Hip Hop Beats

If you have been following this Dream Big & Work Hard series, you would know in the first article I brought up a few things that deter you from achieving your dreams. But one of the biggest road blocks in of achieving your dreams may be yourself.

Doubt is a way of life. The road untraveled may be the scariest one.

So here are a few things you can do to fight these fears:

1. Know that you are the controller of your fate

If you want something to happen in your life, you can’t expect for it to land in your lap. You have to put in effort and go out to make sure it happens. This cause alone should be enough motivation to not hold you back, because this says ONLY YOU CAN MAKE THINGS HAPPEN. Hold yourself responsible. Whether it’s trying to get that job promotion, approaching a girl or guy, or buying a new pair of sneakers. It is up to you to go out and make that effort to get what you want.

2. Don’t worry about what others think!

In the first article, I spoke of haters and doubters. They are everywhere. They are closed minded and can not see your bigger plan in this world. They may think something is too different, and it’s not normal. But if being unmotivated, and unsucessful by their standards is normal. Do you you really want to be blend in and be accepted???

Worry about you, and what makes you happy and what will get you to where you want to be. Because friends and family is all that should matter. And sometimes those friends and family may no be supportive. I still look at this as a opportunity to prove them wrong.

3. Look forward to the future

For someone who has nothing to look forward to in life, life may suck. But for the dreamers and those with goals, life should be an exciting trip with many ups and downs, and as long as quitting is not an option. Yes, I lose motivation a lot (I mean a lot). But I know if I work and work at it, I will get to where I want to be, and I’m so looking forward to getting there.

Know that dissapointment is a reality of life. But also know, you really don’t appreciate the good without the bad, and the bad may kick my ass to the ground, but know you are slowly making baby steps to true destination.

Life is a learning experience. Look forward to learning somethig new, weither it’s success or falure. You will become wiser because of it.

4. Stop comparing yourself to others

Comparing your life with others is a very bad habit. Everyone has different life experiences/situations. Don’t put yourself down because you don’t have what someone else has. Instead, use it as a source of inspiration and make it a goal to strive for. Think if they can do it. You can do it too.

Would you say, I have to go blind like Stevie Wonder to be great at playing piano and make good songs. NO! So you shouldn’t say I have to have a big studio, and tons of fans to make great music. Know if you strive for it. You can make it happen.

5. Believe in yourself

I’m sure you have heard this before, “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will.” But it’s very true, and it’s essential to get to where you want to be. You have to know that if you need to learn something to get to where you want to be. That you’re going to go out and learn it. You have to know you will succeed by any means neccessary. Know if you don’t have bumps in the road, you are doing something wrong. If you don’t have haters/doubters, once again, you are doing something wrong.

These things are essential. Don’t think for a second that your role models, or anyone you look up too, didn’t have these problems that you have. I’m sure they did, and may been even worse. Yet they got throught it, and got to where they want to be. And are still striving for more.

Video: Secret To Success

Conclusion

Every one of the points above involves you changing your thought process. This is something that is hard to do. But it is neccassary. You need to believe you can achieve, and you must believe the items above are needed to get where you want to be. Nothing comes easy, or over night. So continue to work at it. You only truly fail when you quit.

If you believe you will fail, odds are you will. I think it’s corny anytime I hear that, but it’s very true.

Video: Famous Failures

3 More things to do the help with fighting self doubt

1. Post postive thoughts or goals around work and home to be reminded by what you are striving for.
2. Repeat positive thoughts out load and in your head. This works at programming your mind to thing positivily.
3. Share your dreams and goals with others. This will make you accountable for achievieing them. Because people will ask you about your progress, and hopefully you will strive to have good then to say about your progress.

Thank you for reading.

Part 4 on the way.

Here is part 2 of the Dream Big & Work Hard series.

Uncontrollable things may come into your life, but it’s you who will overall control the outcome. If you set goals, focus on achieving them, and don’t quit no matter what. Your life should be lived with no regrets.

By setting goals and measuring your achievements, you are able to see what you have done and what you are capable of doing.

