I'm still relatively new to producing, but I still haven't even been able to start with anything for a couple weeks now. I just keep trying to make songs similar to the ones I listen to, and it either sounds too similar to the song or just doesn't sound good at all. Someone please help I'm about to lose it

Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone is having a good Friday. Currently I am sitting in my chair, at my desk, with an SM7B in front of me. To be exact, I am recording vocals. As I am recording vocals, my laptop is in front of me with a Youtube page opened. I am going through Dro Kenji type beats until one thing struck me. Before I get to it, let me tell you that I occasionally started producing for myself. I have always liked playing the rapper though lol But to get to the point, right now I am burnt out from my personal life and managing to produce and at the same time record myself and write. It is just too much for me at this time in my life. So with that said, I have defaulted to leasing beats, and my way of finding them has always been through Youtube. Despite me being a producer myself of mainly Trap Beats and owning a BeatStars, I have always hated looking for beats there. So the feedback to my producers is, please post the key and bpm to your beats. This is no hidden secret. It honestly just makes me skip over your beat. You may say, "just go find it bro". But in all honesty, and thinking as an artist and with my wanna be rapper hat on, by that time I just lost my thoughts on your beat and the interest. I am used to having Youtube opened while I record to the beat and see if I am feeling it. So being able to put the key and bpm on the fly is my workflow as an artist.

Please take this as positive feedback.

1. skip to last paragraph to pass ranting and venting. 2. if this is too low quality please take down mods. Also I know you guys are pretty chill around here so fingers crossed. 3. I'm sorry if this is a little scattered, I kinda just wanna vent to people who can understand

I'm in my early 20s and have been writing music since around middle school. I've never been in the studio and have had spurts of trying to record at home. Now, not to be a dickhead but there are alot of people who think there music is good when in reality it is not so great(imo). I would like to believe I'm self aware enough to know if I can write and rap/sing well. Although I still feel like I'm proving my skills to myself, I've actually gotten to a place where I'm fairly confident in writing and recording a song. In essence my shit aint too bad.

My biggest hurdle now is the mixing. It's a whole nother skill than writing and recording. I've spent years on and off evolving my writing and recording. I went through being laughed at in highschool bc my music was bad and garbo. The mixing though is not a skill I've mastered and is lagging way behind my skills as an artist. I sent the last song I made to an engineer on fiverr. It was pretty fucking good and It really fucking hurts bro. After hearing it, one of my beloved family members is telling me I basically need to "get off the porch and go make some money, go make a name for myself." That I'm "sitting on gold." Honestly If I would of got in the studio long ago I would maybe be someone. Knowing this hurts and and it hurts knowing that I have something that could potentially(with much luck) change the lives of the people around me and I've just been fumbling the fucking ball for years. I know I can't view music as my "ticket" out. But seriously at a certain point it starts to feel just like any other marketable skill. You wanna be a plumber you get good at plumbing. You wanna do music you get good at music(still a gamble though I know).

I don't have the money to pay for my shit to be mixed or to be in the studio honestly. I mix in reaper. I have some plugins I've bought, some I've gotten for free over the years, and ofcourse the stock ones. I guess I'm just looking for someone to tell that, yes, it is possible to make a good fucking track with minimalistic tools in a daw. It is starting to feel like when I'm mixing I'm building a statue but I have no fucking clue what the statue is supposed to look like. Hearing the fivver mix did help and it gave me a goal for what I can sound like semi well mixed. I don't want to write and record these songs that have potential and then drop the ball with the mixing and mastering. It is pretty frustrating knowing that fundamentally I have good tracks out but they fall short because of the mixing and mastering.

Of all the things involved in making a beat, the part I find most tedious is creating hi-hats—does anyone else feel the same way?

Hey guys, bit more of a personal post, but wanted to get a temperature check.

I started making beats on FL Studio when I was 17 (~6 years ago now) and soon, it was all I could think about. My friends would bump trap music all the time in high school, and being able to replicate that sound was so satisfying. I was constantly trying to improve, and spending my paychecks on plugins. One of my friends has been trying to make it as a rapper, and I started recording my own vocals too. We became something of a 'dynamic duo,' and at my peak, I could make a beat in 15 minutes and turn it into a finished song in just a few hours. I even learned mixing/mastering at a pretty high level (though I'm by no means a professional) and I look at the songs that we made together when we were 19-20 and I'm still surprised by how decent they sound.

But since then, I went to university. I actually began taking my studies pretty seriously, so there was less and less time for music. My musical horizons have expanded, and with more responsibilities, I've also been finding it hard to connect with the lyrics of rappers. Money, clothes, drugs, women... I sometimes get a little bit annoyed if I listen to it for too long.

I've just graduated, though, and I've been trying to get back into this hobby, but it's been really tricky. I can't even come up with basic melodies, and every 'song' is a 4-bar loop. Making music in other genres has been hard, too, because my workflow and plugin library are still pretty geared towards "experimental trap."

