10 Track Commandments

# 10. Unless it’s a rare sample don’t sample the first 10 seconds. Don’t loop the first ten seconds of "Thriller."

# 9. Do you. Which means if you sample, sample. If you play keyboards, do that.

# 8. Always make beats with a MC in mind. Ask yourself, "Does this sound like Busta joint or a Nas joint?" That’s the best way to build up your catalogue.

# 7. Don’t put more than 10 beats on a beat CD. I put 30 on one once and MCs can’t absorb all of that at once. I learned the hard way.

# 6. Flippin’ Bob James’ "Nautilus" at least once is a right way of passage, even if you don’t play it for anybody.

# 5. If you make beats on a computer, don’t have Limeware or something on it. You’ll get viruses and lose everything.

# 4. Some people don’t like to record with a lot of people in the studio, butI like to record with a lot of different people there because you get a lot different feedback on the record.

# 3. If you want longevity in this game, align yourself with larger entity and be the main producer like, Marley Marl, The RZA, The Neptunes, Mannie Fresh, Organizied Noize, The Bomb Squad, Dr. Dre. They don’t just make beats, they provided the landscapes for a whole crew for years.

# 2. Forget reading the manual. You gotta break something to figure out how it works. Peter Jennings didn’t graduate from high school. It’s about natural ability.

# 1. Stick to your equipment. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t make beats on a bucket with some sticks.This is hip-hop. If you can drop 40 points a night in Chuck Taylor’s, do it. You don’t need Nike Shox.

The flip side of this problem is that a good song, well-produced, can be a great song. Considering details, attending to the small stuff, and being a bit of a perfectionist with the mixing and mastering may leave you with a stellar product, one you can really be proud of.

Learn how to use the hardware and software that you already have, and use it to its maximum potential. Take online courses, read the manuals, join forums, and really dig in to the features. There are so many resources available for anyone interested in home music production using a home computer, taking advantage of them is critical for success.

Just remember, both hardware and software are only one part of the equation. Concentrate on writing great songs and tracks to record, and then spend your efforts recording them and mixing them perfectly. Focus on the fundamentals. Take your time with the production, and you’ll get the best results. Anyone can record anything. You want to stand out and be the best!

Here is a good place to start if you want to learn more about the techniques, software and hardware to create music.

Article Written By: Sah Sabado

Bio: Coming from a family of musicians, I am the only one who is unable to play any musical instrument, hence my desperation to find some way to contribute something during our private performances at home. Thanks to computers and the internet, I have started exploring the new world of digital music. Join me in my quest at finding the best resources for home recording!

Visit: http://ixlproductions.co.uk and http://musiciswhatyoumakeit.com

# 1. Domain Name

A domain name is the web address to where your website will be found. Example: www.yournamehere.com

".com" is the most popular. Then most common addresses after that are ".net" and ".org".

Domains can be purchased as low as low as $9.99 per year.

I get my domain names from GoDaddy.com. They only charge $9.99, but if you look online for Go Daddy promo code (fatwallet.com), you can get a domain for $6.95 per year.

Also if you decide to use Go Daddy, check out my post: Myspace Producers!!! Step Your Domain Game Up!!! to view a video tutorial on how to redirect your domain address.

# 2. Host

Now that you have a domain name, you need a host. A host is where your site files will be stored online on servers that are available 24 hours a day.

Many host are the same. But what you should pay attention too is storage space, bandwidth, features that allow you to auto-install free software such WordPress (Used for Blogs), photo galleries and more. Also make sure they offer a Money Back Guarantee in case you don’t like the services they provide.

I currently use Host Gator. They offer a plan for $4.95 a month ? and a plan for $7.95 a month ?. I picked the plan for $7.95 so I can host more then one domain name. Plus they offer this free software called Fantastico that allow you to set up WordPress, phpBB2 forums, OS Commerce store front, Coppermine Photo Gallery, and more.

But here are some other possible hosts:
iPower Web – I’ve used them before, but had problems with their servers moving slow at times. As a side note; their customer service was helpful.
Bluehost – They provide you with a free domain name. Starting at $6.95 per month.
Go Daddy – They have plans that start at $4.29

# 3. Your Website

Your website is making yourself or business available to the world, 24 hours a day. If you don’t have a online presence, you have no idea what opportunities you could be missing out on.

