Learn Beat Making in FL Studio: Beatmaking, Drum Programming and Music Composition for Hip-Hop & Rap

1. Introduction: Hello. Welcome to learn Beat making an FL Studio within 1 hour. If you want to start making beats today and this course is what you are looking for. You will see that you can make an entire beat within a few minutes without even having to reopen the project. I will show you a professional beat making workflow step by step so you can replicate on your own projects. You will see how I created this beat from scratch. 2. Browser Setup and BPM Selection: Okay. Well, let's get started. The first thing I want to show in this video is how to make a custom folder appear on the FL Studio browser. On the top menu, click on Options, and select file settings. A new window will open. Now, click on one of these folder icons, and browse for the folder where your samples are located. Click on, and that's it. The folder will now appear inside the browser on the left side of the screen. I'd like to mention that in this course. I will be using only kits that are available for free. I got these from wave supply. If you want, you can download them to your computer as well. Okay. Now that we have our folder set up. Let's create a new project. Click on file. New from Template minimal and select empty. You won't see any change on the screen because we are working on a project that was already empty. After creating a new project, you can set the BPM of your track by left clicking the tempo on the top of the screen and dragging it up or down. You can also click it and select one of the pre defined options. Well, that's it for now. Let's jump to the next video. 3. Working With the Channel Rack: In this video, we are going to talk about the Channel rack. When it comes to making music with FL Studio, you will be spending a lot of time working with the Channel RC. The Channel RC is where you can load samples or virtual instruments, create patterns, write melodic lines, among other things. To open the Channel rack on the top menu, if you need to click on view and select Channel RC. Alternatively, you can simply click on the Channel RC icon above the timeline of the project to open the window. When there's already a channel created, you can simply right click the main button of the channel. Go to replace and select a different virtual instrument from the list. Let's replace this one with an instance of FL keys. You can also click on the Little plus sign and select an instrument from the list to insert it on a new channel. Let's insert another instance of FL Keys. With the channel rack. It is also possible to load one shot audio samples. Let's browse the samples we got in our folder and choose one we like. You can simply drag the audio file into an existing channel to replace the previous sound or instrument. Or you can also drag the file and place it right below another channel to create a new one with a selected sample. From there, you can start creating your patterns. Okay. Now that you know the basics, let's start talking about chords and melodies. 4. Creating a Piano Melody: Okay. In this video, we will start working on the melodic and harmonic elements of our track. But first, let's click the channel and replace it with an instance of FL keys. Now, right click the channel where it says FL Keys and click on Piano Role to open the editor. Most trap beats uses the minor scale. That's what we are going to use as well. The A minor scale only uses the white notes of the piano. This is the scale we are going to use here. The chords and the melodies of the beat will be constructed based on these white notes. Let's start by working on a chord progression. To build a chord, I will start by picking one note from the scale. In this example, the root note of the chord is an A. Then skip the next note of the scale and use the subsequent on top of the root. Again, skip another white note and use the next one. Then we have an A minor chord. Let's repeat this process and build an E minor as our second chord. Pick the root note, which in this case is an E. Skip one of the white notes and pick the next. Skip another white note and use the next one more time. Sometimes it may sound better if we bring the notes a bit closer to each other to avoid having big leaps. To smooth out the transition between the chords, we can simply move the notes an octave up or down. This is what we call inverting the chords. I will bring the notes of the second chord down to get a smoother transition. First, move the B down an octave, so it get closer to the C from the a minor. Then move the g down an octave. It gets from the a minor. Okay. Now, we can double the root notes, one or two octaves below the chords to fill up the low frequencies and get a bigger sound. The root note of A minor is an A. The root note of minor is an E. Now, let's create a simple melody above the chords using only the A minor scale, which is made of the white notes of the piano roll. By using long notes, I'm leaving some space in the melody, so we can fill the gaps with a counter melody later. Okay, I think the piano is good enough. We have harmony and a melodic line here. Let's work on another instrument. 5. Creating the First Countermelody: In this video, we will work on a counter melody. First, let's click on the plus sign and add a new instrument. I will use this synth called Sakura. You can change the preset if you want, but for the purpose of this course, I will try the initial patch and see what it does. Right click the instrument label on the Channel rack and click on Piano Role to open the editor. I will try to make the counter melody more active on the long notes where the piano melody rests. Okay. If you need to delete a note on the piano roll, simply right click it with the mouse cursor. The left click adds a note and the right click deletes it. Again, to create the counter melody, I will be using only notes from the A minor scale, which are the white notes of the piano roll. These no next to each channel control the panorama and the volume. Let's adjust the levels of the counter melody. Let's also assign the counter melody to a specific channel on the