Create hip hop drum loops with Hot stepper and Adobe Audition

Wanna produce hip hop tracks? I am not a hip hop producer but I can teach you the basics on how to create hip hop beats using hot stepper and Adobe Audition.

The Process

First, download Hot Stepper here.

This program is supposed to be freeware when I first using it. But the last time I’ve checked it, its now upgraded to shareware. However you don’t need to buy to use this software. Download it and follow the rest in this tutorial.

Second, launch the program and it should look like below:

Third, experiment with your favorite drum loops right directly in the hot stepper; you can use the mouse to create your own nice musical arrangements.

If you are not happy with its current library of sound samples. You can add new samples to your Hotstepper library. Simply follow this tutorial on adding real drum sounds to Hotstepper.

In my own example:

There are seven tracks in the hip hop drum loops above, namely:

a.) Bass Fat
b.) Short hit
c.) Bass glass up
d.) Banana bass
e.) Synth house bass
f.) Synth high Pizz C
g.) C-boom

Fourth, do not forget to save your file. Click File – Save as –, then type the file name; in my example I name it as mylooops.hpa. The file extension should be there: *.hpa

One issue that you need to deal with Hotstepper is that it will ask you to save every time you close the project. The golden rule of thumb is to click “Cancel” if you are not making any changes to your loop/sequence.

The fifth step is to export EACH track to WAV. Take note that you cannot export the entire tracks at once as this will be limited in the shareware version. You only need to export them one at a time.

For example if I will export “Bass Fat” track, I will remove all the track beat first very carefully (by right clicking on red buttons on the hot stepper sequencer) EXCEPT Bass fat. See screenshot (exporting Bass Fat):

To export, click File – Write pattern wav – {name of your wav file}. Save it to your computer desktop and take note of the file name.

To export another track (example Banana Bass), go to File – Open, and in the warning: “Do you want to save before continuing?” select NO. This will prevent overwriting your original loops.

Then find your original .hpa that you have saved, and then open it again. Remove all red buttons except for Banana bass:

Repeat the same procedure above for exporting to wav file for the rest of the tracks.

Until all tracks are exported as wav. Open Adobe Audition (you can use any DAW such as Reaper); then load up the tracks EACH in the multi-track session (one track for each wav file). See screenshot.

You can then use your mixing software clip duplication feature to make several copies of your original loop. See the screenshot.

Listen to this sample demo produced using the steps above:

Additional Tips on creating Hip hop drum loops

1.) You still need to mix your drum loops so that they would sound best. Refer to the following tutorials on mixing:

a.) How to mix instrument frequencies – lets you mix frequencies and EQ to its optimal settings.

b.) EQ techniques for Best Clarity – although the example is using Wind instruments such as trombone, you can extend the application to drum instruments such as used in hip hop music.

c.) The Art of Two-Dimensional Audio Mixing – in your mix, you should assign which instruments are on the front and back of your mix. This tutorial can be of great help.

d.) How to pan drum instruments? – you will learn how you can place different sections of your drums in the stereo field to make a very exciting hip hop drum loops.

e.) How to apply reverb to a mix properly– reverb is a very common effect used in mixing hip hop drum loops. You need to be sure you are implementing it correctly.

2.) Most hip hop music are squashed and compressed to death in the mix. You need to make sure that you have adequate headroom on your music for mastering. Read this tutorial on the correct audio mixing levels and headroom.

Content last updated on July 14, 2012