You don’t need serious equipment to write a rap beat. The main thing is that you have monitors, speakers, or headphones, as well as special software for your smartphone or PC. Both sophisticated programs and modest browser-based drum machines allow you to engage in beat-making.
All of them can be categorized as rap beat makers.
Online samplers, loopers, and drum machines that run through an Internet browser can help you create a soundtrack in two minutes so you can show someone your rap. Some of these sites are even capable of storing and exporting bits.
Other beatmakers for rap songs are stationary DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) that need to be downloaded and installed. They provide all the possibilities for complete music production. Only a part of this functionality will be enough for the beatmaker.
Another type of rap beat makers is mobile apps. You don’t even need a computer to run them. Wherever you are, you can write music as long as you have your smartphone at hand. Let’s try to understand all this software wealth.
Online sequencers – Even the app needs to be installed on a mobile device. Online sequencers, however, don’t need to be installed at all. At the same time, they provide all the necessary functionality for writing bits. These are complete rap beat makers.
Amped Studio – This is an online sequencer with great functionality, which is used for mixing, arranging, and writing music, including beats. The software is especially convenient because it does not need to be installed on a computer. It opens from any browser and from any device.
There are no small settings like desktop DAWs, and this is a big advantage: you don’t have to figure it out for a long time. Moreover, this beatmaker for rap provides all the necessary tools: drum machines, synthesizers, samplers, processing effects, libraries of loops and samples. Play your tunes or construct music from loops.
Multi-track canvas and piano roll help create a rich composition. Here you can jot out a beat or record a full song with your own voice in a few minutes. And also share with friends or open access to your partner so that he changes or corrects the arrangement. Online beatmakers for rap music are convenient for their simplicity and portability, while Amped Studio provides all the tools for full-fledged production.
Soundtrap – It is a Spotify product and works in the same way as Amped Studio. A library of loops, a patterned beatmaker for rap, automation, the ability to work collectively – all the main functions of online stations is available. And also, Auto-Tune based on Antares is built-in.
Audiotool – Visually simulates a real production studio. When launched, the console opens, to which synthesizers, drum machines, and effect pedals are connected with wires. As a beatmaker for rap music, it will do just fine.
Soundation – The software is designed very ergonomically: a minimum of buttons, everything is at hand. Multiplayer mode allows several musicians to work at the same time. Several pointers appear on the screen, and each member of the group can practice their own track.
Bandlab – Do not provide synthesizers and samplers as separate windows with settings. At the bottom of the workspace, there is a drop-down menu with presets. Here we select sounds: trumpets, pianos, violins, guitars, etc. Otherwise, everything is like any other beatmaker for rap.
Audiosauna – Installed as a Google Chrome extension or just runs in the browser if you have Adobe Flash Player. Unusually, every mixer track here is equipped with a send knob. One adds delay, the other reverb.
Serato Studio – Free rap beatmaker with creativity. Differs in an unusual arrangement of windows. Colorfully designed, tailored for music production. It is convenient to do beat-making in the Step-Sequencer window, which looks like pattern cells.
Sampulator – This is free software for beat making, but there is also a sample store on the site. Before us are record and play buttons, several tracks, and pads with several sounds: kicks, snares, 808 basses, etc. We hit the keyboard and make a beat live.
HTML5 Drum Machine – Here is a different principle. This free rap beatmaker is a drum machine with patterns. There are no harmonic and melodic sounds here. You can sketch a rhythm part and save it in WAV format.
BeepBox – Sampulator is a multitrack looper, HTML5 Drum Machine is a drum machine, and BeepBox is a website-style piano roll sheet music editor. There are many melodic instruments here that are customizable. Also perfect for sketching.
Splice beatmaker – Basically, the same beatmaker for rap as the HTML5 Drum Machine, but it’s more of a step sequencer than a drum machine. We have 32 cells and several instruments: kick, snair, hat, tom, etc. We fill it in the way we like it and read our rap to this beat.