mixer. We need to do this for each instrument we add on the channel rec. Click on Vew and select Mixer. I will try to explain this a little better. Note that each channel is related to an insert on the mixer. The first channel is linked to the first insert, and the counter melody channel is linked to the second one. Let's hear how the melody and the counter melody are working together. Now, let's open the mixer again to insert a reverb plug in on the counter melody. After highlighting the counter melody channel on the mixer, I will click on an empty plug in slot and insert an instance of Fruity reverb two. Let's play the track and tweak the wet and size controls until we find something we like. Great. Let's hear it one more time. 6. Creating the Second Countermelody: In this video, we are going to create one more melodic layer to our track. In general, you should try to keep your melodies 2-4 instruments to avoid muddying things too much. Let's click on the plus icon within the channel rack to insert a new track. I'm going to use Sakura one more time. There's a nice pick guitar preset that might work with this track. Let's try this one called picked guitar two. Okay. Now, right click the channel and select piano roll to open the editor. For this layer, I'm thinking about adding some short length chords to fill the gaps between the melody and the counter melody. It's too low. Let's try placing the one octave. Hold control or command to select multiple notes. I'm dragging manually, but you can use the shortcut control up or down to jump one octave up or down. One interesting thing we could do is to make this a strummed chord. You can do it manually by holding Alt and offsetting each note a little bit. You can move the notes to taste. Now I'm going to delete these notes by right clicking them. Let me quickly recreate the chord so I can show you a quick way to make strum chords. I will make these notes a bit longer. Then we are going to click on this small arrow on the left corner of the piano roll to open the menu. Now, click on Tool and select strum. Use the time control to choose the strength of the strum effect. Also make sure to check the preserve end option, which makes it easier to align the notes on the grid. Click on Except to confirm, and let's hear how it sounds. Now, I'm going to insert an E minor chord and then invert its notes to get them closer to the notes of the first chord. Okay. Okay. Let's hold control or command to select multiple notes. Click on the small arrow to open the menu, go to Tool, and select Strum. Let's hear how it sounds now. Good. But it could use more reverb. Let's also sync this delay. Low the volume a little bit. Finally, let's assign this instance of Sakura to the Channel three of the mixer. Okay, I guess we are done with the melodies. 7. Making Strummed Chords: When it comes to melodies and harmonies, I usually like to have 2-4 instruments. As we already have three elements, I think that should be enough. But now I'm thinking we could also strum the piano chords and melody to make it more natural. I will right click the channel and open the piano roll. Now hold control or command, and left click to select all the notes at the beginning of the timeline. Now hold control and shift at the same time to select the notes at the beginning of the next chord. Click on the little arrow on the top left corner of the editor window, go to tools and select Strom. Adjust the time control to taste. And click on accept when you are done. Perfect. Let's listen to all the melodies together. 8. Creating a Clap Pattern: In this video, we are going to work on a clap pattern for our track. But first, let's duplicate this pattern. I keep one with the melodies only. This will save us some time later. Right click the pattern and select clone. Now right click the original pattern and select rename. Let's rename it to melodies. After that, select the cloned pattern and switch back to the channel RC. Now let's search our sample folders for a clap sound that we like. Okay. I'm going to use this simply drag and drop into the channel rack to create a new instrument. Right click this rectangular button and select rename. Let's change the name to clap. We can now create a clap pattern. We are going to insert a clap hit on the three of each bar. Jump the first two blocks of notes, and add one at the beginning of the third. Let's repeat this process for the remaining bars. Jump the first two and insert a note at the beginning of the third. Again, jump the first two and hit the third. One more time, jump the first two and put a note on the third. Let's see how it sounds. 9. Creating a Hi-Hat Pattern: In this video, we are going to work on a high hat pattern. First, let's choose a high hat sample. Okay. Drag the file into the channel rack to create a new track. Right click the high hat track and select re name to change its label. I will take the opportunity to assign both the clap and the high hat to specific inserts on the mixer. Creating a basic h hat pattern is really simple. We just need to fill every two steps. You can do it manually, but there's an easier way. Right click the high hat track, then select fill each two steps. Now, let's get creative. Right click the high hat track, then select piano roll to open the editor. I will start by adding some crazy roles. We are going to fill the gaps between the high hat hits with more notes to make the rhythm extra bouncy. Let's start by filling the gap between the first and the second hits so if you'd better understand how it works. This is what we want. You can create variations by playing around with different subdivisions. Click on the little arrow on the left corner of the piano roll window. Go to snap and select one of these four step subdivision options to change the grid visualization. For each subdivision, you will get a different roll effect. Let's create some random roles and hear how it sounds. You can play around with different pitches while making the roles. It creates a nice effect. Let's add one more role right after that. I will try another subdivision so you can see how it sounds. I'm getting creative here with this cascade