Not Creating Beats from Every Loop in the Sound Pack is Cheating

Today’s controversial statement is “Not creating beats from every loop in the sound pack is cheating.” To explain this statement I have to give you more context. To do that we have to dive into the one thing that most producers don’t talk about when it comes to sound packs and that’s the purpose of them.

Originally sound packs were created by producers who had a hard time finishing ideas and wanted to pass them over to someone who specialized in drum programming. Instead of forcing themselves to come up with drums and rhythms for their melodies and chord progressions they passed the task off to another producer. Back in the day this would be the person who focused solely on arrangement. Today, producers have an endless amount of sound packs at their disposal. Splice, Sounds.com, looperman, drum broker, the amount of websites alone are endless. However, because of this overwhelming abundance of loops producers will skim through an entire pack looking for one loop that’ll inspire them and then just move on. Of course there are no rules here but if we’re being honest, its cheating. By cheating I mean they are not challenging themselves.

Back before sound packs could be downloaded for the exchange of your data producers were responsible with completing the idea, the loop, for the sake of a placement. Imagine Murda Beatz sending you 12 loops personally for a placement with someone like Slum God or Cardi B and you only send back two beats because the others “just didn’t inspire you.” Murda seems like a pretty nice guy but I’m sure he won’t be sending too many more after that. The reason, he’s competing against other top tier producers for those placements. I also forgot to mention that whatever you send back has to be pretty damn good before it’s even sent off to the artist to listen to. So why don’t more producers take it upon themselves to complete an entire pack?

I think this goes to the point that creativity is indeed a muscle that needs to be exercised and avoiding those challenges is what’s keeping them from leveling up. Sure, you could skim the packs and make something pretty fire but why not test your sound design skills. Maybe instead of keeping the loop the same you put on EFX plugin to give it a different life or what if you chopped it up and rearranged the samples to make something completely different? Taking on these challenges is the reason why a some of these producers who’s beats “just sound different” eventually get the placements. The name of the game is network, skill, and individuality.

“[insert quote about why being different is beneficial]”