Making Music blog written by Sun Berri on March 2, 2025. Revised March 12, 2025.
Intro
Welcome! My name is Sun Berri and I am sharing a quick blog about how I make dance beats using FL Studio with screenshots of my productions from the FL Studio software as reference.
In this blog, I will briefly cover how I build beats, create melodies, and mix and master my productions for the most versatile type of dance beats. You can find me on Instagram @sunberrimusic. Tap here to connect on Soundcloud and listen to my latest dance beats.
Build The Beat
I start by selecting my kicks, toms, and hi-hats. I like to choose the same kicks, make a copy of the selection, and then alter it to layer the sound. For dance beats, I like to add claps for energy. The first pattern is the foundation of my beat.
Every time I add or change something to the beat that makes it sound noticeably different, I make a new pattern.
I have many different patterns that build on the same foundation because I feel that it creates a rhythm that is easy to follow and listen to. View and listen to the drum beat example below.
Build The Melody
Building the melody is the creative process that involves deciding what this beat is going to be about. In this stage, I will think about what I like and create from the ideas that come to my mind.
Dance beats are produced by everyone and many tracks sound alike. Therefore, I don’t spend a long time in the creative process because my goal is to create music with a flexible sound that can be played in various settings.
In regards to ‘tracks sounding alike’, I am referring to the tracks that are stocked in audio libraries and the ones that are played over and over in retail stores and shopping malls. I enjoy the production process when I am able to create freely and not overthinking because anything I produce and regard as unique may already exist. Producing music everyday has helped me to create melodies faster and easier, which I feel has resulted in productions that I actually like. When I say “flexible sound”, I am referring to music that can be played outside of a nightclub that other people (apart from dance music enthusiast) also find pleasing.
For this example, I am building a melody that was inspired from the drum beat in the previous section. Listen to the melody below.
Mixing Music
From my research and understanding, mixing music means creating harmony. This means adding effects and transitions to blend the sounds together as a whole, choosing the sounds that I want to bring closer to the stereo, reducing the sounds of other instruments, and layering sounds. Depending on the complexity of the production, the mixing stage may require attention to other areas.
For this example, I have two samples of the same hi-hat. I reduced the pitch of one them and then panned each of the hi-hats to opposite directions. I did this so that the hi-hats is not directly in front of the stereo and therefore, not clashing with the instruments in the center. See the photo below for reference.
Regardless of how subtle the changes are on any particular sound, I feel that all the changes impact the overall quality of the production.
Mastering Music
Mastering is the last stage of music production. It involves making the beat sound clean and as loud as possible while checking the sound quality on various types of speakers. After all the steps above have been completed and I have considered how I want the production to sound, I will attend to each mixer individually to apply equalization and make adjustments such as lowering the volume, panning, and reducing noise from any effects that are applied.
My early productions were terrible because the volume was too low with several frequencies clashing together. I could not identify the frequencies of different instruments and samples apart from one another and therefore, could not resolve the issues that impacted the quality of my productions. I did not have the experience to know what to listen for. After making several productions since my first beats in 2022 and reading numerous blogs and helpful tips from various sources, my ears have become capable to identify and separate sounds from one another while hearing the difference of the sound when I make adjustments to it.
For this particular sound, I used an equalization tool to remove frequencies in the low and high areas with some reductions in the center of the sound. In the mixing stage, I added delay and reduced the pitch.
Listen to the sound before any changes were made and then hear the sound after the delay, pitch, and equalization was applied.
Conclusion
This concludes my blog on making music. Every production is a creative and learning process that I feel should be approached with optimism and a fresh perspective. The entire production process will depend on many factors including the duration of the production and complexity of any layers. After gaining hands-on experience with making music and becoming accustomed to the way a quality production should sound, it is common to create the melody and mix while building the beat. Overall, it is my love for making and sharing music that continues to be my greatest motivation. I hope you enjoyed my blog on Making Music and found it helpful. Thanks for reading!