Goal setting is easy. Following through on the goals is what’s hard, but only if you make it hard.

1. Make a Plan — Set Realistic Goals

Set goals both big and small. Big goals are where you want to be; the small goals are the steps you take to get there.

I use sites like 43things.com to set and share my goals or tasks. Once a goal is completed, you check it off your list and share your experience of what you did to achieve that goal.

Don’t set yourself up for failure by expecting too much at first.

Example:

Not realistic goal for this site: Get one million views to this site this year.
Realistic goal for this site: Get 150K visitors this year. That’s 50K more than last year.

So this is something I can possibly do because it’s not terribly far from what I have done before.

2. Find Some Role Models

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be unique, but you must have seen someone do something you admired in the field of your choice to make you want to do what you are currently doing. So find some role models and use their road to success as a model to get where you want to be. I’m sure their journey was full of hard work.

Example: Ryan Leslie — I admire him because he is a music artist who has a strong work ethic and has a good understanding of today’s social market. There are tons of music artists’ albums that aren’t coming out because of lack of promotion, and Ryan Leslie takes advantage of all online tools available, such as Myspace, YouTube, blogging, and more to make himself known. Other artists can learn from him. I’m not trying to be a singer or anything like that. But I admire his hard work.

3. Set a Timeline

You need to be able to measure your progress, so you need to set a timeline. Set the big goals.

Example: You want to be a music producer. There are many different ways to achieve this goal. But we are setting mini goals to get there. So here are small goals and tasks to help get to where you want to be.

Mini Goals

• Create five to 10 beats per week
• Find new sounds — one day per week
• Learn to play piano — dedicate one hour per week to practicing
• Network with rappers and songwriters
• Promote beats — post on Myspace, Roc Battles, and music forums

Bigger Goals: All of This in Three Months

• Have 100 beats
• Learn to play five songs on the piano
• Have phone numbers to 10 rappers and 10 songwriters
• Have 1,000 friends on Myspace, participate in six beat battles on Roc Battles, have 100 posts in music forums

See, the little steps are easy. With in three months, everything has grown to bigger numbers.

4. Commit to Achieving — Ignore Bumps in the Road

It’s easier to give up than it is to work hard. But just think about that WHAT IF? No one else will make your life’s dreams happen for you. So QUITTING IS NOT AN OPTION!

5. Invest in Learning

This is very important. We are living in the time of so much information being available on the Internet, and research is the key. You can’t expect information to come to you. Go out and find everything.

Example: I worked on this site for two months before it launched. I researched how to write articles, how to promote the site, tips to making it user friendly, how to network, and the pros and cons of ads. I read sooooo much information. I wasn’t going to just put out something without a plan and no knowledge at all about what I am doing.

Researching gives you insight about others’ knowledge so you can avoid the same mistakes they have made. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. GO RESEARCH YOUR CRAFT!

6. Review Your Overall Progress Regularly

No plan is ever set in stone. Always work on modifying it, but that doesn’t mean allowing the goals to just fade away. It just means it may take a little longer than expected.

Example: As of March 25, I have had 30,159 visitors this year. That’s about 10K per month. I need to boost that to 13K per month for me to hit my goal, so I’ll need to work on that.

Last Words

Nothing in life that is worth having will come easy. So go fight for it and get it, and hold no one but yourself accountable if you don’t try.

Part #3 coming soon.

5 Articles I think you should check out:

1. 6 Things I Was Reminded of by Lance Armstrong
2. A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose
3. 5 Reasons Why Dreamers Can Be Leaders
4. 22 Secrets to Discovering Your Dream and Living It
5. 25 Simple Steps to Becoming Successful

I know way too many people who have became content with their lives. Like they can go no further than they have in their personal lives and their careers. Like becoming a security guard or lifting boxes at Fed Ex was their lifelong goal.

I feel sad for those people because it seems they have no dreams and no big goals to achieve. So if life is complete for you, what more do you have to look forward to?

For as long as I live, I plan on striving to make every one of my goals happen, no matter how crazy others may think they are.

I want to see everyone aim for more. Set big goals and work hard to make them happen. Why settle for anything? You are the controller of your fate.

