We’re going to be discussing where to find music beats. This can be a real challenge for someone that wants to get straight into rap but don’t know much on where to get their sounds. There’s more nuances that go into this but we’ll try to keep this as simple as possible. I’ll be sharing my personal methods that works so well with me. Ideally it’ll open the door for discussions that will invite other artists to join and contribute for both the past and future wave of musicians that look to expand their musical talents.
Finding Music Beats
There’s a few different outlets that could be utilized if you’re looking for beats. BeatStars and I’ll even throw in Bandlab for reference, however if you keep a business mind with your approach, you’re going to be able to find producers on more popular platforms like Youtube and SoundCloud.
My Personal Favorite Ways to Discover Music Beats
Google and Youtube Music. Those are my 2 favorite ways to discover beats that I can make music around. I’ve made a review on the Youtube Music App that you could check out to get a better idea as to why I prefer that DSP over all the other ones.
I like the Google app because I don’t understand algorithms too well, however I do trust theirs. They pick up on everything I search and look for. Early on I would do what most people I’d assume did when they were looking for sounds to get their own music career started. That’s searching random type beats on Youtube. This is as a guest by the way. You do that enough and eventually you get tired of that process because it feels aimless. You’re not rapping at your own style and you keep catering to the cadence of whatever artist type beat it is that you’re trying to work on. But you have to feed this algorithm with being generous on the likes and saves of these beats you genuinely appreciate. And because Youtube is owned by Google, it keeps record of these moments you search for certain things. It also keeps track of all the things related in music that you’re searching for. So thinking long term it again feeds the algorithm for this Google app that you’re gonna plan on visiting often. Scrolling through that app gets you to where you’re almost reading the newspaper and because it tracks your interest it actually goes above and beyond through suggesting things that might be of interest to you. This includes random beats that just seem to work out for you. What I like most is that they’re not pandering beats. By that I mean just typical sounds that you’re always looking for. I’m meaning sounds that actually challenge you to rap well. I could only imagine what this would be like if I were older with this method. I’d probably have a slightly better way of having this app still serve me beats but with a different approach somewhat. I’m just in a beautiful space with how open minded I could be with attacking new sounds that’s going to move my rap career even further.
The Youtube Music works for me so well because it’s made specifically for musicians and music fanatics all alike. It’s different from just searching for the traditional type beats that you would find on Youtube.com because once you put in a single search for whatever type beat that you could find on Youtube it actually shows full communities of playlists that have producers all across the world that specialized with making sounds similar to what you searched. That’s important because it maintains artistic integrity. You’re focusing on integrity with the artist’s sound that you’re looking to compliment and not overly focused on trying to be loyal to a specific producer instead. That might be a way that’s more complimentary to your style of business, but I find this way compliments artists that prefer an independent route. I mean independent in a sense where you’re focused on music instead of anything else.
Final Thoughts
My 2 preferred ways of discovering music beats is through the Google app and Youtube Music app. I probably didn’t add in the fact that I got the paid version of Youtube Music earlier for a reason but I will say that it’s made a difference in my experience. I’m getting directly to the music without any interruptions and it doesn’t kill my momentum while I’m in my artistically creative space. And as much as I have my days where I prefer one over the other, I’m most effective when I’m working with them both in tandem. There’s a level of creativity that you need to keep with your approach of discovery because things change so much and you don’t wanna stay stuck in a box with your recipe. It’s seriously a game in a way that you need to remain flexible with because things can get really old quickly.