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.