Hey what’s good guys Daniel here from The Corporate thief Beats showing you how to make a Just Blaze Type Beat. This beat that I have created is one of the most popular beats on my website.

I have sold a lot of beat leases of this one. For many years my old Dr Dre type beat remained supreme as my top selling rap beat, but this new beat called “I Can” has skyrocketed since I have uploaded it online.

The beat video has gone semi viral on Youtube with over 28,000 video views, which is amazing. To promote the beat, I purchased some Trueview ads on Youtube and the beat just took off.

In saying that, the beat does have a very hip hop Just Blaze type beat sound.

I did model the beat after the Instrumental “Lord Knows” which features Drake and Rick Ross and produced by Just Blaze. It just has that very hip hop / MPC type beat sound. I will break every section of the beat down so you can follow along and learn how to make your own Drake and Rick Ross type beat.

The main reason that I compared it to the Lord Knows instrumental is that , the beat has a lot of sounds in it. Choirs, strings, percs, cymbals, pads, bells, drums and bass. The beat is way over the top but it has a feeling too. It has a purpose. This goes against anything that I have mentioned in previous beat-making videos. Especially the trap-type beats where I said that less is more.

But with Just Blaze type beats you want that eccentric over-the-top sound

, especially when you have very charismatic rappers like of Drake and Rick Ross. He loves these very thick and ticket baselines, his hard-punching Drums, Choirs and Strings that almost sound a bit too loud in the mix.

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The introduction of the rap beat and an overview of how the beat was created.

The weird thing about this instrumental was the mix. It did take a few times to make sure that mix was just perfect. But the beat itself was easy to make. If you break it down there isn’t much too it. The craft and magic of the beat is in the structure and the placement of all the sounds.

The backbone of the beat is the main 8 bar loop. I dropped sections in and out and left certain elements to play on their own?

The intro starts with a steinway piano chord structure, I layered it with some other piano and organ sounds that I found with in Logic. The gave the piano a more thicker sound. I played all of these chords and notes on the midi keyboard just to make sure that the velocities where all different levels so the would each their own space in the mix.

The piano chords structure is simple but has a purpose as it, has a slight pause in the 3’rd chord which will help us later on in the creating of the hip hop sound with the drums and the baselines.

I took my time with EQ and made sure to spread it as wide as I could without affecting the authentic sound of the piano. This helped me make sure that it would clash with the other elements in the instrumental later.

After the chords of the piano I add in some strings. These act like a pad sound in the background just killing any dead sound in the mix. The reason I picked these light strings is because it was important for me to keep this beat sounding as real as possible.

Creating The Instrumentation

Even though the beat is made with logic and the virtual instruments within this DAW, I still wanted to make the beat sound like if a gospel band were playing live in the church.

You can’t have every element in the mix loud. Sometimes you just have to be disciplined and make sacrifices in your mixes. In my experience the more disciplined you are with your mixing the more clarity you create and that sound you wanted to hear does pop through the mix.

In this case spending time EQing the strings and finding space for them , add a spreader and looking for that sweet spot. Along with trying various different reverb sounds in the space designer plugin in logic.

If you notice at 8:23 I only bring the violins in at the end of the string chords section. This is a production trick that I use a lot in my beats to create emphasis on the end of that section.

This becomes easier to hear when I added in all the choirs too. The choirs are various sounds with logic pro , but they are still playing the same chord progression as the piano. Again I layered many choir sections and panned them at different areas left and right. This made it feel like there was a room full of gospel singers singing in a church.

Adding the choirs creates emotion and feeling to the beat and really gives it a human element.

Another one of my production tricks is the pause that I create in most of my beats , just before the chorus hits of the song. This creates dramatic relief in the beat and makes the chorus sound more energetic when it kicks in.

If you want to be a pro at carrying out this the best way to do this is with automation and a mixing desk. But this time I opted for the lazy way, where I just cut the midi just before the chorus kicks in.

The bassline {at 10:30 of the video} is one the most important instruments in this beat. There is no real melody in this beat. But in my opinion sometimes in beats like this one here, the bassline is acting not just as the driving force of the bea, but the melody too. The bass is playing off the drums and the other instruments in the mix.

The bass instrument is called the liverpool bass in logic pro. It’s such a deep and powerful bass that really gels the instrumentation together. Here just to note that I did process this sound a best I could to get the sound that I wanted to hear in the mix with the other instruments. I added a some compression , a bass amp and some distortion just make it pop out in the mix. I still created some slight cuts in the EQ of the bass so in never interfered with the Drums or the low frequencies of the pianos and string elements.

The compression was done twice on this bassline. Some light compression on the bass instrument itself and then some drastic parallel compression on it later to make sure the bass had a thick sound and some volume with in the mix.

Sometimes in beat making accidents happen and they are magical. In this beat with the Liverpool bass it creates that bass lines slide based on velocity or how hard you play the keys on your midi keyboard. The slide in the beat just makes it feel like a real bassist is playing there with you. Even though I create this as an accident it fits so well with the mood of the beat.

When you hear all the elements of the drums and the bass together it really does have a hip hop sound. But my own background in music began with playing bass/guitar in rock bands. So this bass line to me seems almost like a bass line from a rock song. But when it’s added with the other hip hop elements it creates that Hip Hop sound.

That’s what hip-hop really is. The amalgamation of lots of elements of music to create a new genre of music.

Creating The Drums

The drums were the last element that I added to the song. Since I was trying to create a similar type beat to that of Just blaze I new I have to make the stand out but not interfere with the other instruments of the beat.

I create many patterns of drums until I finally chose one that just played off the bass and the piano so well. Even though the drum pattern sounds easy I can assure you that I spent hours just picking out the the kicks snares and percs. Going through my whole library of drum sounds to find sounds that fit just perfectly.

Just like the piano the Drums have that pause in the middle of the 3rd chord, which leaves room for the bass line and the snare. There slight variation in the drum pattern. Like the addition of certain ghost notes and snare rolls just to make it feel like it was played by a real drummer.

If you are a fan of just blaze you will know that he adds a lot of cymbals in his drums to make it feel like a real drummer going over top. Make sure that you pan them like how a drummer would place them on a drum kit too.

In the midsection of the beat, I added some brass chord progression. Both low and high. This just changed the mood of the beat when I took some elements in and out of the mix. Again I layered several different sounds to make the brass sound thick but I EQ’ed it so it wouldn’t be too dominant in the mix.

If you listen to the Lord Knows song with Drake and Rick Ross you will notice that the song really doesn’t have a common verse-chorus structure. The main parts of this song are the verses. Showcasing the talents of Drake and Rick Ross’s lyrical and technical skillsets.

So I followed the structure of that song here too to make the verses the main element so that a rap artist can shine through. You will notice the energy higher in some sections of the beat and lower in others.

To Sum This Beatmaking Showcase Up

I hope that with the video instruction to guide you, you have learned a trick or two in how to create a Just Blaze type beat. Most of all I hope that it just gives you some creative energy to make your own beats. If you feel that this video has helped don’t forget to share it with others that can benefit from this tutorial. You can hit me up on my youtube channel or if you want to learn more about selling your beats online Click here .

Thanks From Dan aka The Corporatethief Beats!

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