To make a beat, you build a short loop from four parts (chords, a melody, drums and an 808 or bass) at one tempo, and then stretch that loop into a song about 2 minutes long. In FL Studio, you write the chords in the Piano Roll, program the drums in the Channel Rack and arrange it all in the Playlist. A computer, headphones and the free FL Studio trial are all you need.

Below is how to make beats the way Max teaches it in his trap drums tutorial and his free beginner course, with real screenshots. You’ll see where every drum goes, the settings he uses, and the beginner mistakes he warns about.

What is a beat?

A beat is the instrumental part of a song, the music a rapper or singer performs over. Producers also call it an instrumental. Most beats are built from the same four parts:

• Drums: the kick, the snare or clap, and the hi-hats, which keep the rhythm.
• 808 or bass: the low notes. An 808 is a deep bass sound played from a sample, named after an old drum machine.
• Chords: three or more notes played together, which set the mood.
• Melody: the catchy line on top, the part people remember.

A few words you’ll see in every step. A loop is a short section that repeats. A bar is one count of four beats. BPM (beats per minute) is the tempo. And in FL Studio, a pattern is one block of notes or drums that you can repeat across the song.

What do you need to make beats?

Less than you think. Max’s list is short, a computer and headphones: “That’s all the necessary hardware you need to make music. Believe it or not, everything else is totally optional.” Your current computer will likely do for the first few months.

• A computer: Windows or Mac. The one you have is fine to start.
• Headphones: ideally a flat-sounding pair, so you hear the bass the way it really is.
• A DAW (digital audio workstation, the program you make beats in): this guide uses FL Studio. Its free trial has every feature and no time limit, but it can’t reopen saved projects, so finish a beat in one sitting or buy it later.
• Sounds: FL Studio comes with drums and instruments, and its stock plugins are enough to make whole beats. A good sample pack still makes a big difference, as you’ll see in step 4.

A MIDI keyboard is nice to have but optional, Max says, and you don’t need to play an instrument at all. Is FL Studio good for making beats? Max sums it up: “It’s easy to start, hard to master, popular with beginners and pros.” For a tour of the program, read what FL Studio is and how it works, and if you’re setting up a desk, see how to set up your first home studio.

How to make beats in FL Studio, step by step

Here’s the whole process. Each step below shows exactly where to click:

1. Set the tempo.
2. Write a 4-chord loop, plus a simple melody.
3. Program the drums in the Channel Rack.
4. Swap in better drum sounds.
5. Add hi-hat rolls and velocity.
6. Add the 808.
7. Arrange the loop into a 2-minute beat.
8. Balance the levels and export.

The drum steps follow Max’s trap drums tutorial, which you can watch below. The rest comes from his free beginner course on YouTube.

Step 1: Set the tempo

The tempo box sits in the toolbar at the top of FL Studio (1). Click it and drag up or down to change the BPM, and the hint bar on the left shows the exact number (2). Max’s rule of thumb is that every style sits somewhere between 90 and 160 BPM.

For trap, set it to 140. Max is specific: “trap is usually around 140 and not 130.” Slower hip-hop and R&B beats sit lower in that range.

Step 2: Write a 4-chord loop

In Max’s course, the chords come first and the drums go on top, because the 808 will follow the chord roots later. Open the Piano Roll on a piano sound, set the scale helper to a minor scale, and place four chords, one per bar. Each chord is a root note with every other note of the scale stacked on top.

His loop uses four chords in C# harmonic minor, numbered 1 to 4 in the screenshot, a progression he says suits melodic trap or any emotional song. To build your own from scratch, our guide to music theory for producers explains scales and chords, and how to make chords in FL Studio walks through every click.

Add a simple melody on top

A rap beat can live without a melody, but a simple one helps. Open the melody’s Piano Roll and show your chords as ghost notes with Alt + V. The gray bars are the chord notes (2), and melody notes placed on top of them (1) always fit. Then give every bar a slightly different rhythm, because Max never keeps the melody’s rhythm the same all the way through.

