See my full list of recommendations.Įvery DAW comes with a sample library and a set of software instruments.

The Launchpad app is a remarkably easy and intuitive one. Figure makes great techno loops, though you’ll need to assemble them into songs using another tool. The iOS version of GarageBand is especially tasty. Mobile apps are not as robust or full-featured as desktop DAWs yet, but some of them are getting there. Looplabs is another intriguing browser tool. The MusEDLab’s own Groove Pizza is an accessible browser-based drum sequencer. It also offers some nifty features like built-in Auto-Tune at a fraction of the usual price. Soundtrap is a web-based DAW that’s similar to GarageBand, but with the enormous advantage that it runs entirely in the web browser. Traditional DAWs are not the only option. Other common tools for hip-hop producers include Reason, Pro Tools, Maschine, and in Europe, Cubase. Mac users naturally lean toward GarageBand and Logic. Most of the Sullivan Fellows favor FL Studio. All of them have the same basic set of functions: a way to record and edit audio, a MIDI sequencer, and a set of samples and software instruments. There are a lot of digital audio workstations (DAWs) out there.

Here’s a collection of resources and ideas I collected for them, and that you might find useful too. Partially this is for intellectual property reasons, and partially it’s because the quality of mp3s you get from YouTube is not so good. That’s fine for working out ideas, but to get to the next level, the Fellows need to be making their own beats.

Many of them are working with beats they got from YouTube or SoundCloud. I’m currently working with the Ed Sullivan Fellows program, an initiative of the NYU MusEDLab where we mentor up and coming rappers and producers.

808s and heartbreak type beat