How to Make Hip Hop Beats with Garageband Program

Overview

Many producers have learned how to make hip hop beats with free music maker programs such as GarageBand for Mac. You don’t necessarily have to purchase expensive software to make decent beats. Free music maker programs like GarageBand allow you to customize unique tracks on your own, without all the frills and excessive costs of studio equipment. While you will not have access to the same range of advanced beat-making tools as you would with an expensive program or a professional recording studio, GarageBand still offers more than enough free features to create quality-sounding beats.

Step 1

Open GarageBand and select “new music project” from the pop-up window. Choose a tempo, key and a project name to save your new arrangement. Click on the “Control” tab from the toolbar and turn off the metronome. You are now ready to compose a hip hop beat.

Step 2

Browse the stock rhythm loops available in GarageBand by clicking the eyeball icon in the bottom left corner of the window. This will bring up a list of loops. Click on the “beats” tab to bring up a list of rhythm options to the right of the pop-up toolbar. Click once on a beat sample to listen to it. Once you have a found a rhythm that you like, click and drag the file to the main composition window above.

Step 3

Copy and paste this newly placed rhythm bar multiple times to extend the loop, creating an ongoing background beat for your track. Typical hip hop beats last around three minutes, so make your rhythm track roughly this long.

Step 4

Select the melodic loops you want to play over the rhythm track. Click “play” in the middle of the window to play back your rhythm track while you listen to samples melodies to see which ones fit best. Again, by clicking the eyeball icon you can bring up a list of loop options. Choose from synths, organs, piano, brass, strings, electronic sounds or guitars. Click on the melody samples that you like and drag them to the main arrangement window. Click and drag a melody bar horizontally to position it in relation to the rhythm track. Copy and paste the melody bar to extend the length of the loop.

Step 5

Select special effects such as reverb, echoes, filtering and fade-outs for your final cut. The sign of a professional beat is in the details. Use the “track info” toolbar to the right of the window to select effects. Click on the “master track” tab and choose from a variety of EQ sound settings such as ambient, dance, rock and classical. Click on individual tracks on the left-hand side of the window to select unique effects for each. Once selected, click on the “real instrument” tab on the right-hand side of the arrangement and choose settings from drums, bass, vocals, guitars and special effects. Put the finishing touches on your hip hop beat by adding echoes or sound effects at key intervals to give it more personality and make it more interesting.