Always Strive for More

No matter what job you may have, go far and beyond to excel at your task. Bring more to the table than is asked of you, and hopefully this hard work will be recognized, and you can move further in the company. And if it’s a crappy job and you don’t want to move further in the company, so what? Start working hard and build good work ethics, so when that new opportunity comes your way, you’re on track.

Example: I work at a print company. My job gets many phone calls from customers every day, which takes up a lot of time from the customer service department. These customers’ questions are very general and can be answered easily. So my solution was to create a searchable Help Center. I researched my job’s competitors for ideas, I learned new coding that I was unfamiliar with, I built a mock up, and I tested everything at home because I didn’t want to present something till I had a working example. When I presented the Help Center, it was widely accepted and has reduced the customer phone calls. View it Here.

Doing this helped me out around my one-year anniversary time, to show that I deserved to become a Web Design Manager, which I currently am at the moment.

Don’t Limit Yourself

Why stick to one thing? If you’re making beats, why just stick to that? Why not expand and work on writing songs for artists? Why not learn to play some instruments? If music is your thing, why not start a record label, or music management company, host parties, or learn more about promoting? I’m just saying learn everything you can about what you love. The more you know, the more valuable you are, and the more independent you can be.

Example: I am a terrible writer and have really bad grammar. But I run a blog and I have written all but three posts on this site. Why? Because I wanted to help others, focus more on music, and I wanted a creative outlet.

I didn’t let my bad spelling stop me from doing what I wanted to do. Yes, a lot of my articles may have bad grammar, and in some of my videos I may just ramble, but I think they have been more helpful than confusing to others. So the bad grammar will continue, and me getting better at writing will continue also.

Have No Regrets

My personal biggest fear in life is to be 70 years old and look back at my life and wonder WHAT IF? What if I would have tried music; would I have been successful? What if I tried acting; could I have made it?

I don’t want to be old and look back at anything and wonder what if, because while I’m alive and healthy, I want to make everything happen that I can make happen.

Example: I have been scared to do some things. That’s the reality of life; new things can be terrifying at first. But the regret of not doing something can be way worse. For instance, I went sky diving and that was nerve racking. I pretty much told one person in my family I was going to do it, and did it. I had a great appreciation for life for like three days, and then reality and work hit me again, and the rush was over. But I’m still happy I did it.

I have also went scuba diving, hot air ballooning, kayaking, and more. I don’t want to say I didn’t try these things, so I’m going to do them.

Haters & Doubters

I respect anyone who has a dream and a goal, and will work hard at achieving it. But I know way too many people who will not support others’ dreams or goals. I think in most cases this is because the haters and doubters don’t have dreams or goals of their own and can’t imagine striving for more. They may say some negative things, because they can’t see a bigger plan for you.

Instead of a deterrent, this should be viewed as a bigger motivation to throw it in their face at first, and then show them with hard work. Goals and dreams are achievable.

Example: I personally feel I get looked down upon for all my crazy ideas. I am often inspired by things that I see. So I saw great photos and decided I wanted to pick up photography as a hobby. Some people thought it was a weird hobby to pick up because they don’t like it and thought I wouldn’t do a good job. The end result was, I invested time into it, and I like the work I produced, and they like the work I produced also. What do you think? markvphotography.com

Example 2: Back to my bad grammar. When I told people I was going to start a blog, they didn’t see the purpose. They pointed out how blogs fail, and once again, in not so many words, made it seem that I wouldn’t do a good job. Yet, more than a year later, with more than 100,000 visitors the first year, this site is still growing.

Thank you, haters and doubters, you help me in many ways!

Pat #2 Coming Soon – 6 Tips to Pursuing Your Dreams

I came across this Just Blaze article in a 2006 Complex Magazine issue. I thought I would share.

Here is Just Blaze’s 5 tips to dealing with beats

1. Signature Sounds

"Come up with a signature so people know it’s your beat. Then you can annoy people as much as I have, but they never forget your name."

