Is your work based on past principles of music theory and counterpoint. Or is it on the fly peck peck at keys, sounds, and samples randomly until something seems to stick or sound right? Or is it more celestial sort of from the heavens music stuck in your head and you can’t figure out where you’ve heard it before if you even have or a combination of both? Do you work for originality and in your overall sound or just do what randomly comes to mind? Is there any producer that influences your overall sound and what about that producers sound appeals to you? Also do you have a consistent system? What I mean by that is all of your beats don’t necessarily sound the same, but because of your style of putting a beat together effects, signature, reverb, drums, levels, mixing, and mastering… can someone tell from just listening to one of your beats that you made it or had some influence in the creation? What are your thoughts? I would just like to learn more by seeing how others here do their thing. I’ll leave you with this… a good friend once told me his favorite musician told him “Good musicians practice until they get it right. Great musicians practice until they cannot get it wrong” -Wynton Marsalis. CHA!!!

depends on the mood, usually start out by “jammin” on the keys until i find a riff i like, then ill build from there.

Wow Harle Dropin Some Knowledge.!!! Dont anybody sleep on her shit..you hear the way she speaks.? PAY A ATTENTION NEW COMERS !!!!! YA giacobbe Said It…and If ya Head aint buzzin yet peep the shamless plug…http://www.dopetracks.com/track/99134

..... based on that i made this beat “fuck i had 20 minutes to kill, so i made this cus i was watching nash bridges, and then a commercial came on so i made this beat and here it is, so enjoy, this really horn-filled beat.”

I would like to get some more thoughts from producers on this subject.

EMOTIONAL STATE….ALOT OF TIMES I MIGHT BE THINKING ABOUT A DOPE SCENE IN MY HEAD AND THE MUSIC THAT I CREATE IS LIKE THE THEME MUSIC

Wow now see that’s good input so basically what you are saying is instead of music created by your mood… you are making music to create a mood… or add to a visual scene in your mind… background music for visual events taking place… and I guess by doing this you are hoping that the listener of your beat will see what you saw? Am I getting that correct…? very interesting and I feel that if that’s what you mean. Thank you for adding that.

so basically its enviroment, mood, guessing, random jamming…. they all make music.
random jamming + your mood (which influences what jamming u sample from) and your environment (which influences your mood) = your music….. not 100% but thats more or less it.

YEAH, HARLE…I MEAN THEY CAN SEE WHATEVER THEY WANT TO SEE NOW THAT THEY UNDERSTAND. BUT JUST TO ILLUSTRATE….LISTEN TO “FREEZE” AND TELL ME WHAT YOU SAW.
HOLLA BACK

Well I’m never gonna be a great musician and I make tracks for fun. I’m not chasing the “paper” lol. I do it cos I enjoy it.Maybe this will help…..
PS1!!
I started out putting tracks together using “MUSIC” on the PS1 !! Initially using the library of loops and then progressing to constructing tracks from individual sounds. At this time I would usually start off with the drum pattern 1st then move to bass and melody. During this building stage I would hear the music in my head and try to replicate it. The sound quality was DIRE but it was a great tool for me to cut my teeth on.
PS2
Same as above but with minor sampling abilities.
PC ACID PRO 2.0
OH YEH!! Some quality sound at last.
Acid Pro opened up a whole new world to me and allowed me to sample SILLY!!. This was a period of bliss for me! Goodbye millisecond engineering and hello instant loops and layers. I would still go for the drums first and then mess with melody and bass after. I used to mess with keys via line in on a cheap keyboard and loved being able to sample from films.
However with the advent of Acid Pro in my life I became incredibly lazy and missed the rigid structure of individual cells to place and tweak sounds. I realised that I no longer heard the music in my head to “show me the way” lol BUT I did enjoy the introduction of the nuances that came from messing with samples. Sometimes a little effect or a short layer of samples would create the ghost of a melody or hint at something that might work that I may not have considered prior
.
I have been flirting with a MAGIX music studio package for the last six months but am about to go back to ACID (or a combination of the both) RIGHT NOW.
Ahem, so in short, these days I start out by building a little sample library by lifting bits of MP3s (using tracAxPC) , add some bits from other library s that I’ve collected, work with them till I get something I like.AND THEN WORK ON THEM SOME MORE ..(and quite often the end product sounds nothing like how it started out)
NONE OF THE ABOVE TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE MOOD, INFLUINCES AND CLIMATE OF THE TIME
LAST WORD (word)
A good friend of mine once told me that “producing a track is an organic process”…WORD

Those were two awesome ass responses homiez!!! No seriously, Sein that makes a lot of sense… and going back to your page and listening to your work I can hear how sometimes you have an idea but then maybe through a lot of experimental lab events you can create something unintentionally but remarkably enjoyable. I thought the ghost of a melody point you brought up was an interesting concept and the way you hint on celestial music a little and I have a feeling that a lot of producers experience the ending up with something completely different than you started out with thing… Although you don’t consider yourself a musician I can hear that the music is in you and part of you and you know what you are looking for as far as sound quality. While you may not play music via an instrument such as the flute or tuba I feel the equipment you use makes you a musician just maybe on a different level. TheStarling and laproper I appreciate your input as well the ideas you contribute give me an idea of how others are doing it and it may refine some parts of my process as well. Thanks guys… any other producers have any thoughts

old soul music and P-Funk inspire me, tho i dont know if can call myself a producer yet.
i jus downloaded Float On from youtube and i chopped it up and got samples from it. now i’m tryna make a beat out it. yep, i look to da past for inspiration

pull out an old marvin gaye record or smith connection,basically something soulful.aloy of the tyme i’ll pull up some old j dilla or some tribe to get what i need.other producers are definitely a inspiration

some ps3 weed silence and no nonsense and I’m good. Sometimes I don’t make beats for a while. So when I go back at it its so much built up its a creatively musical explosion.
Keep shining