Where do you start?

If you don’t have time to learn how to design and build a site from scratch, you can always use a template. Online you can find tons of free and paid for templates.

Free Templates:

• Templateworld.com
• Freecsstemplates.org
• Ramblingsoul.com/
• Free-css-templates.com
• Free-css.com
• Freecsstemplates.com

Paid Templates:

• Templatemonster.com - One of  my favorite template sites. Tons of categories available.
• Hypertemplates.com

Even if you get one of these templates, you will still need to have some knowledge of web design. My best advice for setting up your own personal site is to set up a WordPress blog. WordPress is a free content management system that allows you to easily edit you site. HipHopMakers.com is run off WordPress.

Plus WordPress has a huge community of users that create free WordPress themes, plugins, which are all great FREE software.

Check out some of the free WordPress themes:

• Freewpthemes.net
• Fresheezy.com
• Bloggingthemes.com
• Osskins.com
• Wpthemesfree.com
• Themelab.com

Conclusion

To get an entire, functioning site up, it will take some work. You can always hire someone to do the work, which can get pricey, or you can take advantage of some of the free resources out there, and slowly learn how to do everything yourself. I recommend learning. It allows you to be more independent so that you can edit the site as often as you need, avoiding additional costs.

In the beginning, the best way for your site to be its best is to research your competitors and learn what they are doing right, and even more important, what they are doing wrong. The more research you do the better it can help you build the perfect site that fulfills your needs.

My next tutorial will be How to Set Up a WordPess Blog in 5 Minutes ( w/ Host Gator), and how to change your theme, and create your first post.

In the meantime, I recommend you look into getting a domain name/host, and start promoting your content online…

I would like your feed-back on what are you looking for in a site. Your answers will have the possibility of being included into a video tutorial right here on HipHopMakers!

Please subscribe to the RSS Feed to get future updates. http://feeds.feedburner.com/HipHopMakers

1. Get a high-quality computer with enough memory to run the hardware and software you need.
2. Invest in a back-up hard drive. You won’t want anything to happen to these precious files while you’re working on them, or once they’re completed.
3. Research the various software that’s available. Remember, free doesn’t always equal best!
4. Invest in excellent speakers. If there’s one area that you should splurge, this is it. Replaying your recordings and trying to hear the intricacies over your tiny computer speakers is nearly impossible.
5. Learn at least the basics of MIDI and digital audio, and how they work together.
6. If you want to make your own CDs, you will need a CD burner.
7. Know how and when to use EQ—sometimes less is more!
8. Take advantage of the many online Music Forums available; follow the advice of those who have done this before.
9. Plan your budget carefully, this equipment can really add up.
10. Patience matters. Knowledge and experience will follow.

Whether you are an aspiring musician, have a fun garage band, or you’re a seasoned industry vet, learn production techniques and consider using your home computer to make your music. Why pay someone else to do it for you when it’s become so easy to do it yourself? And remember, it’s easy with the help of our friends, why not join the Music Community today, its free!

Article Written By: Sah Sabado

Bio: Coming from a family of musicians, I am the only one who is unable to play any musical instrument, hence my desperation to find some way to contribute something during our private performances at home. Thanks to computers and the internet, I have started exploring the new world of digital music. Join me in my quest at finding the best resources for home recording!

Visit: http://ixlproductions.co.uk and http://musiciswhatyoumakeit.com

Look at artists like Souljah Boy. A 16 year-old kid, that took his self-produced song, created a dance for it, uploaded some videos to Youtube and Myspace, started promoting, and boom…  over 3 million views, 1 million ring tone sales, and landed a major label deal that includes 80% ownership of his masters and publishing.  This is un-heard of!  Labels are NOT use to letting go of those rights, and thus those royalties, to artists, but because of the posturing that this artist had by doing these things independently, he was able to get the "dream deal" that he wanted.  He is not the only artist having success that way!  You can search Myspace and Youtube and find plenty of artists working there material this way, and although they might not be landing major label deals, they are making money… not necessarily small money either… doing what they love… MUSIC.