2. Get Paid

"Always get money before you track the beat or hand over the ProTools disk. If you don’t you’ll probably hear your joint on a mixtape and get no money when it flops (most do)."

3. Best Tracks First

"If you get the opportunity to play beats for an artist, play your best 10 and that’s it! Otherwise your might as well pass them a 40oz. of NyQuil."

4. Be Seen

"If you land a single, make sure you’re there when they shoot the video, even if you have to fly out yourself. You think Kanye paid for my 2.5 second cameo in "Touch the Sky"?

5. Go to Events

"Go to every industry events. You wouldn’t believe how many washed-up, non-talent folks revive their careers by connin’ some fool on their fifth Hennessy and Coke."

Whether you are promoting a business, a service, or yourself. Business cards are essential for offline marketing.

They are very underrated, yet the number one most used marketing tool that you can find almost everyone using.

If you currently don’t have business cards. Here are 8 reasons why you need them.

# 1. You’ll Look More Professional

A business card is something that is very cheap, that can do wonders to help with your business appearance. You having a business card shows that you are prepared and have invested in to what you are doing.

If you are out at a meeting, conference, industry event, etc, and you are given a business card, and you don’t give one back. Odds are you will be frowned at because you will appear unprepared. Stay ready.

# 2. It’s Something to Give Out

Have you ever said to someone, "Check out my site at Blah Blah, and contact me". That person may remember that information for a little bit. But it may not stay with them for long. By handing out a business card, you have given that person something to refer back to at a later date. Hopefully they will contact with you, or possibly hand the card over to someone else who is in need of your services or products.

# 3. You Can Stand Out

A good professional design can help you stand out because it will be easier to remember your name and the branding of your card. A great design can also sparks conversations, and small questions can lead to bigger discussions about your products and services.

# 4. It’s Convenient

Avoid writing your contact information on a piece of paper that can get crumbled up, and trashed. With a business card you stay prepared, with a name, number, web address, list of services, etc, available right away. Save yourself the inconvenience of writing your info on the back of something, and possibly writing incorrect information.

# 5. Helps When Time is Limited

Sometimes you only have a few seconds to introduce yourself. Giving out your business card in that short time, can lead to future opportunities because they now have your web site address and email for future conversations.

# 6. They’re Small

Business cards are small enough to fit in your wallet, so you can conveniently carry them around with you at all times. They are pretty much tiny flyers that can provide a big impact. When you are out and someone gives you a big flyer. If you are out and moving, are you going to carry this big flyer around. No, your going to put it down somewhere. You can easily carry a business card, and it’s not a inconvenience for the person you are giving the card too.

# 7. It’s Affordable

You can get a decent amount of business cards for the price you spend on a meal for lunch. For example Next Day Flyers.com has business cards that start at .95 for 100 cards. The 6 reasons above are more than enough reasons why you should get some business cards. But can you really argue with investing .95 to boost your marketing efforts. Invest in your craft!

#8. It’s Effective

Every professional that has a business, or offers services / products has a business card. WHY? Because they work. Not only do business cards help to bring in new customers, it also helps to bring them back.

Conclusion

Something so small such as a business cards, can help spread the word of what you are doing and lead to big results. If you are trying to succeed in something that involves others, networking is a must, and business cards is a marketing essential.

After all these great points, you shouldn’t be thinking whether or not if you need business cards. Your thought process should now be, what should I put on them, and where to get them.

What makes a good business card?

5 essentials for a good business card:

1. Readable – If it takes me 10 seconds to find your web address or phone number, its not readable. Make it easy to find your info.
2. Up to Date - Giving out cards with out dated info is a no, no. Don’t lose potential clients because they cant get in contact with you.
3. Memorable - Stand out! Plain designs aren’t impressive, and you will blend in with others.
4. Make It Clear What You Do – If I get a card, I want to know what you do and why I should be interested. So make it clear.
5. Crisp ( Not bent and damaged ) – Don’t hand out something that is beat up, and looks like trash.

Where do you get a design?

I’m glad you asked. Well you can search find a graphic design who may charge you to 0 for a custom design. Or you can always get a high quality design from the Hip Hop Makers Store for only .99 that you can download instantly. Which I think is a great deal.

