How To Buy Beats For Your Album

By Eric L. Mims


So....you've written a song, but you don't have any music to record it to.

It is problematic when all your word are written, and no songs recorded.. and you don't know any beat maker and on top of that you don't have the cash to pay for recording time, even if you did know someone who made beats.....or....you have recorded your songs to some one else's beats or instrumentals that you have no legal right to.

When you are a writer that writes rap songs, things are a not that complicated. You need beats that you have the legal right to use, then you need a studio to record your song in, then you need mixing and mastering, before you unleash it. There are many places online to license beats from, and there are typically two types of licenses you may choose from, exclusive and non-exclusive.

A non-exclusive license is less expensive and gives the artist the right to record to the music and sell usually up to about 2000 copies of your song before having to re-negotiate with the producer who created it. (Licenses Vary). Remember when purchasing a non-exclusive license you are not the only one who will have a license to use that beat. Any other artist can also buy that same license for that beat....so potentially there may be other artist with songs to the same beat as yours. It doesn't happen frequently, but it does happen.

Now, exclusive licenses cost more because once you purchase this beat, no other artist can license or lease this particular music. However, that does not mean that you will be the only artist with that beat because it may have been licensed non-exclusively before the exclusive license was purchased. But still, once you purchase an exclusive license, no one else can license that music.

Non-exclusive licenses can range from 2.99 to around 50.00 per beat, and exclusive licenses can range anywhere from 200.00 to 10,000.00 or more, depending on who the producer is. So whatever your budget is, I'm sure you can find something that you like that is within your budget. In addition, producers usually offer package deals when purchasing more than one lease. One site that I suggest is www.freshoffabreakup.com for such deals and affordable, quality beats.

For writers that create R&B songs or pop songs everything above applies, but in addition you have to employ a singer who can demo or "sing" your songs. Unless, you can sing yourself. Finding a demo singer that will do your songs justice can be a hard task. Professional demo singers can be a little costly, but it is usually worth it....and the worse thing you can do is rely on someone's word that they can sing, then agree to paying them 200.00, then when you get into the recording session, they take forever and sound horrible, and you still have to pay them....and all you have to show for it is a song that sounds nothing like you wanted it to sound.

Whether you find a professional demo singer, or you are singing the song yourself, if it's within your budget, you might want to also find a "vocal producer".

This is the person who is responsible for making sure your vocals are sung correctly, your melodies are plausible, and that the over all recording is sonically viable.

That's all I am able cover in this here, but I will be covering more soon, so stay positive..




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