Samplecraze has announced that it has published the Beat Construction guide for beat makers.
Just as every great master’s painting needs a great frame, every stand-out tune needs a stand-out beat: get the beat right, and you can turn your OK tune a foot-tappingly infectious masterpiece. But while most DAW software gives you the tools you need to craft the perfect beat, but you still need to know HOW to do it — else you’ll end up with a robotic groove that impresses no-one!
Just what is it that makes a stand-out beat? How do you give your beat it’s own unique identity? What is it that gives Timbaland’s beats that special vibe — and how can you copy him? These questions and many more are answered in the latest e-Book from Samplecraze.
Whether Dre or Rihanna is your thing, or you’re more into dance, pop, old-school electro or trip hop, Samplecraze’s new bible of beat creation takes you on a practical hands-on exploration of the beat-making process, which will leave you with a deep understanding of how the world’s leading beat creators get the sounds they do, and, more importantly, how they inject that all-important ‘nod factor’ into their tunes.
Starting with the basic foundations of sculpting and layering individual drum sounds, there’s plenty to get the newbies up to speed. But it goes much deeper than that. For example, there are chapters on various slicing techniques, using modulators and new techniques to create 3D motion and stereo width. Author Eddie Bazil also reveals the secrets of advanced ‘ghosting’ techniques, and there’s a section comprising several chapters dealing with how to ‘rip’ the feel from commercial tracks using your DAW (yep, that’s right, you can steal the feel from your favourite track without sampling it and infringing copyright!). And in case you’re left in any doubt, there are workshops on building urban and dance tracks from the ground up.
As with all Samplecraze’s books, there’s a heavy emphasis on step-by-step practical examples, with plenty of screen captures from various software packages to show you what’s going on. There’s a whopping package of over 350MB of audio, MIDI and REX files that illustrate the points being made, and rather than compromise the audio by streaming it or compressing to MP3, Samplecraze have presented the files themselves as pristine quality WAVs. That way, you can listen to them and tweak them in your DAW as you work your way through the exercises in the book. And when you hear them, you can be sure that Bazil is a man who knows exactly what he’s talking about!
So… if you want to make cutting-edge beats, why waste time trawling through forums for tips and tricks from bedroom producers? This book has all the answers and has to represent the best $15 you could spend.
The guide (193 pages) is available to purchase as a download for $15 USD.
More information: Samplecraze