Here are some of the designs that can be purchase from the store.

View More Here!

Image is everything. What you give out represents you. If you give out something crappy, what does that say about you???

If you are a iPhone or iPod Touch owner, and you are into writing music. Then you are carrying a song writing tool kit right in your pocket.

The Apple App store is growing with new apps daily, but here are some of our favorites to get your song writing juices going.

PLEASE NOTE: I’m going to do a video to go along with this post in about a week. I’m just busy at the moment. So if you haven’t already, subscribe to the youtube channel.

1. Perfect Rhyme Price: {content}.99 Size: 4.4MB What is it? Perfect Rhyme is a rhyming dictionary with over 130,000 words. How is it helpful? This app will speed up your song writing process. It’s a little push into the right direction when you have a brain freeze on rhyming words. It’s simple to use. Just enter the word, and search. No internet connection required. Link: View in iTunes

 

2. Thesaurus App Price: {content}.99 Size: 0.1MB What is it? It’s a thesaurus. This program hosts a collection of synonyms (Words that basically have the same meaning). How is it helpful? The Thesaurus App can help to improve your vocabulary and your song writing skills. To make music more interesting, you shouldn’t be using the same words repeatedly to express something. The Thesaurus App will give you new words to express your thoughts, which can potentially lead to new song ideas. Also check out this great article on “Using a Thesaurus to Conquer Songwriters Block”. Link: View in iTunes

 

3. Recorder Price: {content}.99 Size: 0.7MB What is it? This is a audio recorder. How is it helpful? This app was originally made for taking memos, discussions, interviews, etc. But it can just as well be used to record lyrics. Maybe you have a chorus idea in your head. This app will make it capable for you to record your lyrics ideas as they freshly pop into your head while you are on the go. Also use it to hum out beats, sing a melody, B-box a drum pattern, what ever it may be. Just capture those ideas, before they are forgotten and lost for ever. Additional features: Capable of emailing audio files. Link: View in iTunes

4. Shape Writer Pro Price: Free Size: 1.6MB What is it? This app is a note pad. How is it helpful? Maybe you’re not a fan of typing on the iPhone or iPod Touch. I admit I’m not. This app has a different way of typing notes. It works by dragging your finger to each letter of the word that you are trying to type. For example if you look at the image, you will see the line where they dragged their finger to spell out FUN. After you drag out the letters of the word, it automatically adds a space for you to drag out the letters of the next word. I also find the predictive text to be better on this app than I do for the Notes app that comes with the iPhone. This can really speed up your creative process by being able to type out your ideas faster. Additional features: You can email these notes to your personal email address within this app. Link: View in iTunes

 

5. Beat Maker Price: .99 Size: 149MB What is it? Beat Maker is a mobile music creation studio.

How is it helpful? This software can be helpful when you are out, and you want to lay down a foundation for a beat. This app comes loaded with 149MB of samples, and the ability to make your own kits. Sometimes a drum pattern alone can spark an idea. But if you need more, this app is packed with bass lines, synth loops, piano, scratches and more. This app has characteristics of a drum machines like the MPC. Plus a pattern sequencer that is similar to what you can find in a lot of music software. So if you load it up with your own samples, you can make a beat on it, and then export it to a wav. Link: View in iTunes Free sample kits: http://theblackpacket.no-ip.biz/beatmaker/

 

6. Metronome Price: Free Size: 0.2MB What is it? A metronome is a practice tool that produces a steady pulse (or beat) to help musicians play rhythms accurately. How is it helpful? Everyone’s writing style is different.  If making a beat with the beat making software above isn’t for you. Just use a metronome to help you with the timing of your lyrics. If you start writing a song without music, this can help you figure out the tempo that you want the track to be. Plus if you’re a musician and like to play a instrument while you write. This will help you to improve your timing. Link: View in iTunes

 

7. iPod Price: Free Size: 0.2MB What is it? iPod is a music playing app.

