Saturday, November 24, 2012

Guide To Making Hip-Hop Beats For Sale (Purchase Beats): 3 Lessons From Dr. Dre

By Frank Lubsey


In our discussion for today, we're going to focus on the sound of Dr. Dre and what every hip-hop producer can learn by studying Dr. Dre's music. The greatest asset that any producer has is his ear, and it is impossible to ever be great without studying greatness. Thus, plug in your headphones, break out a few tracks produced by Dr. Dre and start studying.

Dr. Dre is widely regarded as one of hip-hop's all-time greatest producers, but many people do not know why this is the case. Certainly, Dr. Dre has one of the longest careers in hip-hop since he's been producing music since the late 1980s. He's also launched the careers of some of the most dominant forces in hip-hop such as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and 50 Cent. However, the 3 concepts below are 3 things that musically, Dr. Dre is best known for and has pioneered.

Drum Sounds: The choice of drum sounds is one of the hallmarks of a Dr. Dre beat. Every sound that he chooses from a snare drum sound to a tambourine sound, blends together perfectly. Every drum sound element is tight and crisp. Dr. Dre is known for being a perfectionist and is well known for spending an entire day to perfect a beat while other producers may crank out a few beats in a day. It is this level of perfection and attention to detail that makes a Dr. Dre beat stand out. Pay careful attention to the sounds that you are selecting for your drums.

Groove: Compared to many southern artists, a Dr. Dre beat is usually rather simple. There are usually no stuttering hi-hats or fast-hitting kick drum sounds. Instead, there is just a steady beat that grooves. However, if you listen closely enough, you'll hear that Dr. Dre's drum parts usually don't hit on the beat. Dr. Dre avoids the excessive use of quantization and will nudge beats by just a few milliseconds in order to achieve the perfect sound that he wants. It is this attention to detail that makes Dr. Dre such a stand out producer.

Sample Interpolation: Another technique that Dr. Dre helped to pioneer is using live musicians to recreate samples. This allows Dr. Dre more creativity when producing music as he often times switches the instruments used in a sample to give it a completely different sound. For a good example of this, listen to the song "Explosive" by Dr. Dre from his Chronic 2001 album and then listen "Bumpy's Lament" by Isaac Hayes. Does it sound familiar? However, if Dr. Dre just sampled the song as is, it would not have come out the same.

Being one of hip-hop's greatest producers, every aspiring hip-hop producer should study the works of Dr. Dre and incorporate his techniques into their music.




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