role. You can feel absolutely free to do whatever comes up to your mind. You can right click and drag with the mouse on the velocity area to gradually reduce the volume of the high hat on the rolls. Now, let's create more roles for the remaining parts. Okay. Let's write one more role at the end of this part. Let's move this a bit forward because I guess it will sound better. Okay, we are done with the rolls. Now I will press home to move the playback marker back to the beginning and hear how it sounds. You can hold control or command while scrolling the mouse wheel to zoom in or out. Another thing you can do to your high hats is to delete a few notes to let the pattern breathe. We are simply going to choose random notes to delete and decide whether we like it or not. Let's go ahead and choose some notes to delete. I think it is sounding pretty good. Let's hear it one more time. Okay. Let's jump to the next video and work on the percussion. 10. Creating Percussion Patterns: Okay. In this video, we are going to work on the percussion of our track. Let's start by choosing a Perk sound. Drag and drop the sound into the channel rack to create a new track. When it comes to Perks, it is really common to program a percussion to work as a ghost snare in between two claps. Let's check how it sounds. Okay. Now, I'm going to select another percussion sound and drag it into the channel rack. You should try to avoid placing perks on spots where we already have claps or high hat rolls. I will place this one right after the first roll. Perhaps a little forward. I didn't like it. Let's try a different sound. Again, I will try placing it right after the first roll. Okay. Let's find another perk sample to further develop the pattern. Drag and drop it into the channel rack. And let's find a spot for it. I will put it at the end of this hat roll. Okay. Let's find another spot where this sound could fit. Actually, let's use a different sound for that very same spot to create some variation. Let's find other spots where we can use one of these other perk sounds we already have. Just remember to avoid claps and high hat rolls. Okay. Perfect. Let's find one more spot where we can repeat another one of these sounds. Now, let's rename these tracks to keep things organized. Right click each channel and select re name to change its label. Also, don't forget to assign each perk instrument to its specific insert of the mixer. Well, let's search for an open hat sound to complete our percussion set. Drag and drop it into the channel rack. The best place is to use the open hat or at the beginning of the measure or on the fifth square. For this beat, I will use it right at the beginning of the bar. Let's check it out. Well, we are done. If you want to bounce your beat. Make sure to spend some time working on your percussion. The main tip I can give you is to avoid have them hitting at the same time as claps, high hat rolls, and perhaps kick drums also. 11. Creating the Kick Pattern: In this video, we are going to create a kick pattern. Let's start by finding a sample we like. Drag and drop to load it into the channel rack. Right click the kick channel and select renamed to change its label. Let's also assign it to one specific insert of the mixer. The only rule I follow when it comes to kicks is to have one hit at the beginning of the tempo before every two claps. This is important to lock the groove and create a sense of ground. Let's put this one here and another one here after the first two claps. Let's hear how it sounds. From there, you can just play around and try to find other spots to place more kick hits. As a rule of thumb, just try to avoid having the kick and a clap playing at the same time. I'll add one right after the first stair. Let's double this one. Perhaps one more right there. And another one there. I didn't like it there. Let's move it backwards. That sounds better. I will also move this perk forward to avoid having it hitting at the same time as the kick. Perfect. I guess we are done with the kick. Let's jump to the next video. 12. Creating the 808 Pattern: In this video, we are going to create an 808 pattern. The first thing I'm going to do is to search for an 808 sample that I like. Drag and drop the sample into the channel rack to create a new track. Let's rename it to eight oh eight. I will also take the opportunity to assign it to a channel of the mixer. Then click the eight oh eight channel, and select cut itself. This will avoid having sample overlaps on notes that change too fast. Now, we need to make the eight oh eight follow the kick pattern. Click the Kick track and select Piano role to open the editor. Press Control and A to select all the notes and then control and C to copy them. After that, open the piano editor from the eight eight track and paste the notes from the kick by pressing control and V. Now, we need to drag each note to the correct pitch. By far, the best note to use is the root note of each chord. This first chord is an A minor. So I'm going to drag the first two notes of the eight eight to the note A. We can also increase the length of the notes to make it easier to visualize the pattern. Now, let's drag this second note to A as well and make it a bit longer for a better visualization. The next chord is an E minor. Let's move the remaining notes to, which is the root of the chord. Again, I will take the opportunity to increase the length of each one of them. Let's move the remaining notes to. One more time, increase their length for a better visualization. Perfect. Let's hear how the track sounds now with the eight eight. Awesome. But there's more work to be done. An interesting thing we can do to the 808 is to make it slide. To do so, simply click on the little triangle right above the keyboard and draw a new note wherever you want to make the 808 slide. Let's check how it sounds. The best note for the slide is also the root, but in a different octave. Well, now let's try to find other points where we could use slides to make the pattern more interesting. I will make this one go to a lower pitch. I think it is sounding pretty good. Let's take one more listen. Great. It's time to jump to the next video. 