a lot of tension. But when I bring in that synth bass, that brings in a whole bunch of attention. Four bars later, it's a change and it has all these other elements as well as the kick and 808. Now, something that I introduced in the intro leading into the chorus and the end of the chorus and even in the middle of a chorus is a cymbal that sounds like this. Actually, it's called a crash, but it could also be called a cymbal. It sounds like this. If you notice the wave form, it's going down. I just look at that as a good transition to put that in front of the chorus and in a part where it's about to switch up, so that way it eases into it. You could also copy the sound. Click the top left, make unique, and then hit reverse and then line it up. That way you'll get something that sounds like this. It builds that tension. Another thing to give it more at tension is this riser that I added right here. So it sounds like this. I also add this sound. It sounds like this. It's actually from a song, Kanye West's All Day. I just heard that sound and I was like, yeah, I'm definitely going to use that. Totally stealing that one. To transition from the intro to the chorus, I have all of these effects layered so it gives it a nice transition. Then to transition to the second half, I use the texture. It's very faint in the background. Let's listen without the elements. It sounds like an owl, but really it's like a guitar pedal texture. Using a texture with a crash allows me to give different variation, so that way it makes it more unique and it sounds good once the second half comes in, because if I have another crash coming in, it's going to sound a little too tiresome if I have too many crashes and transitions. I could add that, but a texture is a good way to just break that tension or introduce more tension depending on what type of context you're trying to use it in. Then it go from the chorus to the verse. I have the cymbal and the riser. It sounds like this, leading right back into the bass. Think of these cymbals and these effects as inhaling and then exhaling. You can only hold your breath in for so long to the point where you have to let it go or else you're going to turn red. If you think about using transitions like that to give more tension or some more release that way, it's going to make your music sound way better. Four bars later, another thing introduced. Four bars later, another thing introduced. Four bars later, another thing introduced. Then since we have that bass as tension, we have the risers as well as the crash and the all day texture hit. We have those elements to break from that tension of the reese bass into the chorus. Then we let the chorus do what it does. Then once we are heading out of the chorus, we have those elements leading us out into the verse where we only have three instruments playing at the same time, so there's not a lot going on. Actually, let me bring this all the way over for this second chorus. This whole beat, any song, you're going to notice every four bars something is going to change, every four bars. If it doesn't, then it's probably something that sounds really good looped, and some people are really good at that, but for the most part they have a song or a beat that has something changing every four bars, and that's the four bar rule. Now it's your turn to get creative with the four bar rule and transitions. Remember, textures, cymbals, crashes, hits, all of those work perfectly with the four bar rule. If you take out some stuff or you introduce some stuff, or even if you change up something in the pattern, it can go a long way and it can make your songs sound even more interesting. Now go into your track and apply this technique every four bars and create some tension with transitions and textures. Next up is the attention grabbing. 6. Create an Attention Grabber: Now we're at the attention grabber. This is the part where you have to reel your audience in. Much like TikTok, the first couple seconds are supposed to grab people's attention instantaneously. There's a ton of songs uploaded to streaming platforms daily, because making music has been more accessible than ever before. But as beautiful as it is, it's a lot harder to get people's attention. One of the ways that you can get attention is by using effects as well as risers and textures. Now, much like the four bar role when I showed to you that tension can be built with textures, you can also use it to your advantage, even if it's with using effects. I'm going to put on these headphones and show you how to create tension in the beginning. In this intro, what we're going to do is we're going to highlight it. We're going to go to our master track, which everything is off. We're going to open up fruity love filter. We're going to go to the presets by going up here where it's this preset at this left and right direction arrow, and then right click and then hit "Simple Triangle Lowpass LFO". This is going to create a feeling where it's like you ever like walk into a room that's playing the music, but right outside the room it's pretty quiet? You can still hear the music, but it's not as loud as if you're in front of the speaker. With a filter, you're able to achieve that type of sound as if you open the door and the music is blasting in your face. It sounds like this. Now that's too much. What we want to do is use an automation click to turn it on and turn it off. One thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to click the mix ****, this is the mix **** if you don't know, I'm going to right click it and then create automation clip. This is going to tell me it's on when it's all the way up, and then when it's all the way down it should be off like this. What I'm going to do is I right click this, you could extend it, and then right click, then right click again, and drag this over. Now for the intro, you have the effect on. And for the beginning of the chorus, it's turned completely off. We're going to listen back, and we're going to adjust some of the effects. These buttons right here give different type of filter choices depending on what you choose. You can use a low pass, a lime high pass, a vanilla low pass. I just keep it at the regular lime low pass, and then I'll mess with these. If I go to single, sounds good, sounds cool, but want something a little different. Let's go to alt triple. I like how that jumps out, so I'm going to adjust this cutoff frequency in the middle, and then I'm going to adjust the resonance just a little bit. Now, let's listen back to it. That sounds pretty good, but I think it's a little too deep, so I'm going to bring it up just a little bit. We'll probably go back to triple. Now if it's not hitting right away, what you can do is you could adjust this little end transition right here. Just drag the point over just a little bit, and then drag this middle point over so it has a smoother slope down so it sounds like this. Sounding pretty good to me because the filter is going to throw people off, and then once they hear the tension that's being muffled like they're outside of a club, as soon as that reese bass hits, it's like an instant attention grabber. One thing we can do to relieve that tension is in the altro over here. We're going to go to the Altro and then select it and highlight it. Next, go to the master mixer and then click "Fruity Balance". Next, you're going to right click this volume and create an automation clip. Then you're going to go to this point, right click it just in case you do something like this. You don't want to raise the volume, you want to have it exactly where it was at, so you can copy and paste that there. Then this other value at the end, you just want to adjust it. Another cool thing we can do is we can copy this filter over by holding Shift and just clicking and dragging it, make it unique, and then do the opposite over here. Boom, faded in. It sounds like this. It sounds like it's resolved as a whole, because as soon as people hear this, they're going to want to run it back because this is a cold beat and they're going to be like, damn, who made this? It sounds really good. You want to grab people's attention over here, and then at the end, you want to give them a nice resolution where it fades out. That way it's an ear pleasing experience. There's many things that you could do to get people's attention. There's a ton of songs with great examples where the drum start first. There's other songs that have a voicemail of somebody, maybe it might be like a breakup song or something. There's no limit to creativity. One of my favorite displays of attention grabbers is the four-bar counting that Farrell does, where he'll chop the beat and he'll go to Ta Ta Ta Ta and then hell drop the beat and it's like what is happening? [LAUGHTER] These beautiful chords is happening. There's multiple things you could do to get creative with the attention grabber. Now, it's your turn to create an attention grabbing intro to hook your audience in. Apply these techniques and get creative with your own sound because you never know. You might find something to catch everybody's attention, and maybe one day I'll ask you, where did you learn that from? 7. Final Thoughts: Congratulations, you made it to the end of this class. Now you know how to arrange a beat and make it a little bit more exciting. But now is the most important part, and that is mixing. We have to polish up some of the instruments and enhance some of the sounds that we have. I can't wait to see you in the next class, which is the mixing class.