Transcripts
1. Course Intro: What's going on? It's
your boy key, Orion, the man who is
obsessed with making great music and
teaching you how to make your own into
today's tutorial. I'm going to walk you
through how I go about using inspiration of tracks that I
love and then repurposing, remixing, redesigning their drum tracks to
create something original. So I started with a J Cole song, and this is what
I ended up with. If you're curious how to make a trap track out
of a simple loop in an inspired track
of your choosing, as well as how to mix
and master a trap track. This is the course for you, so put it that put
aside 30 to 45 minutes, grab your beverage of choice,
get locked and loaded. I'm going to show you
how I go about remixing my favorite tracks to
create something original. I hope you dig. Alright, see
you on the inside piece.
2. Making The Melody: Alright, so let's jump into it. In this track, I'm going
to show you how to make. I've been obsessed with this
beat by J Cole recently, this track by J Cole in
buzz and they'll TJ. So I want to show you how
to go about approaching, remaking this type of a track. And this is a bit of
a different setup. So I'm going to be because
I'm standing up right now, I feel like I'm a little bit more kinetic
when I'm standing up. So I'm going to try this out. But if you prefer the videos
from before those setups, let me know if the audio is
weird or anything like that. And I can always switch back.
But let's try this out. So I wanted to walk you
through, first of all, how I would go about finding the BPM of attract
and get it lined up. So this is the coal loop. As you can see. There is firstly I'm gonna do is I'm going to
warp it because I want to be able to say
set 11 here exactly. I'm gonna come in here
where the drum start a job. And I could tell it that
this is where the drum starts and went to set 11 here. And then I'm going
to bring that, well, it's already 11,
so that's redundant. So next I'm going
to do is I want to find where this
loops and that's it. And the pieces though, if I pitched the tempo, then it's going to actually change the speed of the track. Chapter seven, which
doesn't do us any good. So what I'm going to do is actually now
that we've warped it, got that 11, I'm
going to warp it. And now when I change
the tempo track, it doesn't change the
actual speed of the song. You said a job. So now I just need to
find out where it loops. You've seen a job. Job. You'll know because it'll
loop correctly like they're nothing you could do. Just come in and
visually look at it. That looks about right. You see an a job. Okay, so the next
thing I did was I found I've kind of an idea where I wanted
to go with this. Kind of like a
happy, kinda cool, like a happy bouncy
kind of melody. So this is the one that I found. So I'm just going to mess
around with this and see if we can get it to get a little bit more bouncy and distort it and do
some other things to it. So let's do that. I'm just going to store
rather than add some effects, I kinda want to bounce
around a little bit. Let's try a sample. And we'll see we're going
to have one other idea with a possible lead
that we could use. But I'm gonna kinda wanna
try this one out first. I know I want it to bounce
around a little bit, so I'm looking for
some ping pong delay. Now I kind of want to
distort it out a little bit and add a little
bit of our assay. We can get going over here, distortion and see if
we can do with this. So that's some
saturated a little bit, a little bit warmer. See what happens if
we pitch it a little. Is that the best leaders? It's not, but we're going
to roll with it for now. We'll get to jump down and
then we can always come back to it and mess around
a little bit later. I, someone can do something
That's sort of a Ines, a ln of something happy,
maybe a little bit weird. And we'll definitely
come back to this.