Step 3: Program trap drums in the Channel Rack

The Channel Rack is FL Studio’s drum grid. Each row is one sound, and each button is a step. One bar has 16 steps, and every group of four steps, shown as a block of color, is one beat. Make a new pattern for the drums, so they stay separate from the chords.

Here’s where Max puts each drum in one bar of trap:

Hi-hats: fill every second step

Right-click the hi-hat channel (1) and choose Fill each 2 steps (2). FL Studio lights up every second step for you, eight hits per bar. It’s the fastest way to start, and you’ll add rolls in step 5.

Snare on beat 3, kick on beat 1

With the hats in place (1), click step 9 on the snare row (2). That’s beat 3, the first step of the third color block. At 140 BPM, a snare on beat 3 gives trap its slow, heavy, half-time feel.

Then put the kick on step 1 (3). Drums create the groove, so Max wants to show people where the beat starts, and the kick is the foundation of the whole drum pattern. You can add more kicks on the start or the middle of any beat, wherever it feels good.

Make it 2 bars and add a kick variation

One bar gets stiff on repeat. Max’s rule: “our drum pattern, especially the kick, should be at least two bars long.” Make the pattern twice as long (32 steps), carry the hats across, and put the second snare on step 25, which is beat 7 of the two bars. Here the snares sit on beat 3 (1) and beat 7 (2), and a new kick on beat 6 (3) makes the second bar different.

Keep it simple. “Don’t go over the top. Drums, especially in trap music, are only to keep the rhythm going and not necessarily be in the highlight,” Max says. For a longer variation, click the pattern clip in the Playlist, choose Make unique, and change only the kick in the copy.

Step 4: Swap in better drum sounds

This is the step most beginners skip. Max: “Trust me when I say this, but there are many tracks with as simple drum pattern like this one, but just use amazing sounds.” FL Studio’s stock drums are fine for learning the pattern, but a good sample pack (a folder of ready-made drum sounds) makes the same pattern sound much better.

Keep your packs in one folder you won’t move, and drag that folder into FL Studio’s Browser. Open the pack’s Kick folder (1), press the down arrow to play through the kicks, and drag the one you like (2) onto the kick channel in the Channel Rack. Do the same with a snare or clap (claps are brighter, snares punchier) and a closed hi-hat. While the beat plays, Shift + Up or Down in the Browser swaps a sound for the next sample, so you can audition sounds in the loop.

Our guide on how to install sample packs in FL Studio covers the setup. If you’d rather use plugins, see the best drum VST plugins and these free trap VSTs.

Step 5: Add hi-hat rolls and velocity

Two small touches make a stiff loop sound like a real trap beat: rolls and velocity.

Hi-hat rolls with the graph editor

Hi-hat rolls are the fast stutters you hear in most trap songs. Select the hi-hat channel and open the graph editor with the bar-graph icon at the top right of the Channel Rack. Click Repeat (1), then raise one step (2) to turn that single hit into a roll. Try different heights until it sounds right.

Where should rolls go? There are no fixed rules, but Max shares his go-to: “one framework that I like to use is change something every four beats.” Keep the hats steady for two or three beats, then roll. It works because of contrast: the ear gets used to the pattern, and then you surprise it. Don’t cram rolls everywhere, and if you have a second drum pattern, copy the hi-hat steps over with Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V.

Vary the hi-hat velocity

Velocity is how hard each hit plays. In the same graph editor, click Velocity (1) and pull every other bar down a little (2). “Even if it’s not perfect, it’s better because it’s more human,” Max says. The change is very subtle, but it stops the hats from sounding robotic. There are more ways to do this in our guide to humanizing MIDI drums.

Then add one extra sound to spice up the loop, a perc, a rim or another clap. Put it near the fourth beat, the same place you’d change the hats, so the loop keeps moving.

Step 6: Add the 808

An 808 is the deep bass that trap is built on. Max explains that it’s very similar to a regular bass, but producers now play it from a sample instead of a synth. Pick an 808 sample, drag it into the Playlist, and open its Piano Roll.