Super-looper – The software is beautifully designed and cleverly arranged, but in practical terms, it is only suitable for improvisation and entertainment. Although very addictive. As a free live rap beatmaker can be good. But you need a certain skill.
Music grid – It is unlikely that it will be possible to write something sensible here and use it even as a sketch. We are given one instrument, 12 notes, and a grid of beats up to 100 beats. We can write a simple part for one sound – this is the maximum.
Genius home studio – Free software for beat making in step sequencer format. It makes it possible to record a rap over our beat, as well as load your samples from a computer. A training mode is provided, in which we are shown step by step what to do.
Signal – It was as if a piano roll was pulled out of a DAW and launched as a website. As a beatmaker for rap songs, it also works: drums are also prescribed here. You can connect your own MIDI keyboard. Interestingly, Signal even knows how to work with a tempo track.
Drumbit – Install it as a Google Chrome extension or just run it in the browser. Suitable if you need to quickly sketch out a rhythm part and rap to friends. This is a standard step sequencer with no remarkable features. Although there is reverb and an equalizer.
Creator beatmaker – This software is very strange. It looks more like a music player playlist than a rap beatmaker. We are given ready-made tracks that we turn on at the same time or selectively turn off, composing a composition from them.
Sitala – This is no longer a website, but the software in VST format. The Sitala drum sampler connects to a stationary DAW or runs as a Standalone. Simple and convenient beatmaker for rap music. Just bind our sounds to MIDI notes and play.
Poise – Same drum sampler as Sitala, but rendered like a drum machine with pads. And here you need an installed sequencer. Although the online sequencer Amped Studio can also connect third-party VSTs. But it also has its own drum sampler.
OrDrumbox – This rap music beatmaker doesn’t need a host, it has its own workspace. We drop any sound here, and a track with beats-cells is automatically created for it. It only remains to fill them in, and you can rap.
Mobile applications
Figure 8 – It is a looper with an original interface and an unusual control mechanism. By pressing our fingers, we speed up, slow down, loop the loops, play them in short segments. Mobile beat-making helps out when you need to instantly demonstrate your rap.
Endless multiplayer music – It is released both as an application for IOS and as software for macOS. This is also a looper that creates arrangements in real-time. The idea is the same as in Figure 8, but the interface is more intuitive. Does a great job as a beatmaker for rap songs.
GarageBand – provides great opportunities for music production. Everything here is arranged in such a way that the program itself does half of the work for the musician. The user can only enjoy and record rap over music.
Caustic 3 – You can call this software a beatmaker for rap, but, in fact, it is a set of synthesizers, samplers, and drum machines that are assembled into a rack. A sequencer and piano roll are provided for songwriting. Perfect for sketching for rap.
Offline sequencers for computers
MPC Beats – Soft by AKAI, which is famous for its drum pads. MPC Beats is similar to a standard sequencer but designed specifically for beat-making. Virtual instruments, samples, and loops are assigned to the pad buttons, with which the beat is created.
Ableton live – This is more than a rap music beatmaker. This software is popular with artists who write electronic music and perform live sets. There is a special live mode for such performances.
FL Studio – Probably the most popular software among beatmakers and rap artists. It features a colorful interface and patterned space organization. It is arranged like a drum machine. Fill in the cells and the beat is ready.
Logic Pro – MacOS software. It’s hard to think of Logic as a beatmaker for rap because it goes far beyond creating beats. It is impractical to use this software exclusively for rap arrangements for 10 tracks, this will reveal its potential by 10 percent.
Pro Tools – The same large software package as Logic, but it also works under Windows. On Pro Tools, you can write beats, arrangements, jingles, and film scores. Buying this program just for writing raps would also be weird. Most often it is used for information.
LMMS – This free rap beatmaker works for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is positioned as an alternative to paid software such as FL Studio and Cubase. The interface is rather crude in design, but all of the sequencer functions are great.
Cakewalk – Also provides all the functions of a conventional DAW. Here you can record, edit, mix, write beats and arrangements. Each track contains processing simulating analog devices: equalizer, console channel emulator, saturator, compressor.
