How To Make Banging Trap Beats For Beginners: Drill Music Production Fundamentals For Any DAW | Kia Orion | Skillshare
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How To Make Banging Trap Beats For Beginners: Drill Music Production Fundamentals For Any DAW

teacher avatar Kia Orion, Artist & Music Producer

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Course Intro

      1:43

    • 2.

      Trap Melodies

      3:24

    • 3.

      Drill Drums

      2:52

    • 4.

      808s (the secret sauce)

      3:06

    • 5.

      Mixing + Mastering

      2:27

    • 6.

      Conclusion

      1:17

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About This Class

Do you love dark trap beats? Do you dig NY or UK Drill music?

Then this course is for you. In this step-by-step walkthrough I'm going to breakdown how to create (and steal) ideas to make UK Drill type beats like what you've been hearing on the radio. 

This is a class meant for beginning producer and beatmakers.

That said, I have a course that I recommend you start with, and if you haven't taken my other beginner courses (you can do that here)

In this course I'll walk you through every creative decision I made when crafting this beat, and how you can apply this same advice right away into your own production. 

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In this course I'll walk you through each step of making a beat and also how to Mix and Master it so it sounds professional.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND: I'll be showing you in Ableton but the CONCEPTS I cover are applicable to ANY DAW. 

You don't need fancy plug-ins to make good music! 

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Want free resources and producer coaching to help you level up even quicker? I got you. You can access all my free plug-ins and trainings by clicking anywhere on this link. 

Have fun! 

P.S. The resource I mention in the course is called Splice - it's a resource I highly recommend! 

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Kia Orion

Artist & Music Producer

Teacher

Ay! I'm Kia. 

I'm an artist and educator who believes life wouldn't be the same without music.

Or tacos.

I realized that I was equally as passionate about teaching music as I was making it.

In 2016 I founded Beat School, an online platform and series of educational programs to help aspiring artists and producers learn how to make beats, accelerate their growth, and stay inspired. 

I'm originally from New York but these days you'll find me traveling around the world writing songs or playing beats on a rooftop somewhere.

I appreciate you stopping by, and if you'd like to get in touch you can DM me or shoot me an email at kia@kiaorion.com. 