How is it helpful? This is your music collection of inspiration!!! You can load your device with all of your favorite songs that inspired you to want to write in the first place. When you get stuck, take a break and listen to some music to get inspired. You can also load it up with MP3s of instrumentals of songs you are working on. Then you can leave the studio to work on writing somewhere else. It’s nothing like fresh air to get inspired. Link: Comes installed on the iPhone or iPod Touch

 

8. Pandora Price: Free Size: 0.5MB What is it? Pandora is a free personalized radio station. How is it helpful? Just like pick #7, listening to music can help you get out of a creative rut. But Pandora can also open you up to new music. When you pick a artist to listen too, it will automatically generate a play list of similar artist. This can open you up to new music. Also you can be inspired by the different writing styles by picking some new genres of music on Pandora such as rock, jazz, country, etc. Link: View in iTunes

I hope these apps help your writing process.

Here are some tips to promoting yourself more as a producer, and find more potential buyers of your beats.

1. Make Beat Making Videos

Some people may not want to get in front of the camera, but this can really help with exposure. There are many people online that want to learn. These people become fans and follow you and can possibly become buyers of your music.

I want to use Boon Doc as an example. He currently have 6,558 Youtube subscribers. I did a interview with Boon Doc, I asked him how has about how Youtube has helped him and he said “It had helped tremendously with exposure.  People are posting and discussing my videos all over the place at websites and forums that I’ve never even seen or heard of before.” He pointed out how it has helped with beats sales, finding new artist to collaborate with, and big name people like Ryan Leslie getting in contact with him.

One of my other favorite Youtube music makers is Ronald Jenkees who has a whopping 77,429 subscribers, and his video views range from 95k to 3 million views. This can defiantly help you build a name for yourself.

So online videos can help a lot.

Cameras like this look cool for online video, Kodak Zi6 Pocket HD Camcorder, and its under 0.

2. Participate in Forums

I have been in many music forums where certain producers have built great names for themselves. They do this in a couple ways like having great answers to people questions, sharing music making tips, giving good feedback, and producing good music. Participating in forums also allows you to keep update with what is going on with music, learn new techniques, and get feedback on your music.

In the past I did a post on 9 music forums you should participate in.

Side note, please don’t become a forum jerk, someone that has nothing to share, and just replies to a thread because they are bored, and gives just stupid answers. Just work on building a good name for yourself.

3. Promote! Promote! Promote!

Put a web address in you email signature, forum signature, and on blogs when you leave a comment in the URL section. This helps me a lot, I leave a comment on other music blogs randomly, and I can see traffic coming from all kind of sites because of it.

Also use Myspace to get people to listen to your music. Post a Myspace bulletin once a week when you have new music. But don’t be one of the people that do 10 bulletins a day, that’s spammy, and isn’t a good look for you. 

4. Give Away Free Beats

This can be good depending on the situation. Maybe you give away 2 to 3 decent beats in a forum, and this can help bring people to your site to possibly buy some higher quality beats.

Also exchange for exposure by having a DJ or rapper saying your name & Myspace address.

For example I did a interview with Eyetel , and he spoke about how he gave out a free beat CD and the rapper Crooked I ended up rapping over one of his beats. So free isn’t always bad.

As a web designer I have done free projects in the past, and it has opened the door to me to other projects.

5.  Put Beats Online for the World

Make your beats available everywhere you can. You don’t now where people may come across your music. Utilize sites like Myspace, Soundclick, and Roc Battles. Make sure when people say they want to hear beats you have them available to hear, or you may miss out on that sell.

Web sites like Roc Battles allows you to upload beats, set if you want to sell or lease a beat, and set your own prices. It also offers an affiliate program where others can promote your beats for you and get a small percentage off a sell.

So overall make your music available to hear and buy to everyone.

6. Join Online Beat Battles

Web sites like Roc Battles have sections for beat battles that allow people to show off their talents. Every win you gain more points, and the more points you get the higher you will show on the producer charts and get more exposure. (Example of a Beat Battle)

7. Go Out and Network

I’m sure you have heard this before. It’s not what you know, it’s about who you know. You have to get your foot in the door, and meeting those right people can expose your music to the right person. So give your music to everyone, rappers, singers, managers, engineers, song writers, musicians, etc. It’s a small world and you have no idea of who some people off the street may know.

