How to Make A Sampled Beat in FL Studio
There are countless methods to making hip-hop beats. This tutorial will teach you one very basic method of how to make your first sampled hip-hop beat in FL Studio using a sampled drum loop pack.
Step One: Find a Sample on YouTube
The first step to making a sampled hip-hop beat in FL Studio is finding a sample you like.
If you don’t have equipment to record a sample from vinyl, download a song from YouTube. YouTube is guaranteed to have the song you’re looking for and downloading the song is simple.
Start by searching for samples in the search bar. Hip-hop samples, vinyl samples, samples with no drums, etc. There are hundreds of user-generated playlists with the best songs for sampling. Take a listen and find a song that fits your vibe.
Step Two: Download the Sample
Hold up. Before you download the sample, it’s a good idea to count the bars to make sure it is usable. If you’ve never counted bars before, watch this video from HowCast on How to Count Bars.
Once you’ve confirmed the sample is clean and able to be looped, download the sample. There’s websites out there that let you copy the YouTube video URL and convert it to MP3. For this tutorial, we recommend using YTMP3 to download your sample. It’s quick, easy and there are minimal ads.
Copy the sample’s YouTube video URL and paste it into YTMP3s website, hit convert and download the mp3 to your computer.
Step Three: Identify the BPM of the Sample
BPM stands for beats per minute. It’s a term used for measuring the tempo of a piece of music (and tempo is the pace or speed of the song).
For this tutorial, we recommend using Get Song BPM. Again, it’s quick, easy and there’s no login or signup required.
Simply drag and drop your MP3 audio file into the website’s song analyser. In seconds, you’ll have the BPM of your song displayed.
Step Four: Download a Hip-Hop Drum Loop Pack
There are thousands of drum loop packages to be found online that will be perfect for your first sampled hip-hop beat. You can download them from us here.
Find a drum loop package that matches your needs and download it to your computer.
Step Five: Open FL Studio and Lower Your Songs BPM to Match the Sample
Open FL Studio. At the top of the screen -next to the record button- is the BPM. Drop it or increase it to match the BPM of your downloaded sample.
Step Six: Drag-and-Drop the MP3 Sample into FL Studio and Find a 2, 4 or 8 Bar Loop
If you didn’t watch the video about how to count bars, watch it now. Once you understand the concept, you’ll be able to find the perfect snippet to sample.
There are a few different ways to cut your sample down to size. One way is to use the Slice tool.
Another easy method is to click and drag the beginning/end of the sample and pull it to where you want it to start and stop.
Once you’ve finished cutting out the unwanted portion of your sample, play it a few times to see if it loops properly. If it’s a little off, zoom into the sample and drag it in/out until a natural, smooth sounding loop is achieved.
If your sample doesn’t quite line up with the bars, there are two ways to remedy this.
- Use the Stretch tool (located to the top left of your Track One sample) and pull it forward/back until it is flush with the bars. Be forewarned, stretching will alter the sound of your sample if you stretch it too far.
- Slow down or speed up the tempo until it is flush with the bars.
Once that’s finished, try playing the sample on loop to make sure you’ve achieved the sound you’re after.
Step Seven: Loop the Sample
Once you’ve tidied up your sample to fit the 2, 4 or 8 bars perfectly, loop it for at least sixteen bars.
A quick and easy way to copy/paste your sample is to highlight the part you want to loop and click CTRL + B. It will loop it perfectly, without you having to nudge it at all.
Step Eight: Find a Drum Loop with a Similar BPM, Drag-and-Drop into FL Studio
The hip-hop drum loop that you choose doesn’t need to be exactly the same BPM as your sample. The closer it is, the better (for this tutorial).
Once you’ve dropped your drum loop sample into FL Studio, use the Stretch tool to align it perfectly with to the tempo.
Once it’s perfect, loop it by using CTRL + B until it matches the length of your sample track.
Step 9: Listen and Export Your New Sampled Hip-Hop Beat
Once you’ve looped both the sample and your drum loop to your desired length, it’s time to export to MP3, so that you can bump it in your car!
Go to FILE-EXPORT-MP3 (or WAVE) and export your new song to your desktop.
Summary
Making beats is challenging. Hopefully, this FL Studio tutorial can help you with the basic skills you need to get started.
Obviously, your journey into producing hip-hop sampled beats in FL Studio doesn’t need to end here.
You could add bass, chop up the sample, add EQ to the mix and many, many other advanced techniques that could render the sample unrecognizable.
Good luck and keep producing!