Life is too short not to do what you lov... See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Course Intro: Welcome back to another course with yours truly key Orion, the man who is obsessed with making, write music in teaching you how to make your own. And in today's course, I'm gonna teach you how to make a beat that sounds like this. This is my take on drill music because I'm more of an R&B artist and so I'm actually not going to walk. We're gonna do it without the vocals, but this is a new song that I'm working on and going to release hopefully sooner than later. What that said, let me have to worry about the vocals, but we're definitely going to be diving into the beat, the different pieces of the beat, the drums. What makes drill drums so interesting? So I call this drill and b because it has a little bit more of the R&B field, but you could have wrapped on this. You can do anything you wanted on it. The real key, some of the keys to drill the Ada weights, how to glide the Ada weights. There's a real drill kind of Ada weights the drum patterns. And then also in terms of the melodies that guitar, the vocals, I'm gonna walk you through every single piece. So if that sounds exciting, please put aside 3040 minutes, grab your beverage of choice, get locked and loaded. If you are curious about how I teach music production, you can check out my free course at key Orion.com or beat school online.com. Beat school online is going to be the main resource for you to have a free training. I've sample packs, all types of great stuff there. So check that out if you're curious, but without further ado, let's dive into how to make drill. I'll see you on the inside. 2. Trap Melodies: All right, Let's get it. So as with all of my tracks, I always start with the melody. Here. If we just listen to the melodies, this is what's going on. And let's, I think I got some, let's see what happens if we do this. We do this, do this, do this. Place melodies. What do we have? We have these keys, guitar, these vocal chops. In these keys, I'm not gonna lie to you. I got these keys in this guitar and these vocals from splice. So a lot of this melody is from Splice sample kits. And then I just added my own. I added some sue to it. I added I did some cueing, some retro colors you've seen in him and stuff. You know, I love retro color, but for the most part, these are symbols that then I took and just reworked a little bit. Then these vocals are pan. So if you notice everything is kind of pin to either to the left or to the right. These vocals, I loved the SPAC vocal chops. This is how I make all of my vocals. It's a roll-off. It often roll off the highs to, yeah, that's normally what my EQ curve kind of looks like. Then I'll do reverb and delay and just have them kind of reverb down. This is what the vocal sound like together. As you noticed that I like to have them kind of pain differently. So it feels like they're kind of going back and forth a little bit rather than just all be in one spot. And then the guitar, because the guitar frequencies are pretty, pretty close to what the keys have. I have these pinch to the left, the guitar I didn't even have since it was a great sample, I don't even have this EQ it, although I probably should, but it goes this. I guarantee though the EQ curve would be almost similar to how it isn't the keys. So that's why I pan these a little bit to the left. And these keys are pretty much my main instrument. So these are panned to the right. Because I knew I was going to be putting vocals on this track. I didn't want to have too much in terms of the melody piece, although I mean there's still a lot there, but if you look at when it's not the hook, it's mostly just It's mostly just the keys. And maybe, yeah, mostly just the keys, maybe a little vocal. There's none of this stuff going on because I want there to be mostly more space for the 808 as well. When you have some of these things coming in will have lower frequencies. You can compete with the 88. And I really wanted to 808 to come through and into kick, Ironically. Alright, so that's kind of the melody breakdown real brief. Again, not a ton of effects, a little bit of RC retro color of some side-chain compression going on and then sued too. This is just a plugin to help make the frequencies quite as intense. But other than that, pretty straightforward. 3. Drill Drums: So let's dive into the rope. There's the beat. Let's dive into drums. So this is for me one of the most special piece about drill. I think it's super cool and unique and fun because it's different than anything I've made before. There's just, it's just a different kind of a bounce. These snares are right, normally you'd have, you'd have things kind of laid out differently if it was your typical for, for hip hop track. But just breaking these down, I have a snare. Again, all of these are going to becoming from splice. I have this snap just a layer the scenario a little bit. So there's this neuron its own. I thought it was cool to have this with some reverb. Obviously there'll ever been to k goes off to the right. The next is these high hats. I'm still learning how to make Draw hi-hats. So this is a loop I found and then I just switched the tempo of it because the drill hats are really, really interesting and cool and they have these different roles and stuff. But as I was making the beat, I was just kind of on a roll already and I didn't want them to stop in tune every hi-hat. So I was like Just give me a hi-hat loop, put it in there that I found that I liked, and then I just made it my BPM. And this one's pen to the right, this one's pen to the left. Just for character. This loop. Also 140, I switched, it, had a lot more in it, but it just got to be too crazy. So I just wanted this in the book, have a little bit more character, a little bit more going on. Then next we have the perks. The perks and open hats. This is this one's pain to the left as well. So again, something simple, just a little bit of character, take up a little bit of space, but nothing super intense. And then I love these open hi-hats at the end of the bar, but these almost every track. This one is pitched down, I think. I think this one is pitched down. One of these is pitched down. Just to add some character, a little bit different lengths. Again, this is what all the drum sound linked together. It's just a cool balance. I'm not going to kick. That's a very typical kick for drill as well. So I'm not going to worry about it too much, but I wanted to dive in on the low end of thiol is the base. 4. 808s (the secret sauce): So when it comes to base an 808, this is kind of a checkout. What these are doing. I loved those drill A12Z. I think these are so cool. So how do we make these? This is a simpler that I created as a rack off of a YouTube video I saw when I was first learning how to make 808 glide. It's pretty much simpler. And then it just has these knobs match to the filter frequency, the drive velocity of attack, release, the glide time. So that way you can kind of figure out how you can tune these into taste. But here's the key for me to getting a two weeks to glide. As you notice? They have they're pretty much whatever. No, I want it to glide up to that. What won't won't that kind of sound? You, I put the, I put, it's the same note, but an octave above is a, B, E. This would be an E as well. And then I just nudge it ever so slightly off. So what I'll do is I'll take the note, I'll copy it. I'll transpose it up an octave, and then I'll slide it slightly off. Same here, obviously, G and a G. Then you just do that and get these really cool kind of different effects. Obviously that will sound different if you change your glide time. There could probably even be something more interesting going on in here, but these took me awhile and finding the right eight await can be part of the challenge. But you get a good data weight in here, something with some grit and then you add some drive to it. This is what it sounded like without without any drive, what was it like that don't need Dr. Still pretty cool, but I just like to grid it up a little bit. Then I added a little bit of side chain compression here is always rolled off just the low end, like low, low-end stuff that you probably wouldn't hear. That's the I28. These I love Ada week glides and making drill this as a huge piece. This is a piece that you'll probably spend a bit of time on. It takes awhile to figure out what the pattern that you want. But this is kind of everything. Now together. I think this is a really cool beat. Okay, the next thing I want to talk to you guys about is the mixing. 5. Mixing + Mastering: All right, so the mixing, I've already told you kind of some of the keys here when it comes to painting. Because you have a lot of things going on. You want, you don't want everything to take up the same frequencies. I've got some other courses that are specifically on how to make, so I'm not going to dive into it too much. But if you look at the drums here, and let's just pay attention to if you really listen, if you're not listening to headphones, don't hear it. But how things are kind of paint a little bit to the right, to the left. Feel everything kind of fits in its own space. But the snare is still snaps. But there's a piece of it where everything kind of it's not super in your face. Nothing is really coming out except the snare a little bit because the snare, snare kick 808 vocals to me is the most important, but everything else kind of fits in its space. Same here at the melody. Listen to how things are panned. The other thing I did, which I showed you was adding some side-chain compression to a lot of these things I probably should add to his guitar too. But it did duck out when the kick hits. Not a ton, but I think that it definitely adds up over time. And I didn't edit at the vocals. And then another thing that I wanted to talk to you guys about is how little there is going on in the low-end other than the kickin made away. It's kinda where this 88 lives right here, but below a 100, for the most part, below a 100 and then taken the keys, rolled off that and now the guitar most everything below a 100 so that you can really hear that 808 and have it come through, then the vocals are a whole another video on it's own thing. So the last but not least, I'll tell you one tip before we get out of here. 6. Conclusion: When it comes to mastering, I have a bunch of courses on this as well. I'm not a master, I'm not going to dive into too much. But for me I think a really important part of mastering is to get everything loud in the mix. But also, I like to put my mastering chain on before or do. I'll do a rough mix and then I'll put the mastering chain on and then I'll mix it a little bit again. Because without this, it's a completely different beat. All those hi-hats and things are kind of sticking out to me more. The biggest key for me is to put on some sort of master and get the volume a little bit close to where you want it. And then you can start to toy around with things because the last thing we want to do is get a perfect mix and then you add your mastering and everything kind of gets out of whack. I hope that was helpful. That's a little look into how to make a drill beat. Again, as always, if you want more beat school online.com got all my goodies. They're kind of more intense programs. And if there's anything you want to learn, please let me know I'm at key Orion everywhere on the Internet and give me a shout, let me know what you're looking to learn and we'll take it from there. Thank you for tuning in. As always, I'll check again the next one piece.