What's going on LARI here and I today I have a special tutorial for you.
In today's video, I will be showing you how to create a "Dark Trap Type Beat" using the GarageBand iOS app from scratch and also get you familiar with using the app so that you can get started
- Project Creation
We will start by opening the GarageBand iOS app and create a brand new project by clicking the + button on the top right corner.
I like to start my beat by creating a melody first, select "Alchemy Synth" and this will open up a virtual keyboard. Before we start laying down the melodies let's adjust the BPM (Beats Per Minute) of the project by clicking the "Settings" button on the top right hand corner. For this project we will use 140 BPM.
- Melody
I highly recommend you spend some time coming up with a melody line, if you don't know how to create melodies, just simply pause and copy what I have so that you can follow along. If you guys want me to do a tutorial on how to make melodies, let me know in the comment down below.
After have the melody line, we are going to cycle through the sound presets to find the one that you like. Do not underestimate how long it can take to find the right sound you want but also don't let this part of the process hold you back from creating music early on. If it sounds good enough, just move on and start building on top of it, you can always go back and change the sound. Once you have the main melody going it's time to lay down the drums.
- Drums
Before we can begin to lay down our drums, we need some dope, hard hitting, trap drum samples to take this to the next level. Now there are multiple drum kits you can find online, I provided a free kit for you to use called "Casper Lite" (click here) these have been formatted so that you can load them up on your GarageBand iOS app without any issues.
"If you want to learn how to install drum kits on GarageBand iOS app click here."
Create a new track by pressing the + button on the bottom left corner. Select "Sampler" and we are going to start by loading up a hi hat sample that we downloaded from the "Casper Lite" kit. After you have the sample loaded go back to the track arrangement window and we will open the Piano Roll window to program the Hi Hat pattern. Refer to my video and follow along.
Also one quick Sampler tip, when you load samples into the Sampler there will be a slight amount of reverb applied automatically which is not ideal for certain sounds (such as 808 bass samples) so as soon as I load my drum sample I go to the mixer and turn the reverb all the way down.
Next after that we are going to lay down the Clap. Instead of loading the Clap sample into the sampler, we are just going to simply drag and drop the Clap sample into the arrangement window. The reason why I choose to do it this way is because the drum just hits harder when you do it like this. I prefer the Drag and Drop method when I lay down simple grooves such as my Kick and my main snare/clap pattern.
- 808 (Bass)
Now is the time to lay down the heart and soul of the Trap music, the 808 bass pattern. Just like we did with the drum samples we are going to open up "Sampler" and load the 808 sample from the "Casper Lite Kit".
Just like I mentioned previously, when you load samples into sampler there will be reverb applied automatically and you definitely don't want that on your 808 sample so let's turn that down.
After you adjust the settings you are now ready to lay down the 808 bass pattern. Follow along with me in the video to see how I came up and programmed my 808 pattern.
- Building the Foundation (8 Bar Loop)
Now that we have our main melody, groove and the 808 bass knockin, it's time to keep building on top of this foundation by layering different sounds to make it sound more "Rich and Full".
Each beat you make will inspire you to layer certain sounds there is really no hard rule for this, after I lay down my main melody and groove I started by layering another "Background Lead Synth" as you can see in the video.
After that I lay down some off beat percussion to add to the groove and I also used one of my personal GarageBand iOS plug-in called "Smart Drummer". I have explained this on my last "How to Make a Juice WRLD Type Beat Series". Follow along with me in the video to see how I use "Smart Drummer" to layer extra percussive groove to my beat.
- Arranging the Beat
Now that we have all the musical elements composed and we have our 8 bar loop, now it's time to turn this into a full instrumental track. At this point it is all about taking the elements you have created and spreading them out throughout the arrangement window and building tensions, subtracting and adding certain elements to certain part of music. You're essentially playing a jig saw puzzle with the music elements that you have created.
Watch the video and see how I took an 8 bar loop and turned it into a full beat.
That's it for today's tutorial. If you enjoyed this make sure to like and subscribe to my youtube channel, https://youtube.com/laritheghost and like and comment down below if you found this tutorial helpful!