Hot Tools for Beat Making

"Blog Article"

In this article we will take a look at some of today’s hottest music equipment for making beats. We look at various keyboards and drum machines that the top pros like to use to make beats. Most of today’s beat making equipment is affordable for the average music producer to purchase. So if you are just getting into music production you can have the same equipment that hot producers like Dr. Dre, the Neptunes, Timbaland and Scott Storch uses. Below is a list and function of some of the hot equipment that the twenty first century producer is using.

Inexpensive  Drum Machines:

Dr. Boss DR880 –DR Rhythm:

This boss drum series has been around for years and they keep getting better with the drum sounds that are inside this groove box. You can make hot beats with this piece of equipment. This rhythm-programming power house and guitar processor is loaded with 1,000 patterns, 100 drum kits, hundreds of world class drums sounds. It has everything from percussions & bass sounds from Roland’s famous SRX library. You can fine tune these drum kits. Usually runs around $495. You can buy a cheaper version of the drum machine called the Boss DR670 which is about half the price and come with fewer features than the DR880.

Alesis SR-16

Another inexpensive drum machine and groove box is the Alesis SR-16. It has the basic 16 bit stereo sounds and comes with about 233 sounds, lots od samples with stereo reverb and ambience, 100 presets and 100 user patterns. Alesis is a quality brand with years of experience in the music making game, so it can be trusted. This machine is great if you just starting out in hip hop music production and you’re working with a tight budget. It has MIDI IN/OUT/THRU and 16 voice polyphony.

Roland SP555

The Roland SP555 is a sampling workstation that is catching on in the hip hop circle of producers because it is fast and powerful and priced around $595. It’s used by a lot of Dj’s and sample based musicians. It’s loaded with a phantom powered mic Input, USB, WAV/AIFF import capabilities and dozens of awesome performance effects. It can even interface with any DAW software like Cakewalk Sonar. It has up to 2GB of sampling memory. A cheaper version of this drum sound module is the portable Roland SP404 with effects.

Akai MPC500 (Music Production Center)

One of the leaders in Hip Hop music production is the MPC 500. A lot of new producers are discovering the power of the MPC500 by Akai. The Akai MPC 500 is the first truly portable all in one MPC’s. You can sample and produce music on the go with this box. This MPC offer some of the same features as other more pricier MPC’s at a fraction of the cost. You can load all the same MPC sounds into this box. It includes a 48 track sequencer with a 32 voice drum / phrase sampler that can load up to 128MB RAM, built in compact flash card drive and USB port.

 Akai MPC1000

If you want that authentic Hip Hop sound and swing, then look no further than the MPC 1000. The Akai MPC 1000 has some of the features of the larger MPC’s but in a compact size. It has timestretch, pitch shift capabilities, sample reverse and the ability to slice up samples. They usually run around 1000 bucks. This is a great box and lives up to its Akai MPC reputation. It has MIDI ins & outs (32 MIDI channels), SPDIF I/O (RCA) and ¼ “ stereo analog outputs pls 4 individual outs.

Akai MPC 2000XL

This is probably the most successful selling MPC of them all but if you want to get one of these machines you’ll probably have to find a used one. Akai has replaced the MPC2000XL with the new MPC 2500.  The MPC 2000 is a work horse for any hip hop producer trying to make quality hip hop production with quality hip hop sounds for MPC 2000. We offer high quality Drum samples for the MPC 2000XL. We have rated high with MPC users when it comes to MPC 2000 sounds. It has a built in MIDI sequencer, it’s a sampler and drum machine, 16 Bit/44Khz stereo with 32 voice polyphony   and and 64 tracks.

Roland MV-8000

The Roland MV-8000 has been around since 2003 and fighting hard to find its place in the Hip Hop producing beat making market. It’s a little pricey around $2,295.00  The MV-8000 is  a fully equipped sampler and synthesizer.  It’s a complete production solution from beat creation and multi track recording and mixing, mastering and CD burning.