Magix Music Maker – Positioned as music software for beginners. As a beatmaker for rap, it is hardly more convenient than GarageBand, but its interface is also quite friendly. Here you can write music using artificial intelligence.
MPC Beats, LMMS, Cakewalk, Magix Music Maker are all free software.
Gaming, entertainment, and experimental beatmakers
Blokdust – Effects, sounds, and various parameters are presented here as colored shapes. They need to be docked, as when assembling a puzzle or playing Tetris. It’s not like a rap beatmaker or a sequencer in the usual sense.
808 Cube – This is what happens when a drum machine is connected to a Rubik’s cube. Each plane is a tool, each cell is a hit. You can collect a bit and then move the cells. In practical terms, the software makes little sense, but it is suitable for entertainment.
Patatap – An unusual combination of sounds and a visual image that appears on the screen at the moment of pressing is assigned to each letter on the keyboard. If the 808 Cube plays by itself, then in Patatap you have to constantly press the keys. Very exciting fun, but as a beatmaker for rap is hardly suitable.
Incredibox – An online game in which the user creates a beatbox composition. You will have good music anyway, you just need to combine loops. You choose a team of beatboxers, throw them different sounds, and virtual musicians play them rhythmically.
Chrome music lab – A complex of virtual musical toys: animals beating on drums, something like a piano roll, volumetric spectrograms of various instruments, oscillators in the form of characters, and much more. An excellent way to instill in your child a love of music.
Virtual drumming – As the name suggests, this is a virtual drum kit. The software simulates live drums: there are many cymbals, toms, kick,s, and snares. As a beatmaker for rap music, it will not work, but it will help you find inspiration.
Sample-stitch – Something like an online slicer. The song was cut into pieces and a key was assigned to each. Beatmaking boils down to combining these passages. It is very difficult to put together something intelligible, but you may be good at it.
Typedrummer – Plays typed text as if it is noted on a stave. The same thing is in the Chrome music lab package. But Typedrummer provides percussive sounds as well. So, this typewriter is quite realistic to use as a beatmaker for rap.
Roland 808303 – This online program emulates legendary instruments: the TR-808 drum machine and TB303 bass synthesizer. Half of the screen is dedicated to TR-808 and the other half to TB303. They are synchronized and can be used as a complete beatmaker for rap.
Infinite drum machine – Another crazy experiment. Makes samples from the sounds of the surrounding world. On the screen, we see a huge field of thousands of colored dot-sounds. We select any and make a beat out of them. Suitable if you want to have fun and while away the time.
How to write a beat?
The minimum musical score for rap consists of 5 elements: kick, snair, hat, bass, harmonic or melodic part. This is the foundation. Of course, you can rap with bare drums, but such an arrangement cannot be called complete.
Snair, kick, and hat work as one. As a rule, the hat beats on every eighth beat: if you transfer this to the step sequencer of the beatmaker for rap, we will have all the cells filled in one after another. Snair hits less often, but also in an even rhythm: for every quarter or half beat.
And the kick is placed with some more interesting rhythmic pattern.
The bass line is drawn with a mouse on a piano roll or played on a MIDI keyboard. A good bass line will harmonize with the kick pattern, but this is not necessary. Even some free rap beatmakers provide one or more synthesizers that you can use to prescribe bass and lead parts.
When a pattern of these five elements is ready, it is duplicated and developed, processed with effects, altered, and supplemented. You can add anything: percussion, guitars, other synthesizers, winds, violins, etc. There are no restrictions on creativity.
Conclusion
It’s not worth choosing a beatmaker for a rap song for a long time. Use what’s available right now. There is a huge amount of free software at your disposal. It is also not necessary to study complex programs right away.
Often a lot of functionality only confuses the user and makes them put off creativity until later.
The best option is an online rap beatmaker. Amped Studio and similar DAWs are simple and straightforward in their arrangement, but at the same time, they provide all the possibilities for beat-making.
They can be used remotely without clogging up your computer with countless plugins. And for a momentary performance, it is advisable to take an even simpler beatmaker for rap: for example, Super-looper or Sampulator.