Now place the notes by two rules: follow the root of each chord, and follow the rhythm of the kick. Max’s tip: “An 808 usually behaves similar to a kick drum.” His kick hits on beat 6, so the 808 does too. Here the notes land on beat 1 (1) and beat 6 (2), with one higher note at the end of the second bar (3). Some producers even leave the kick out when they use an 808.

The kick and the 808 will fight a little at first. That’s a mixing job, covered in our guide on how to mix kick and 808.

Step 7: Arrange the loop into a 2-minute beat

A loop isn’t a beat yet. Max aims for about 2 minutes, which is plenty for a first beat. His method is called additive arrangement, and it’s simple:

1. Put each instrument and drum sound in its own pattern (in the pattern menu, Split by channel), then name and color them. Max colors instruments green and drums red.
2. Select everything in the Playlist and press Ctrl + B until the song is about 2 minutes long.
3. Mute everything with the mute tool, then unmute parts as you play it back.
4. Add markers for the sections: an intro, hook, verse and hook of 16 bars each, then an outro.
5. Bring in something new every 4 to 8 bars, and ease out at the end.

In the screenshot, the Verse marker (1) starts a section where the kick and snare drop out (2) and the hats return after 8 bars, and everything comes back for the Hook (3). Just before a hook, bring one drum in early. “We just want to tease people with the drums,” Max says. For the outro, he keeps only the pluck and the bass, so the song eases out instead of stopping dead.

A beat for a rapper or singer only needs this rough version, because the vocalist decides how long each part should be. For more ideas, read 7 tips to structure a beat and how to arrange loops into a full song.

Step 8: Balance the levels and export

Before you export, play the beat and turn down anything that’s too loud. The drums and the lead should be the loudest parts. Our guide to mixing drums is the next step when you’re ready to go further.

To export, press Ctrl + R (or go to File, then Export). Max’s settings for a finished track: tick WAV (1) and set the bit depth to 24Bit int (2), then tick MP3 too and push the MP3 bitrate all the way up to 320kbps (3). Click Start. Then play the file on a laptop, in the car and on a Bluetooth speaker, because that’s how people will hear it.

How to make drill and house beats

Once the trap pattern works, other styles are small changes to the same grid.

Drill beats

Max turns the trap loop into drill in three moves. He changes the hi-hat to hit every third step, skipping two each time (1). He moves the second snare from beat 7 to beat 8 (2). Then he adds an extra kick near the end. “We got drill vibes right away,” he says. For the melodic side, see how to make UK drill melodies.

House beats

House is built differently. Max puts the kick on every beat, which is called four on the floor (2), claps on beats 2 and 4 (3), and an open hat on every off-beat. Then he turns up the swing knob at the top of the Channel Rack (1) to about 40%. Swing pushes the notes between the beats a few milliseconds late, which makes the groove bounce. For the full song layout, see EDM song structure.

Beginner beat-making mistakes (and Max’s fixes)

These are the traps Max warns about most, with his fix for each:

• Starting with weak sounds. Max’s rule is “gold in equals gold out,” and “it’s much better to have a few great sounds than lots of okay ones.”
• A one-bar loop. Make the drums at least 2 bars long, so they don’t sound stiff.
• Busy drums. In trap, the drums keep the rhythm. Let the 808 and the melody shine.
• Too many rolls. Change something every four beats, not every beat, and delete the extra rolls.
• Robotic hi-hats. Lower the velocity of every other hit.
• Layering kicks. “You never layer kicks,” Max says. Layer claps, open hats or percs instead if you want more punch.
• Everything at once. Bring parts in one by one, and ease out at the end.

For more punch and groove, read our secrets for hard-hitting drums in FL Studio and these production tricks for trap and hip-hop.

Where to go next

Your first beat won’t be perfect, and it doesn’t need to be. Finish it, export it, and make the next one a little better. When you want to go deeper on one part of the process, these guides pick up where this one stops:

• Trap beat-making techniques, for more ways to build trap drums and 808s.
• How to make type beats, if you want to make beats in the style of an artist.
• How to program virtual drums, for realistic drum kits.
• How to make breakbeats, for chopped, old-school drum loops.
• How to finish a song, when your loop needs to become a real track.

Frequently asked questions