When you’re out networking, please make sure you have the essentials like a business card handy with a name, current phone number, email address and a personalized web address to stand out. (Read Myspace Producers!!! Step Your Domain Game Up!)

Side Tip:
Your web presence is very important because it makes you accessible to the entire world 24 hours a day. For all you producers that are currently promoting yourself on Myspace and Roc Battles, and other sites like that. Think about this, when you give out that web address to that social site, you are exposing your potential buyer to many of your competitors also. Cause on Myspace, I can easily click one of your top friends, and listen and buy one of their beats. So my suggestion is use all those site to help in marketing yourself. But also have your own web site to have you and your music alone as the focus. Once again you can get a web site host and a domain name just lower that a year (that’s the price of some shoes), and then you get a web site template or a free WordPress theme to get you up and going.

Conclusion

I know way too many producers that are very protective their beats. I personally feel if you plan on being a success in the music industry, those one or two beats shouldn’t be held on to like these are the beats that will determine you music making future. Your skills of being able to continuously create hot tracks is what will determine your success. Like Rsonist from the Heatmakerzs said in this video , your beats wont be heard in your house. Get them into everyone’s hands that you can put them in because you don’t know where it will get you.

Keep in mind

- Be patient, sells may not come right away

- Try to do some remixes with other artist vocals; some people may not see the potential of the beat until they hear vocals on it.

- Continue to push yourself creatively so your skills can continue to grow, read 10 Tips to help you stay creative with beat making

Last tip: Track the progress of all your promoting. I use a site called Getclicky, and they have a website tracking tool that is view easy to use, You can put it on a web site, or myspace page, and you can see where all your traffic is coming from, and this is important, because you should want to learn and know what works and what doesn’t work.

Let me know what you think about this post.

Please subscribe to this site and follow us on twitter.

I came across these 5 articles that I thought were cool. You should take a look.

1. Three ways to organize your beats ( Link )
2. 10 reasons why your beats are wack ( Link )
3. How to make beats and make money! ( Link )
4. Preparing Your Music Mix for Mastering ( Link )
5. 8 Most Over-used Samples In Hip Hop History ( Link )

Bonus: Beginners Guide to Music Production

• Part 1 – Equipment
• Part 2 – Choosing Your Software
• Part 3 – Setting Up Your Studio

When I first began on this journey of making music, I always saw in music forums that people got in heated debates on hardware versus software. The hardware lovers would look down upon the Fruity Loops users ( FL Studio), saying things like it’s for kids, it’s not for serious producers, blah, blah, and so on.

Still, today software is somewhat looked down upon even though successful producers such as 9th Wonder (who has produced for Jay Z, my favorite rap group Little Brother and Destiny’s Child ) who proudly admits to using FL Studio.

Other big producers have jumped on board with using software such as Reason. DJ Khalil, who has produced for Jay Z and 50 Cent, uses Reason, and in the link provided, he talks about how software has changed his whole beat-making process. Other producers such as DJ Troop and DJ Babu and countless others have used the Reason music software.

Even with these producers getting major placements, software alone is looked down upon.

4 Reasons Why I like Hardware

1. No Audio Latency – This is what bugs me most about software. The delay of sound. This is when you push a key and there isn’t an instant sound. It takes a few milliseconds, or more, but it’s enough to drive me nuts. It makes playing keyboard complicated. There are tips on ways to fix these problems, but it’s never really accurate like a piece of hardware. Hardware doesn’t give you this problem. If you have a keyboard or MPC, the sound comes out instantly with no delay because it’s built for that purpose.
2. Creativity - Sometimes my flow has been better working with a Motif keyboard. I pick a track, sound and play — no mouse clicking and sorting through folders for sounds. It’s faster sometimes and easier, which allows me to focus on the music alone and not an entire computer setup. Also, physically banging on some MPC pads allows me to feel the beat out, and get in the groove of making drum patterns.
3. Less Options – When you have an MPC or keyboard, you know exactly what it is capable of. You can focus on those features and do your thing. You don’t have to pick out of 20 different softwares what to use. Too many options can be distracting.
4. Something Physical – I’m not a fan of all the clicking you have to do with a mouse. I sit in front a computer for most of the day, and don’t want to come home and make music on my computer. That keyboard or MPC was built to do music and have a majority of the necessities to do what it needs to do. MPC pads or keyboard keys feel better than the clicking you do with a mouse. Because you feel it out, cause you’re actually playing it out.

