Making Beats Again – Should It Be So Hard? – Chase March

I want to get back into music production. There was a time in my life when my main focus was on producing and writing music.

Back then I used this Akai Sampling Keyboard

and I hooked it up to an Atari 1040 ST

by way of MIDI cables

and I used a program called Cubase as a sequencer.

Of course when I got all this gear, it was already outdated and past its prime. But it was amazing to have gear that actual hip-hop producers had used in the mid 1980’s.

The sampler didn’t have a lot of memory and the sample quality was quite low. But I figured out how to make it sound good and I made this gear sing. I produced some amazing tracks on this gear and I had a great time doing it.

At that time, I wanted to make a career out of hip-hop and I worked hard to try and make it happen. However, over the years, the idea of being a professional rapper and producer left me. But hip-hop never did.

I’ve wanted to get back into music production for some time now, but I knew that I couldn’t use this old and outdated gear to do so anymore. I needed new gear.

I’m a big proponent of using what you have. Back in the late 1990’s I had all this gear and I made it work. Now I have an iMac that was just recently given to me and I have already figured out how to make it work for making mix tapes. So I wanted to see if I could figure out how to make beats on this computer as well.

I’ve been working with Garage Band for a week or so now and I am getting really frustrated with it. It just doesn’t seem to do what I want it to do. I would really like to get a new sampler but I can’t afford to buy any new gear at this time. I hope that I will be able to figure out how to get back into music production with what I have, which is this computer. I just don’t have a lot of time to play around with stuff right now.

I just want to jump right back into making beats like I used to. I miss it. Plus, I know that I will actually be able to use this blog as an outlet to get my music heard. That is really exciting for me. Hopefully I can figure out how to get some new songs out soon for you all to hear.

If you have any good ideas on how to make beats on a Mac, please let me know.

Thanks!