Saturday, December 24, 2005
Since this is the holiday season, I decided to give something away. If you have a computer with a sound card (that should be everyone reading this) you can making hip-hop beats in no time for free! This is software that I use and I am very happy. They don't use a lot of computer resources. In fact, if you have an older computer, they will probably work just fine.
To start download HammerHead Drum Programmer and install. It is a simple drum machine with Roland 808 and 909 sounds installed. It also has some basic loops. It is a real simple program to use. There is also away to import your own samples and there is a tutorial that teaches you what you need to know.
After you have created your basic beat in HammerHead, you can convert it to a .wav file (check manual) and import it into another program called Moonfish so that you can layer more samples. Besides mixing in samples, Moonfish allows you to do some interesting mutilations to the original sample. You can created several sequences and then string them into a song, then exported that song as a .wav file. This final wave file you can burn to a CD or convert to an mp3 file and put up on the internet.
A more straight forward approach is to use Rebirth. Rebirth was a commercial beat box program that the manufacture has discontinued and is allowing it to be distributed free. To get the program click on Rebirth and follow the instructions found on that page and follow the links there to the Propellerhead homepage and register. They will send you a user name and password that will allow you to download the software. After you get it downloaded, you will have to unzip the file and burn it to a CD before it will work. You will have to have the program CD in the CD drive to make the program work.
When you get it up and running you will find that the program consists of two drum machines and to bass machines. The sounds are from the Roland 808 drum machines 909 and the TB-303 bass machine. You can use Rebirth to do the drum track as well as the bass and lead lines of your beat then export the final piece as a .wav file to burn use for a track in your audio recording program.
O.k. you wanna be hip-hop producers--you have some tools. Let's hear some tracks.
To start download HammerHead Drum Programmer and install. It is a simple drum machine with Roland 808 and 909 sounds installed. It also has some basic loops. It is a real simple program to use. There is also away to import your own samples and there is a tutorial that teaches you what you need to know.
After you have created your basic beat in HammerHead, you can convert it to a .wav file (check manual) and import it into another program called Moonfish so that you can layer more samples. Besides mixing in samples, Moonfish allows you to do some interesting mutilations to the original sample. You can created several sequences and then string them into a song, then exported that song as a .wav file. This final wave file you can burn to a CD or convert to an mp3 file and put up on the internet.
A more straight forward approach is to use Rebirth. Rebirth was a commercial beat box program that the manufacture has discontinued and is allowing it to be distributed free. To get the program click on Rebirth and follow the instructions found on that page and follow the links there to the Propellerhead homepage and register. They will send you a user name and password that will allow you to download the software. After you get it downloaded, you will have to unzip the file and burn it to a CD before it will work. You will have to have the program CD in the CD drive to make the program work.
When you get it up and running you will find that the program consists of two drum machines and to bass machines. The sounds are from the Roland 808 drum machines 909 and the TB-303 bass machine. You can use Rebirth to do the drum track as well as the bass and lead lines of your beat then export the final piece as a .wav file to burn use for a track in your audio recording program.
O.k. you wanna be hip-hop producers--you have some tools. Let's hear some tracks.