My Environment...Mood and Location have a lot to do with my music.I let everything around me soak in so I can decypher it into music.and just like Sein said,I do it for the love…paper comes last.It can happen anywhere anytime.For Instance,”Overnight Seduciton” and “Fall Of A Hip Hop Legacy” were inspired when I Visited Pharaoh In The Bronx while showing Him Reason.On overnight I started with the melody first Then the drums.once I got back home and I was on the phone with LadyHype,I finished it to the seductive beat that it is.On Fall of a Hip Hop,was inspired when Pharaoh and I walked around his hood and saw The destruction Mainstream music is affecting the vibe of my Beautiful Borough,so I made it into an East-Coast anthem and a cry for help.
“The Fast Way” was inspired By me taking an all-expense trip to Houston,TX when My homie Daz Invited me to his hood and his studio.On my way to the airport I felt The essence of Chopped and Screwed around me,so by the time I got to the studio,I was redy to wreck shop.
“Funk Swarm” was made in Arkansas During Bikes,Blues and Barbecue.It’s one of my greatest simple crunk beats and the most effective…I stumbled into a Great sample from a drum and bass record one day and once I heard it I had to do something with it.
“Los Angeles” and “Santa Monica RMX” were Inspired BEFORE I went to California.I wanted To see how I could Interpret a West-Coast Beat knowing I havent Been To California in a Decade.It actually worked by the time I got to LAX and heard my beats in my iPod I was amazed @ the outcome!
Im in Kentucky now so I have a few surprises for everyone.I am not biased to my sampling methods,nor do I shun a genre of music.I do it all.

I really appreciate all of you guys taking the time to give your own personal input in this discussion. This not only helps me, but aspiring beat makes and rappers that are sick of waiting for producers to make a beat for them in their development.

i strive for simplicity, because cats are always trying to get too fancy on hip hop beats. they have a dope rhythm track or whatever, and then they ruin it with a bunch of wack percussion or melodies that take away from the original rhythm or don’t harmonize well together. i use the music theory i have learned, and break it down to the simplest combination of notes that have the sound im going for. i ALWAYS try to be original (no generic club beats from me) and stick to the orignal ideas of hip hop, and incorpoate modern sounding drums and mixing into it. i do something a little different each beat and use tons of different samples and heavy fx (lots of distortion, reeverb, and compressor sends to give each beat its own feeling), so my beats have a lot of diversity from one to the next.
http://www.dopetracks.com/beat/52159
feedback is appreciated. peace!

http://www.dopetracks.com/track/112523

Sumtimes i take time to just be in the studio in complete silence and anylize my sorrounding and places ive been ,also anylize my feelings..i begin to start thinking in my head a little tune while playing an instrument of any kind and begin imagining how my music is going to structure out, like if u was just in the zone u know then i begin to look at all my…No bull shit try it out and see that all inspiring producers can inspire themselves its all part of the music theory…Then comes the perfection of the music..

Good deal guys… here lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Buddy Rich as far as set drummers go this guy doesn’t seem to drop a 128th note… a human metronome of sort… I know most dt producers don’t get into a lot of percussionist technique or rudiment studies but I just thought I’d throw that name out there for some of your research and maybe even sampling sound experiments… oh and get used to using a metronome if you usually don’t… I know most producers have internal rhythm and I’m happy for you all but if your sample/keyboard/medium device for producing or recording vocals doesn’t have a metronome… get one NOW!!!! Happy Producing!!!

http://www.dopetracks.com/beat/57907 http://www.dopetracks.com/beat/57907 http://www.dopetracks.com/beat/57907 http://www.dopetracks.com/beat/57907

idk…i just use any sample i find and add drums on it http://www.dopetracks.com/beat/58441

Don’t feel too bad bullet a lot of producers just do that… and I want to add some of them are considered the “pioneers of hip hop”... so not to show disrespect.

i get inspiration from nearly everything that a good question harlequin it has so many answers.sometimes it depends on my mood,sometimes its that old song i used to hear as a kid that i forgot for years then started hummin,my fully composed stuff is the music that really comes from inside….which usually ends up dark lol and sometimes its just like bullet said lol i jus hear a sample i like and add some drums lol.mostly i make the beats and if an mc wants to spit on it or has a certain flow that they can put over it then cool.But i aint quite good enuff yet to make a beat for some existing lyrick i do find that quite hard

There’s nothing wrong with it… this is why I started this forum because I want to know what everyone thinks… about composition and how they arrive at their finished pieces of work. I am a self studying student of music production… no idea is ever going to be too far fetched for me to consider even if I finally decide that I personally wouldn’t do it that way… who knows maybe someone else reading this would. I’m not here to judge only to be open to other ideas and formulas… and maybe collaborate from time to time.