How to Make Rap Beats

To make rap beats, set the tempo for the style, program the drums first (snare, then kick, then hi-hats), add a bass line that hits with the kick, put one simple melodic loop on top, and then remove anything that crowds the space where the vocal will sit.

Drums come first because rap is a rhythm music. A beat with strong drums and a two-note melody works. A beat with a rich melody and weak drums does not. You can learn the drum part in a browser before you touch any other software.

A beat is usually a one or two-bar pattern repeated and varied. If you can program one bar that makes your head nod, you can make a beat. The rest is choosing which hits to leave out and when to change the pattern.

Tempo, measured in beats per minute, decides the feel before you place a single drum. Choose the style, set the number, and change it only by small steps afterwards.

If you are making a beat for a particular rapper, ask them to say a verse without music and tap along. The speed they fall into is close to the tempo that suits them.

• Lo-fi: 70 to 85 BPM. Slow, loose and soft-edged.
• Boom bap: 85 to 95 BPM. Hard kick and snare, head-nod pace.
• West Coast bounce: 90 to 100 BPM. Laid back, with space between hits.
• Trap: 130 to 150 BPM, felt in half time, so the pulse you nod to is half that number.
• Drill: 138 to 145 BPM, also half time, with sliding bass and skipping hats.

A step sequencer shows one bar as 16 boxes. Each box is a sixteenth note. Steps 1, 5, 9 and 13 are beats 1, 2, 3 and 4. The steps between them are the off-beats, where groove comes from.

Each row is one drum. Click a box and that drum plays at that moment every time the bar loops. Before programming anything, count "1 e and a, 2 e and a" while pointing at the boxes, so you can name any step: step 7 is the "and" of beat 2.

Because the pattern loops, what you place at the end of the bar leads back into step 1. A hit on step 15 or 16 acts as a pickup that pushes the groove forward, which is why so many patterns have one there.

Start with the snare, because it is the anchor. In boom bap it goes on steps 5 and 13, beats 2 and 4. In half-time trap it goes on step 9, beat 3, and a clap can double it.

Next the kick. Put one on step 1, then add one or two more on off-beats and listen: step 8 or step 11 are classic choices at 90 BPM. Fewer kicks hit harder. Finally add closed hi-hats on every second step (the eighth notes), and an open hat on one off-beat near the end of the bar.

• Boom bap: kick 1, 8, 11. Snare 5, 13. Hats on odd steps.
• Trap: kick 1, 7, 11. Snare or clap 9. Hats on every odd step, with a burst of every step in the last four.
• Drill: kick 1 and 8. Snare 9 and 15. Hats grouped 3, 3, 2 across the bar.

In most rap the bass, often an 808, plays when the kick plays. Stacked together they sound like one big drum with a note in it. Start by placing the 808 on the same steps as your kicks, then remove it from one of them so the pattern breathes.

When you move to a full production program, tune the 808 to the key of your melody and keep the notes few: the root note for most of the bar and one move at the end is enough. Avoid letting two long bass notes overlap, because the low end turns to mud.

Check the low end on more than one speaker. Small phone speakers hide bass, and headphones can exaggerate it. If the 808 disappears on a phone, the pattern still needs to make sense from the kick and snare alone.

The melodic part can be a two-bar piano phrase, a sample you have the right to use, or a single sustained chord. One idea is enough. If you add a second, make it answer the first in the gaps and not play over it.

A voice sits in the middle of the frequency range and in the centre of the mix. Keep busy melodies out of that area, and drop instruments out during verses. A useful test is to rap or mumble over the beat for 16 bars. Wherever you feel crowded, mute something.

A full instrumental is your loop with parts added and removed every four or eight bars. Take the kick out for the last bar before a hook. Bring the open hat in only on hooks. Strip verse 2 down to drums and bass for its first four bars.

Sketch the arrangement on paper as blocks: intro 4, verse 16, hook 8, and so on. Mark what plays in each block before you build it.

Finish more beats than you polish. Ten simple instrumentals teach you more about groove than one that you adjust for a month, and rappers tend to choose the simple ones anyway.