13. Processing the Melodies: In this video, I'd like to show you how to create some variation for your melodies with an FL Studio plug in called Gross Beat. First, let's click the melody pattern we've saved earlier and select Quick render as audio clip. This will create a new file under the audio clips tab. You can switch back to the pattern tab anytime by clicking the piano icon right next to it. Let's drag the audio clip into the timeline. Select the slice tool on the menu, and let's cut off the reverb tail. Now, switch back to the pencil tool and click to erase the part we don't want. Then click on this little waveform icon at the corner of the audio clip within the timeline and select make uniques sample. Select. Choose a name for the file and save it. Let's open the channel rack and send both audio channels to the same insert. As we already have 12 instrument tracks, let's send these two to the Insert number 13. Now, I will click on view and open the mixer window. Let's select an empty plug in slot on the corresponding channel and insert an instance of gross beat. When the gross beat window opens, click on presets and select momentary. Then select half speed on the menu. This will create variations on your melody by slowing it down. I will drag the original audio clip into the timeline as well, because we are going to need both in the arrangement. Let's get rid of the reverb tail one more time. You probably notice that gross beat changes the pitch of the melody. If you want to fix this, double click the clip and raise the pitch to the max. I will repeat this process for the other clip as well. Let's take a listen. Now, I want to show you a nice trick for intros and breaks. Double click the audio file and check the box where it says reverse. Then use the slice tool to chop the file into eight pieces. And reorganize them from the end to the beginning. Let's hear how it sounds now. Okay. Sounds pretty interesting to me. After playing something from the time line, you probably won't hear any audio from the patterns if you switch to the Channel RC. To solve this problem, simply use this little button to switch the monitoring back to the Channel rack. You can switch to the timeline audio again by clicking on this other button. I will switch to the Channel R audio once again. 14. Structure and Arrangement: In this video, we will work on the structure of our track. The first thing I'm going to do is duplicate this second pattern by right clicking it and selecting clone. Right click the original pattern and select rename to change its label. Now, right click the duplicate pattern and select split by channel. This will break the pattern into multiple instruments. Good. Make sure the playback marker is at the beginning of the timeline. Then click on the small arrow on the corner of the window to open the menu. Go to time markers and select add one. This one will be our intro. I want my intro to last for 8 bars. The next marker will be on the ninth. After creating the first marker, we can start adding others by right clicking this upper region of the timeline and selecting add marker. This one will be for the hook. The hook will last for 8 bars. Let's jump eight and add another marker. This will be the verse. Let's now jump 16 bars and add a marker for a break section. I will make the break 4 bars long and add another marker. From now on, I'm simply going to repeat the structure. Starting from the hook, let's jump 8 bars and add another verse. Then jump 16 bars and add another break. Jump four and add another hook. Finally, jump eight and add an out row section. This is how I structure most of my beats, but you can feel free to use a different structure if you want. Now, I'm going to move this processed melody to the verse. Click on the small PNO icon to alternate back to the pattern tab. Hold shift to select all the instrument patterns, and drag them onto the hook section of our timeline. Hold shift and drag the selected patterns to duplicate them. Let's duplicate them across the verse section as well. Let's also duplicate this reverse melody from the intro to fill all the 8 bars. I will leave the hook the way it is because I want the full B to be played on this section. For the verse, let's subtract some elements to create contrast. Use the right click to delete the melody pattern, and let's hold shift to duplicate the processed melody across the 16 bars. I will also delete the high hats and the perks from the first 8 bars of the verse. And the eight eight as well. Let's also delete a few perks from the last 8 bars to make it less impactful than the hook. Now, I will hold control to select the reverse melody from the intro and then hold shift to copy it onto the break section, and let's also duplicate the claps onto the break. Let's check how it sounds. Okay. Now it's time to work on the transitions. The first thing we can do to make the transitions more interesting is to make everything stop playing as soon as the last clap hits. I will simply shorten the length of every track with the exception of the snare on the last measure of the hook section. I will employ the same trick on the last measure of the verse as well. Now we can also add a riser f x on every transition point to make it more interesting. Let's take a look at what we got on these sample packs. Let's try another pack. This one is pretty nice. Let's drag it onto the first transition point and now hold shift to copy it to the other transitions. Great. Now, let's select everything from the hook to the break. Hold shift and drag to make a copy that we are going to use on the second part of the arrangement. Now I will select and copy the hook only to fill the remaining part. Hold control and use the left click to select multiple tracks. Then hold shift and drag the patterns to create a copy. Finally, let's copy the reversed melody from the break to the out. Okay, I guess we are done with a structure. The technique we used here is called subtractive arrangement. You basically take a complete loop and start subtracting elements to create variation between the different sections. Now, let's hear how it sounds.