3. Remixing Drums: So let's get some drums go Now. Let's do Cole got a job. Job. And yeah, that's definitely we're going to have
to grit that out. If you want it to be cool. The, you can tell in the t
minus one in closed loop, It's like there's just a lot of distortion that sounds cool. You said a job. You can also tell these
are just eight awaits. So these are just at least I think maybe they're
layered with a kick, but let me get a new
anyway going on. I just kind of a booming
right away. You see that? That sounds good. So I'm going to come in here. One reason why I
like to add these, the airways here in
the sampler is that you can then adjust the root node C. So I don't have to really
worry about that for this one, but sometimes they
come in at like a weird root node
and makes it easier. So what I'm gonna do now is
I'm going to add them in it. See my, my little headphones. Let's go see for a job, you know, worried about
the key or anything fancy. I'm just getting
the pattern down. A job, job, job, job. Play. Play. When you're seeing a job, a job, check to see if it follows that pattern
for the next board. To wage this down. She says, You are cool, we'll come back to this later. I just wanted to kinda
get that because that's I'd like to start
with the lowest first. So let's come back to that and
let's see what he's doing. I think if I listen
this correctly, I think he's got like a clap. You said a job? Job. She says. She says
you lay down a job. Job. Actually, I think I
had that exactly. This is that exact Cloud. You seen a job. You
say that using a job? Job. Job. She says you wage. Wage weighs less down. Using a job. Job. She says. She says you owe them. Interesting, It's
cool. It's cool. It's like a little flare that
he doesn't have one there. And so we got our clap there. And then the next thing
we're going to move it. Move on to the next element.
It's the high hats. You seen a job? Job play when I start with one
the first part of the bar. First, you said a job. Job. Actually. I'm lying. There's another
snare in their job. You said a job. Do you hear that? And it sounds like it's
right here. It's kinda like a kind of a hat. Excuse me. I need a weight,
sort of a snare. Snare too. Let's bring in like
a snare thing. I'm tripping on losing it. If you really listen,
I think it's there. When the bees yes, I'm sort of like just
something simple. Good a job. Job. Job. Is play. Play. Play. Play. Using a job. Job. Yeah. For sure. You said
you said a job? Job. Play play, play, play, a job. Job. Play. This whole thing is the details
that wasn't the details. That's cool. That's really cool. I'm glad that we got when we did that. That'll add a little
bit of flair later on, learning how to listen to
beat is really important, especially if you want to remix, remake stuff I found for me
has been, has been huge. So let's grabs my ads and see
what we got going on here. You see the drug to
stop playing with me. You see the drop top. Like, like I'm really liking
these kinda like 808, simple kind of Italy. Sounds. You see the truck stop
playing with, okay. Let's come in here and see what you got
going over the hats. You said a job. A job.
You just get a job. Dynamics. Using a job. A job.
You seen a job. Using a jab, jab, jab jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, play play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play job. I did these two to trap. There were two trappy and
these are more like this. I think the job job job job play. Exactly the same as it is, but I'm not going to
worry about it right now. I'm just going to keep
moving on here as more like the kinda triplet highest point on which I like a lot too. I just want to see if he
switches them up over here. She's she's she's she's there's your way down. Wage wage. Wage less down. And then he's got some, He's got some fish that's
going on over here, which I'm just going to, I'm not gonna worry
about too much. You know what I'm
actually going to do. I'm going to come do,
we'll do, we'll do, we'll add our own second layer
pi hats little bit later. So that's that. And let's see what
else he has going on. A job. Job. She says you to wage wage job month a little different. I know that's all good. So now that we have those
kind of patterns down, I'm going to come in,
I'm actually going to add this. Let's see. If we can get the melody
going again, something there, and then we can have something a little bit
more fun with the case. When I'm actually
undo this, I might even put in a, whoops, don't open the
notes. Quit those. I'm going to add a kick in here that I have something that is the center as a place
holder for some low end. You see the drop me a job. You see the job to me.
4. Remixing The Melody: I don't love that is I'm going to come in here
to actually see if we can find another
sample that is cooler. Let's go. Legs, sinth. You see the drop. That's kinda cool. We got something to work
with now. Okay. So let's go. No, that's not what I wanted. Let's get out of this and see. Let's go legs and let's come in here and
find some of these other, some of these other patterns and see if we can do
something with them. So once you've got
to experiment, Let's try this. Let's go sample a different
vibe than the other one. But let's see if we copy
some of these effects. That one's okay. I still love it. I'm gonna be honest, I still don't love it. But let's try with
maybe one more. I like these drums a lot though. So let's try this. Let's try one more of these. Who might actually be able to work. Hey.
