You SHOULD Cheat When Making Beats (And Here’s Why)

today i want to talk about why you should be cheating when you make beats and if you're not you might be hurting your own music when it comes to being a beat maker or a producer a lot of people have this idea that cheating is a bad thing and in this context cheating would be things like using loops or samples using presets using tools that can help you build out your chords or melodies are just a lot of different forms of cheating people like this idea of making all their own music of building all their own sounds mixing and mastering on their own and pretty much doing everything themselves but my argument in this video is that this is probably hurting you more than it's helping you if you want to be a producer or a beat maker let's talk about why first off what a lot of people get wrong is not understanding what a beat maker or a producer actually does traditionally if we take a look at the role of a producer it was the person who helped the artist put their song together the artist would have an idea for a song and the producer helped them bring this idea to life and turn it into a full complete song they might bring in other musicians to play other instruments they might bring in an engineer that they think would help them get that right aesthetic they might suggest a song go in a certain direction or arrange it in a specific way there were just a lot of things that a producer did but let's talk about what a producer didn't do the producer wasn't the person who went in and played the instruments themselves that was the job of the artist they didn't mix and master the song either that's what the engineer was there for they might have suggestions or ideas but a good producer knows their role for example let's say this was way back and i was one of these old school producers and it came time to including a guitar solo in the song and coincidentally jimi hendrix was sitting right there on the couch in the studio imagine if a producer said even though i have one of the greatest guitarists of all time right here next to me i have this idea for a guitar solo and i'm going to be the one that plays it myself that would be a pretty stupid decision and if you take a look at a more modern example we can see that this is still what a good producer does right next to me you can see footage of kanye west making the beat for good life this is probably one of kanye's biggest songs ever and in this video there's something really interesting going on kanye isn't the one creating the main lead in the beat which is probably the central idea of the song looking at this video i think there are two things that are pretty evident when i watch this number one this video is probably showing us that kanye is not a great musician number two this is also showing us the exact reason why kanye is one of the greatest producers sure he could go and try to play his own music on top of the beat but the result probably wouldn't be as good so he did what a good producer would do and brought in help he found someone whose strengths are his weakness and most of all he put the idea first and did what's best for the music now how does this relate to you you might be thinking well i don't have someone helping me with my beats i don't have access to world class artists to help me with my music i'm here all on my own and i have to do everything on my own too well that's where you're actually wrong you have more access than any producer in the past ever did you can easily get the help of world-class musicians who make loops and samples that you can use for your beat you have access to world-class sound designers who have utilized their hours of practice to make amazing presets in the vsts that you have on your computer you have access to people who have a deep knowledge of music theory who have created high quality midi packs that you can use in your own beats this is what modern day producing looks like you have access to so many people who have spent thousands of hours honing their own craft and are amazing at what they do and are willing to help you and for you to decide to forgo getting help from all these people and doing everything yourself is why i say you're making a mistake and why cheating by getting help from these people is exactly what you should be doing again let's think about where we started about what a producer does and how to be a good producer all these things that we've talked about learning how to design your own sounds how to build your own melodies and loops how to create your own chord progressions are learning these skills helpful to you absolutely i'm not saying that they're worthless or that they're going to be harmful if you learn them they are obviously a great asset to have but you need to understand what your job is and what you're trying to do in your lifetime you can only really become highly skilled at a few things to become a highly skilled producer you need to practice the skills of how to be a producer how to put ideas together how to select the right sounds for your song how to arrange a beat to keep it interesting all of the things that actually make producers valuable and what you also need to understand is that every single time you decide to practice another skill like how to design your own sounds and you spend 10 hours building every single sound in your beat from scratch or you try to practice how to mix your beat and you spend more time on the mix itself rather than the beat that's practice time you're taking away from learning how to become a better beat maker or producer your time is finite and when you decide to choose to develop one skill you're also choosing to forgo developing another so you need to be wise about what skill you decide to practice and how much time you spend on each a good guiding principle is the 80 20 rule this is something that i think about all the time learn the 20 of knowledge that gets you 80 of the results when it comes to a lot of these secondary skills like sound design mixing and mastering music theory beyond that what's gonna happen is that you're gonna hit the point of diminishing returns where you will start to learn less and less in the same amount of time that it took you to get to that first 80 percent once you hit that point what i would advise that you go back to your main craft and improve what matters most which is probably beat making or producing if you're watching this video now obviously this is with the perspective of you wanting to become a professional producer if you're just doing this for fun and you just want to learn a bunch of skills you don't really care as much about becoming a professional then by all means learn whatever you want or when you're practicing the other skills and you find yourself having more fun building loops and samples or mixing beats rather than actually making them then maybe you'd be better suited in another role either way whatever you decide to do i just want to make this video to help you rethink this idea of cheating there are going to be people who try to stigmatize these ideas but what i would argue is that these people have a misunderstanding of what a producer or a beat maker really is so don't feel bad if you decide to cheat because you're actually doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing if you guys have enjoyed this video like and subscribe speaking of improving at becoming a better beat maker or producer head over to betterbeatmaker.com i have a full online course that teaches you everything that you need to know to really advance your skills when it comes to production and beat making my free drum kit's available in the description box below as well as a link to the discord if you want your beats reviewed live i do that every so often and i'll see you guys next time

Channel: Navie D

Views: 29,738

Rating: 4.9658518 out of 5

Keywords: beats, beatmaking, beat making, how to make beats, beatmaking tutorial, making beats

Id: sPjltaV54Lk

Length: 6min 48sec (408 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021