One key independent artists being able to utilize these mediums to be successful is the fact that they are free to use.  Artists with little to no budget have avenues to promote there work without much if any cost, and do so effectively.  There is one catch for a lot of these artists however.  What if they are not producers?  Soulja Boy learned how to make beats for his work and therefore didn’t have to buy beats to write and record over.  Why is this important?  Quality beats and production is EXPENSIVE.  Top producers can bring price tags of 50k and up.  High level independent producers can push beats for 1, 3, 5k and more.  And even up-and-coming producers have price tags from 100 to 1k per beat for exclusive production and licensing. So how do these rappers and singers with little or no budgets get beats and production for record to so that they to can start using these new online methods of promotion?  How can these guys be successful in this, or any market, if they don’t have the backbone for there projects… the music?  Well, and new phenomenon is sweeping the internet in 2008 in the online beat selling world.

The non-exclusive, also know as the beat-leasing, market has caught on, and given the literally 500,000+ up-and-coming rapper, singers, and artists an affordable way to get quality production for there projects.

There are tons of websites popping up geared to this market, but I am going to talk about one…  www.AlpyneProductions.com is becoming the premier place to for these artists to get beats in todays market.  Alpyne is a 9 year veteran of the production game, including topping the mp3.com charts in 2000 and 2001 (yes, these charts included Eminem, Jay Z, Ludachris and the rest of the major music world), a healthy term on soundclick.com after mp3.com shut down, many, many endeavors offline with independent and major label artists, being in rocbattle.com’s top 10 on more than one occasion, amassing over 1.5 million plays on Myspace, and now launching AlpyneProductions.com. His music is original and creative, and definitely has a signature sound, but also has that "feel" of something
you want to hear in the mainstream.  And aside from the quality of music, his site is easy to navigate, all transactions are handled through Paypal, so you know you’re covered in the event something was to go wrong, and he even has a Free Beats section.  All you have to do is become a member of the site, which is free, and you get access to Free Beats.  Oh… and how about this for the kicker… this guys beats are of the same quality as any top producer in the game (i.e. Dre, Scott Storch, Timbaland, etc.) but the non-exclusive beat leases on his page are only $13
each!!!!!!!  That’s half of almost every other producer (whether or not the music is of this quality) in the lease market! 

His tagline is “Industry Level Beats At Street Level Prices” and have to say that is 100% the best way to describe it!

I’ve said all of that to say this…  all of the major label labels are screaming about the music market dying and complaining about sagging record sales for a reason, but not the reason that they want you to believe.  Record sales are sagging for major labels because independent artists are coming up and taking a huge chunk of the market.  That’s it…  no grand reasoning or dramatic twist to it…  we as independent artists are taking the industry and making it ours, a little a time, and as you can see, we are making things happen.  Whether or not you use www.AlpyneProductions.com or some other producer, all of you independent artists out there still struggling to come up, get you some QUALITY material, dive into this online phenomenon of a market place, dig in and grind until you get where you want to go.  It may not be QUITE that simple, but trust me, it’s NOT as hard as you think it is either.  Lets take advantage of the times, the tools we have, and GET THIS MONEY!

Written By
J.Jones, CEO - Cinemacks Records

1. Join Forums

Join forums that you like and participate in discussion. Put your URL in your forum signature, or create an animated banner that links to your website. Here are 9 Music forums.

2. Comment on blogs

Leave good comments on blogs that you like. Many blogs ask you to enter your name, email address, and web address. This is great because this gives you an opportunity to link back to your site. Also, when more websites link to your website, you will have a higher search engine ranking. This will make it easier to find your site through search engines.

3. Leave Comments on Myspace

Posting bulletins is great, but the bulletins boards are overly spammed and ignored by many. Take time to leave a comment on someone’s page with some kind words, and hopefully they will check out page, and my Myspace name happens to be my URL that hopefully check out.

Note: Myspace takes a long time to load as is, so when someone post a big banner/image that makes the load time even worse. I delete the message, and don’t’ check out the persons profile. So please don’t do this.

4. Join Social Communities

I’m not picking one more then the other, but there are a lot of online communities you can join to possibly generate more traffic. A lot of the sites allow you to enter your URL in the profile.

The goal of joining these additional communities is to become a active member, gain friends and interest, and getting them to come to your site.