5. Trap 808s: So now let's find out
what the actual what the actual notes would be for our eight awaits if we were going
to actually check this out and make
this a real thing. So let's go into our
base and we're gonna go arteriole because I
want to use this mini B3. If you've seen any of my stuff,
I used to find my notes. It's just a simple sine wave. Any base you have will do that. They can make a sine
wave will work for this. I just like to use this one because the one that I,
that I know the best. Let's go base basically use. There's just simply
for me to find. I could pitch up and
down these airways, but it always have
such a unique sound, sometimes indistinct kind
of note to them that for me I find it a little
bit easier just to use a sine wave. All right, Let's see
what that looks like. I know that sounds
terrible right now, but just wait for a second. So I'm going to then
quantize those. And then when I come
in here and make them, There's a little bit
smaller. Turn that off. Trying to figure out what actually sounds a
little better here. And we're going to
keep it simple, keep it here and then
we'll go from there. The reason I haven't
pitched up, it's just easier for me to tell. If the notes are wrong, right? And delete. Let them just rocked a little bit of
distortion to them. Let's go camel crusher. And this is gonna be way too
much distortion to start. So I'm going to just bring
down the compressor Mt. I'm not sure I'd
love to say it away. I'm gonna be real with you. It's the heavens. We
switch this one that I don't love that Ada weights and let's go for maybe
something a little more. I don't know, maybe we'll have a little more grit
to it or something. I like that one. So the reason I did
that kickback and I just feel like I didn't feel like that it was punchy enough. So this is one
example where if you are recreating a beat from
somebody that you like, you just use it for
the initial jump off and then you kinda tweak
it and make it your own. So I'm probably
going to keep doing things to make this
more of my own. The next thing that I want to
do is I'm going to want to add some vocals to this school. A major. My everyone, another
kick over here. These two, this is
another place where the kick in the
iterate don't line up. That was an accident but I can actually like
how it turned out. So I'm going to leave it,
I'm going to actually delete this space so we don't
need that anymore.
6. Adding Vocal Textures: And let's find some
interesting kind of vocals, some vocal chops. You all know that
that's the way that I loved to add texture to my beads is through vocal chops. So I'm gonna just add
a little bit delay. Bring that down, bring
the reverb a little bit, maybe cut off. So but the highs for some
vocals and let's find some, I think we're in a major. Memory serves. Yeah,
let's see what happens. We go with sits on a major
vocals. That's right. That's really cool. Yeah, those are,
those are great. I'm going to work these
making complex procedure that they aren't transients
aren't as a parent. I'm going also rule of some
more of the highs here. A pitch this up. I still have these more
rubber be more delayed.
7. Percussion + Bounce: Going to pinpoint those
out a little bit. And I realized I might want some open hats and everyone
a little bit more going on with the percussion
because we have different, we have
a different melody. It's not quite as exciting. I want to have something that's maybe a little bit more exciting going on
with the percussion. You know what I
also want in here? I want to impact, I want a hat. This is gonna be
like this is going to give it that the
first part of the bar, a little bit of energy. So we're going to open hat. Actually we're going
to call this impact at the exact hi hat on for this and we're
gonna go, What's its name? I know it's in
here. Starts with a T. I'll come back to that, but that's still
an open after now. There's like this
exact open hat that I know I want for that. No, that won't work,
don't work for now. I actually want this
echo like I want to go. Let's just start
dragging these hats off a little bit just to
get a little bit of, a little bit of a mouse. And now I'm gonna come
back to these high hats, this second layer of I hats, just to add a little
bit of flavor to this, just a little bit, a
little bit of flavor. But I don't love that one. Not sure what that
is. Okay, Let's go. I'm going to come back
in here to let's go, let's go, let's go up. That's not similar
as before, is it? Yes, it is. I liked
that I had a lot. Apparently. Let's go with this one.
