By now you have drums, samples, synths, 808s and vocals. The next step is turning four- and eight-bar loops into fully arranged songs - and a collection of songs into a mixtape.
Song sections
- Intro - fewer elements, building into the verse or hook. Often a tease of the hook - a "tag" - or the producer tag.
- Verse - usually the simplest form of the beat, leaving room for the vocals.
- Pre-hook - a slight departure from the verse. Tension starts to build.
- Hook - the catchy, repeated part - the chorus. Most elements play here.
- Bridge - often around the last verse; a shorter departure for contrast.
- Outro - fewer elements again, similar to the intro, bringing the song to a close.
Bar counts
Hip-hop is almost always in 4/4, and sections work in multiples of four bars.
- Verses are commonly 16 bars, sometimes 8 or 24.
- Hooks are commonly 8 bars.
- Intros often 4 or 8 bars.
A common structure: intro (4-8) - hook (8) - verse (16) - hook (8) - verse (16) - hook (8) - outro.
Building the arrangement
- Lay the full loop across the whole song, then remove elements to create sections. Subtraction is easier than addition.
- Change something every four or eight bars - a drum fill, a dropout, a new percussion element, a filter sweep.
- Make the hook bigger than the verse - more elements, wider, louder.
- Drop the beat - removing the drums for a bar before a hook or on a punchline is one of hip-hop's most effective tricks.
Transitions
- Drum fills and hat rolls.
- Reverse cymbals and risers.
- Filter sweeps.
- Silence - a beat or a bar.
- Vocal tags and ad-libs.
Finishing tools
Plenty of excellent free tools can help you finish your mixes:
- Meldaproduction's free bundle - a wide range of mixing tools.
- Stereo wideners - for width on pads and ad-libs.
- Transient shapers - for punch on drums.
- Youlean Loudness Meter - LUFS metering for streaming loudness.
- TDR SlickEQ - a mixing and mastering EQ.
- TDR Kotelnikov - a transparent wideband compressor.
- Free adaptive limiters - for final loudness.
Putting together a mixtape
A mixtape is a collection of tracks that works as a whole.
- Choose a sound - a consistent palette of drums, textures and moods ties the project together.
- Sequence it - think about the flow of energy across the tracks: strong opener, variety in the middle, a memorable closer.
- Interludes and skits - short pieces between tracks can tie a mixtape together. Remember that any samples in them need clearing too.
- Consistent loudness and tone across tracks.
- Artwork and a title that capture the project.
Do this now
- Take your strongest loop and arrange it into a full song: intro, hook, two verses, hooks and outro, with bar counts written down.
- Add a transition between every section, and one beat drop.
- Check the final mix's loudness with a LUFS meter.
- Plan a five-track mixtape: track order, energy curve and one interlude.