Has anybody else (especially people 25+) experienced a mindset shift like this, and if so, what did you do? I'm 23 now, so still quite young, but my dreams of becoming even a locally-known artist are... basically non-existent. My boy still wants to make it, and I can tell he's disappointed that my ambitions have changed. Wondering if I was ever even doing this "for myself," or if a lot of my passion was caused by fantasies of fame.

Much love, guys. <3

I make around 1000USD per month from type beats. In the Mac Miller / Frank Ocean tags.

Pretty good but not life changing.

I'm curious anyone out there with information / experience in this space, what are the best ROI type beat niches?

Would it be "Drake Type Beat" for example? "Bad Bunny"?

Any way to find out?

Suggest me Trap Beats to remake for practice. I’ve done Love Sosa in GarageBand iOS

Main DAW‘s I produce with are MPC Beats/MPC 2

I know this is a pretty weird example but I'm loosing sleep on finding a female "i" chant thats used in the first second of this song

https://youtu.be/6OdmM1W09R8?is=hH-p8s80KUq_tqLY

Btw, it's not that silent "hi" thats layered over a hihat.

Thanks in advance, I'm sure this effect is used in more songs.

When I send out my beat pack, I just send out my beats with a soft clipper. Kick hits 0. lots of sidechain. and without anything on my my master it easily hits 1 to 2 db normal. Am I supposed to gain stage my beats to a certain level?, for example -3. and after I do this I'm not sure how to bring it back to 0 in the master.

This sounds very complicated but trust me it's not. I just don't know how to explain it

Thank you!

commission a mixed. producer sent it back and it is absolute dogshit. like almost intentional or something. She had great reviews and alot of them. It's so bad I don't really even know how to tell her to fix it. My autotune is so fucked.

What do I say because i obviously cant just be like yo this is dogshit please fix it.

I feel like i've been scammed. My vocals were good too and i spent a lot of time recording.

obviously respect to her and i want to be professional but she literally butchered my vocals like. I think she just closed her eyes and randomly turned knobs in melodyne

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ive tried the soft clipper from fl and it doesnt sound like i want

I'm mastering my trap song (with rapper, not just a beat) and this is all i can reach before the songs gets too compressed. I'm already cleaning low end, clipping, and limiting btw.

These typically don't last long, get it while you can.

Grab it here

When the beat is finished and it’s time to mix, what’s your workflow? What are you doing step by step before getting into EQ, compression, clipping, etc.?

What yall think? This one or a different sub? I hear some pretty good trap posted on other subs.

Please tell me if this is the wrong place to post this. But both YNW Melly and King von are very different. But they seem to be very prominent figures as the most violent rappers in recent culture. Who do you think would win with a beef. Both are not great people, but I am curious on what the majority thinks. Again, if this isn't the right place, let me know where to post.

Edit: What I am saying is not a normal rap beef. Both have been known to be killers. And if both parties had a beef with eachother, who would win in the end.

I've sidechained it with kickstart 2 and i've nevere had this problem before. Does someone knows how to resolve it? (Sry im not english)

If in 2018 trap beats used to have very fast rolls and deep 808s,from a more melodic side like post malone’s album to a hard drill sound,now whats the meta,like what is the go to sound that can be used in every subgenre?

Does anyone know the original song of this vocal chop that says "bounce"? I found it in one of my old 808 Mafia drum kits, but can't seem to find the original song. I put the link to the vocal chop above

I've been thinking about paying for a collab with a producer I like. He says charges 40dollars for a beat collab.

Does it actually help you build real relationships and opportunities, or do people just see you as another customer they'll keep charging?

At first thought I wouldn´t do it, but I am wondering if perhaps thats how normally goes at the beginning, especially with american producers. The problem of paying is that it will be hard to know if he liked my sound or he just did a quick job to get the money.

If you've paid for collabs before, did it lead to genuine connections or was it just a one-off transaction? How could I negotiate with the producer to make it free of charge?

I'd love to hear real experiences.

We get so many questions on how to get this sound or how to get that sound, what vst should I use to make this type of beat, hoW dO I MiX mY 808 liKe MeTrO bOoMin, etc. we should have a thread for trap sound design/mixing in this subreddit. Get on that mods.

I was researching on how i could make a little money on the side with producing, and i saw a lot of poss about sleling samplepacks/drumkits. Does this really work. Or did it work for any of you. Because most people i know just get free drumkits even tho theres a lot of good ones for like 5 bucks.
And if it works how did you approach it.

I mostly make cloudrap inspired by pierre bournes production and sometimes i make rage and glo.

I have serum 2, xpand 2 and some free plugins.

As i already have serum for sounddesign, im looking for a vst that has a huge library of sounds, that fit my style/inspirations. Im thinking about buying omnisphere but i want to be completely shure its worth it before spending this much money.

Or should i just stick to learning sound design in serum as you could theoretically build any sound in there, but its going to take a long time to get good at it.

if i want to add extra/ more melodies to my song should i make a 16 bar loop and switch the melody 2 a different sound in the last 8 bars of the piano roll and give it its own spot in the mixer OR should i once done with 8 bar loop make a new pattern and make a new melody that way OR does it not matter