And that's a good one too. Similarly, just head but
we're going to pretend it's not in, Let's do this little, this little texture, but it's already where it's
a little bit of texture. Some of that for your ears to little snacks, lot your snacks. Some of the super simple. I was going to try to keep this two. It looks like we're coming
up already at 40 minutes. I was going to try to keep
this to less than an hour. So I'm going to mix
it, show you how I mix it and then we'll
keep it moving.
8. Mixing + Mastering: So let's delete. First thing, let's
delete everything. First going to do is I'm
going to Save As I want to just start deleting stuff
and stuff gets weird. I like to do that. So
we're gonna do mixed. And then we're going to
take out the stuff we don't need. Sorry, Cool. There's that we're
going to take out. Clap. We've got the hi-hats, make sure everything
is labeled correctly to get those instruments. We don't have any vocals. At least my vocals on
this track, no doubles. Attract space here. Okay, So let's, let's make this bad boy. I'm going to 0 everything
to kooky fashion. Is there everything out?
And then bringing them in. And most important element for me, most important elements. Not always because like
Melody super bored, but I'd like to start
my low-end first, low end and then I get
my scenario going on. So I'm shooting for kicked
maybe around seven or eight. I'm gonna side chain the A2A2, the kid copy this compressor. Right now it's getting
kind of a loose mixes. I'm going to come
back and master it. After. And when I add
my mastering chain, it's going to, it's going to
change some of the dynamics. So I just kinda get
a loose mix first. I feel like that was too
high is kinda distracting. If you're trying
to get some Barlow coming to 4.3, I liked that. We're gonna go to
my mastering chain. Don't worry about these. These are just EQ's that I have. These are very general,
broad sweep beacuse. This is what if you've seen my mastering and train before? No, I add a little bit of a one decibel of
high-end distortion. Nothing over here. Just to bring up the
bright little bit. And then I get
through the T-rex, T-rex classic clipper,
say that five times fast. I get my volume and
then I use their eyes, their compressor,
and then they're clipper to get
most of my volume. You're mastering chain. You don't want to add a
bunch of stuff and have it like be completed for
track my mastering chain, I'm just trying to get a lot of fine tuning and this
is kinda boring and my volume from your ears. Now to meet the club
is a little too loud. Listen to see if anything's sticking out that I don't want. Like you have
anything's protruding too much from the mix
that I'm not a fan of. But I think we're almost out of battery,
but we're almost done.
9. Arranging The Beat: The next piece is, I'm going to then bring this out as backup. This is my security. Security because I don't want in case I start
messing around and stuff. I am going to draw my tracks. I like having a backup
just in case I can always come back in and rework things. So now I'm going to join all
the clips, consolidate them. And now I'm going to
track the beat app, so I know that I want
that to be my hook, but let's start with Let's
start with just this first. What I'm doing is I'm taking the elements in and
out. That's it. Some of those iterates
might be off, but we're just going
to roll with it. So once you have your
first verse out, then you can just duplicate that again for
your second birth. And if you want to do something a little bit different in it, just to add, just to spice
things up a little bit. Whoa, not sure why
everything got so stretched out
all of a sudden, but we're going to roll with it. You might just add
little things back in here and there too. So like just to add a little bit of spice
into the second verse, but I might do is
add an auto filter. And then we're just
going to loop that. Automate that filter just for a little, something different. And device on. Make that. And that's how you check it out. That's honestly, that's
another great beat, but at least it's
kind of getting us in the ballpark of
what we wanted to, but I'll probably do if I wasn't being if I wasn't
recording this, if I wasn't being pressured, but time to keep you
guys in and out of here. I would probably go back and tweak a couple
of things here and there. But you win some, lose some. Thank you so much for
tuning in as always, hopefully, you learned
a thing or two. Remember, all of the
materials that you want, beat school materials retraining linked in the description below. Thanks so much for tuning
in and I'll check it in the next one on one basis.
Kia Orion, Artist & Music Producer
