MusicTech 193: Build your own beats
Your guide to creating distinctive beats that no other producer can touch.
Aside from the art of writing a melody, crafting the perfect lyric and finding the most suitable chords for your music, beatmaking (or sculpting the rhythmic elements of your track) is perhaps the most important stage to get right, particularly if you work in the EDM arena. It’s often, however, something that can start to feel quite ‘samey’ and characterless for some, as those musical elements tend to take priority.
In our cover feature this month, Martin Delaney explores a variety of routes to making your own distinctive beats in unique ways. Follow his do-it-yourself guide and before long, your tracks will have extra oomph and rise above the din to sound unlike anybody else.
Also this issue, we speak to the fascinating Cleaning Women, a Finnish band who adopt a similar DIY approach to beat and music-making. They have built their own instruments out of former household appliances and have performed with them for over 20 years.
Elsewhere, we catch up with Alexander Archer, a young producer who is currently working with some of the industry’s hottest names as he engineers recordings for Vevo UK.
On the review front this month, we dive deep into Native Instruments’ veritable ocean of delights, Komplete 12, as well as Ableton’s latest hefty point update to Live. I hope you enjoy this issue.
MusicTech 193 includes:
- Build your own beats – How to produce sonic-stretching, toe-tapping, mayhem-inducing loops and beats with all sorts of hardware and software
- Interviews – Besides the aforementioned Cleaning Women, we speak to SJae about how to balance successful careers as a composer, label manager and producer; and we catch up with the versatile producer, engineer, live sound and A&R guru Alexander Archer
- Tutorials – Mark Cousins shows how to put your own stamp on your beats in Logic; Martin Delaney runs through the latest updates in the point update of Live; Adam Crute examines some of Cubase’s automation options; we demonstrate how to add punch, interest and movement to your bass sound; and many more!
- Reviews – Tonnes of reviews this month, including Native Instruments Komplete 12, Ableton Live 10.1, RØDE RØDECaster Pro, Roland VT-4 Voice Transformer, and UVI FM Suite
- DVD – 4GB of video tutorials, workshops, software plug-ins and samples including Downtempo Piano Toolkit, Equinox Sounds Chillout Construction Kits, Leapwing Audio StageOne (demo), and Accusonus Era 3 Bundle (demo)