Here are some social sites I think you should look into:

• Digg – Social Book Marking
• Flickr – Photo Sharing
• Myspace – Social networking
• Facebook -Social networking
• Youtube – Video Sharing
• Twitter - Micro-blogging, RSS, updates
• Friendster - Social Networking Site

5. Make a Youtube Video

Well don’t just make a video for Youtube, there are plenty of other video site around.
Start a video blog, make some beat making video, do a music video, do a tutorial. Do something. But make it entertaining, and put your URL in the video and on the side bar of the video.

Good tips to shooting some videos

• YouTube Videos for Dummies
• No Lights No Camera, No Action…
• Video Effects; the hot sauce of your YouTube video world!
• Camera Placement….a Smosh Love Story…
• Exclusive! Leaked! How to make Viral Videos!

NOTE: Do Not SPAM!

People hate spammers. I hate spammers. Don’t Spam! Don’t post a million Myspace bulletins of the same thing, don’t just post a crappy comment to post your URL. By doing these things your are building a bad name for yourself and the URL you are posting. So STOP IT!!!!

PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK.

1. Try out new sounds

Look online for free samples and VSTs. There are tons of websites where you can get free samples, and free virtual instruments. Spend a weekend downloading and organizing your new sounds, and try them out.

2. Listen to different music

Personally, in the past I had never liked rock music, but then I played Guitar Hero. Playing the bass in the game made me appreciate all the melodies, and variations upon those melodies. As I played I could only think about how I would have changed the song into a hip hop beat, using a lot of similar elements, but would have made it altogether different. So now, I listen to different types of music, not to sample, but to get inspired. Whether it’s the melody, or how they break down the verse and the hook. It’s all different from what I usually listen to, and this gives me lots of new ideas.

3. Seven minute switch

Sometimes I have the tendency to stick with a beat for 30 minutes, and the final result may be something I don’t like at all. So try this, make 3 to 4 beats, and only spend 7 minutes on each of them. For each one of your beats, try a different tempo, different sounds and different drum patterns. After you make the 4 beats, go back and focus on the one you see the most potential in. I say this, because a lot of the time, for me, the beat that I do very fast may not have all the elements I want in it yet, but it may have the right feeling I am looking for and can turn out very well.

4. Write lyrics first

Whether you are a rapper or a singer, (or even just a producer, because nowadays, a lot of beats are sold with hooks for rap songs, and rough draft vocals for R&B songs), try starting with the lyrics first. As your lyrics get laid out, the feeling of a beat should stand out to you, and give you ideas for the intro, hook, etc.

5. Do something different

Every once in a while, try to switch up your routine. If you don’t sample, sample! If you only use hardware, try out software and take advantage of all the resources out there. There are a million different ways to do what ever you’re doing now, but differently, and I’m saying give them a try. No one should ever be stuck in their ways, because the industry changes a lot, and you should be able to change with it.

6. Collaborate

Work with others, whether it’s a fellow producer or song writer/singer. Everyone I know loves music, and can provide input on a track. If the other person has an idea for a melody, play it out, or let them play it out and vibe off each other’s energy. This entire process can be fun and can be a learning experience. The other person may pick sounds you wouldn’t usually pick, but work around this, and push your self as a producer and make the track work.

7. Make some noises

I honestly feel that since I can’t play any instruments, my best instrument is my mouth. Humming is good for me because I can come up with endless melodies in my head. So I get an audio recorder or record directly into my computer, and hum the melody for a song. Then I attempt to remake it with my keyboard or software.

I would suggest recording yourself humming the beat before you try to start making it, because if you have that perfect melody in your head, you may hear a sound when you’re searching through your sound collections that may inspire an entirely new melody. This is good obviously, but you don’t want to lose your first idea either. So just record it, and you won’t have to worry about this.

8. Watch Youtube (Or any other video site)

Youtube.com has millions of producers out there just like you. With more or less knowledge. Watch them, learn from their mistakes, and learn from their skills. This should be a big source of inspiration, because online you will see all types of people across the world using different equipment and utilizing different techniques.

9. Remake professional beats

Test your skills and remake a song you hear on the radio. Put yourself in the producer’s head, and figure out how they got that certain sound and that certain feel. In the long run, this will make you more versatile, because when an artist asks for this producer’s type of sound, you’ll be able to provide them with something similar, but also to add your own style.

10. Learn a musical instrument

This is probably one of the most beneficial things that you can do as a producer. But it’s probably the hardest thing on this list. It takes time and patience, but when you take some time to learn some chords and train your ears, the possibilities are endless.