8 Reason to pick software over hardware

1. Portability - A laptop and a midi keyboard can be your entire set up. You can have thousands of sounds and a variety of software. You can take it with you anywhere and not be restricted to one place.
2. Time and Convenience – When using software like Reason, you will have almost every instrument right in that one setup up. I’m not sure if you have had a set up like me, where I have a Yamaha Triton, plus an Akai MPC. I would load the drums into the MPC. I would have to set both devices to track #1 for example, find the sound on the keyboard, set the MPC to midi input and record. The process would repeat. After the track was done, I would save both instruments to their different storage devices. Sometimes both wouldn’t save right. But if it did, eventually when I recorded the beat into the computer, it would come out differently. It was a pain.

   Software is more contained and gives you almost everything you want in one program, which makes it easy to edit and save.

3. Easy to Edit - With midi you adjust every note you play from length, velocity and more. You can edit everything very easily. This can all be done with a click of the mouse and a big viewable computer screen.

   Editing Samples is just as easy. You see wave forms and edit and chop up sounds in a number of ways. Add hundreds of effects. The possibilities are almost endless.

4. No Tracking - Tracking is the process of recording the beat you made on a piece of hardware into the computer. This was always a pain. Because you have to record every track individually, so this could take a decent amount of time. Plus for me, it would never come out the way it sounded on the piece of equipment. With software, you pretty much just export your tracks to a wave form and mix the tracks down.
5. Free Resources – If you follow my site, you will see that there are plenty of sites online that offer hundreds of free VSTs instruments, effects and other sound collections. In fact some of these VSTs are modeled after vintage hardware and carry the exact same sounds. They may even sound better.
6. Share Ability - A lot of music software is now being built with some form of collaboration software in it. In FL Studio, you can export your beat as a zip file that will include every sample you used in the beat. Then you can send that to someone and they can continue right where you left off. Reason and Protools both have very similar features.
7. Affordability - When dealing with music equipment, you really can’t buy just one thing. If you buy a key board, which can cost you up to a grand, you will also need a sound card in your computer to record your keyboard, maybe also a mixer, plus the audio cables and maybe some midi cables. And when hardware comes out, the time for software updates on the piece of equipment is limited. You may get a few updates, but the main focus most companies is that next piece of hardware, and some of the hardware can be pretty expensive. So it may not be easy to just upgrade often.

   For software, almost every household has a computer. All you would need is some music software, a midi keyboard (not required) that you can get off Craiglist for cheap and some decent music speakers to hear your music. Free resources are always being put online, and your sound collection will continue to grow.

8. Space- I’m not sure how much space you have available just for your music equipment. But it can take up a lot of space. When I only had one room to myself, I had my bed, dresser, TV, keyboard, computer and other necessities all in one room. It was pretty cramped for me. Plus, I had a lot of down time when I wasn’t making music and that equipment was taking up space.

But with software you can pretty much have everything on your one computer. Get a midi keyboard and you’re pretty much set.

In Conclusion

Software is the future. If you don’t catch up, you will be left behind. I agree that hardware has its own characteristics that cannot be replicated by software. But software saves me time, money and closet space. You would be a fool to try and not take advantage of all the free resources out there, such as VSTs and sound fonts that can easily boost your sound collection up to a thousand quality sounds with out paying ,500 for a keyboard. In addition, you can buy midi hardware that is pretty close to that physical item that you may be attached too.

Overall, it’s not about the equipment you have. It’s about the music you make with it. You can have a big studio and suck, or have FL Studio and rock! It’s up to you.