How to make better beats? Music producers can hit brick walls in their creative process, and this article highlights 5 ways you can make your beats sound better. In this article, we include tips on using the EQ and other plugins to process your beats better, using syncopation and other compositional elements to enhance your musical ideas, and using more creative experimentation to give your musical ideas a unique sound.
This tutorial covers a complete approach to producing trap music in Ableton Live. To access the free loop kit featured in this video, click here.
For more tutorials, subscribe to the Tom Casey Music channel.
This Ableton Live tutorial features the Hip Hop Standards Vol. 1 free loop kit. The Beach Roads free loop kit library features tons of other free downloads, with many free downloads of Ableton Live presets.
There are a lot of plugins out there for music production. But what are the best plugins for music production?
And for music producers and songwriters recording their own music, are simpler plugins actually the best choice for music producers?
Every DAW (FL Studio, Logic, Ableton Live, etc) comes with stock plugins and effects to use in your music productions. These plugins are practical for making music, and even getting professional results.
In recent years though, the software market for third-party plugins has grown immensely, leading to a multitude of options for at-home music producers.
It can be overwhelming for at-home music producers to figure out where they should invest their money when it comes to all this software.
This has brought us to companies like Landr, that appear to be offering music producers a way more simplified package of plugin products.
The one-knob solutions follow a design aesthetic perhaps made popular by the FL Studio Soundgoodizer, which did away with complicated parameters and reduced music producers to one question “more effect, or less?”
It’s proven to be a successful concept. The soundgoodizer became one of FL Studio’s most famous plugins, and not only appeared as a staple effect in the previous decade’s wave of EDM and trap productions, but even became something of an inside joke in the music production community.
Soundgoodizer
All jokes aside, there has been a reason one-knob solutions found their way onto so many chart-residing hits in the previous decade - they work.
What’s remarkable about Landr’s plugin line is it captures the same spirit of soundgoodizer but with a far more streamlined preset menu, expertly crafted with balance and creativity both in mind.
While plugin presets would normally be the bane of a professional’s existence, the modern music production world we live in requires relentless speed, practicality and ease-of-use.
It’s very clear that these “one-knob” solutions are a strong concept, and it surprised me how well they functioned in my own workflow.
If you’d like to check out Landr products, you can get a discount following the link below.
Use Discount code: GETLANDRTOM15OFF
Now go make some music!
For lofi hip hop and RnB producers, the classy sound of orchestral loops can be hard to come by, especially if you want to avoid the pains of copyright claims pulling down your music.
This is why I stick to learning basic orchestration techniques and utilizing string libraries.
Spitfire LABS is an incredible free library that I find most producers simply don’t know about.
In this video, I cover how I utilize Spitfire LABS free libraries, and some basic music theory, to craft a cool lofi orchestral loop for a typical lofi hip hop style track.
There are so many free resources out there to use to make better lofi hip hop beats.
In this tutorial, I use free drum samples from Beach Roads’ Lofi Meditations Demo Pack, and I also have a free Ableton Live preset for getting a perfect, grainy lofi texture to really fool your listeners into thinking your orchestra came straight from a dusty vinyl source. Have fun.
I think the most important epiphany that I had in music production is discovering the fact that you can always learn something new every single day.
There is a lot to gain from looking at music that is already out there.
You want to “learn how to learn,” so to speak. Understand the sound design, the characteristics and techniques that the person who produced that piece of music used.
This is something I directly did when I produced a video specifically on Lo-fi hip hop music production techniques:
Music production is a challenging career to be financially, or even just creatively, successful in.
You may want to get your music on Spotify playlists, go viral on TikTok or have your music featured in a video game.
My epiphany was realizing just how multifaceted music production really is. It’s a discipline of many dimensions.
So these goals of “making a living in music,” “being famous” or “having a hit song” do eventually feel like pipe dreams to people.
This is why music production simply becomes a hobby for the vast majority of people. They just start to think it’s not in the cards for them.
My epiphany was realizing that by really learning my craft and improving myself every day, I no longer relied on the fantasy of being successful, I started becoming successful.
For instance, when I started producing lo-fi hip hop way back in 2015, it wasn’t a very popular genre. Chilled Cow, now a hugely popular YouTube channel, probably only had about 100 people watching their live broadcasts.
Now, lo-fi hip hop is a hugely popular genre, especially for casual music listeners who want some easy listening for studying and relaxation.
The problem is everyone wants to produce lofi hip hop, but have literally no idea about what sound design actually is. People produce tracks with this shallow understanding of what the genre is.
Here’s another relatively popular video I made.
I just asked myself: How do I make something sound old, retro and warm to the ears?
What makes something classic sounding to the listener?
The video above will show you, plus a whole lot more, especially if that’s a style of music that interests you :)
So basically, it's so important to get information from people who have real experience and who take the time to make valuable content, resources or products that are there to actually benefit you and not just take your money or your attention.
It’s like having a mentor, which is a difficult thing to find in life.
Most people never find a real mentor, and it affects the whole trajectory of their career. Trust me on this. I now know I was just lucky.
With my YouTube channel, Tom Casey Music, I really approach things with this simple philosophy. I want to create a community around music production. I want to put information and resources out there that unlock people’s potential.
I’ve been a music teacher for many years, and just from that I know you can’t have happy students by constantly asking them to buy something. I notice a lot of internet content is really just entertainment and sponsored content. It’s not about value, it’s about attention.
I prefer to teach. Because you have to show people what they can achieve if they apply themselves and believe in what they are pursuing.
So I made a number of videos on keyboard playing as well. What holds people back from being better music producers?…they can’t play chords at all.
Then, I have a website where you can just get tons of free downloads of material that you can use in your songs and you will not have to worry about royalties or licensing issues.
I won’t name names, but there are SO MANY sample pack websites that just outsource packs from freelancers, who then have the fine-print to enable them to copyright strike your music if they Content ID scan using the loops they “sold” through that company’s website.
It’s a nightmare for people.
I don’t use fine-print. Once you have my samples, your music is your success. PERIOD.
One more thought:
It's important to be part of a community of people who are like-minded and are learning with you, so you also don't feel as if you're in a vacuum.
I was tremendously fortunate to have someone much older, more experienced and more successful than me show me how to be a better music producer, and I gained so much just by being in the room with them and learning from them.
https://youtube.com/shorts/KDuQLt4pg6A?feature=share
So my YouTube channel Tom Casey Music is designed to be of benefit to people in a similar way.
You learn so much more by not being in a vacuum!
Having a mentor vastly accelerates your progress, and I experienced this first-hand.
You learn at an accelerated pace, you gain insights that would have taken you much longer to find and you learn things that you would not have thought of pursuing on your own.
You don’t just get better, you evolve.
It expands your world as a creative person.
So when I make content, I produce everything in that philosophy.
It’s about providing practical knowledge, creating a community and sharing the love, passion and dedication we all have for doing something that is very important to us, which is expressing ourselves through the immense gratifying power of music.
My epiphany: you’re not alone in wanting to be more than you are and become a great music producer. Find the right community, find a mentor, find content creators that actually give you value.
Good luck ;)
