Percussion is one of the most important ingredients in any hip-hop recording, and a good hip-hop producer knows how to lay down beats by layering kicks, snares, cymbals, hi-hats and effects on one of these digital devices.
Like the drum machine, a synthesizer allows you to create precise beats. But whereas the drum machine emphasizes percussion, the synthesizer helps you bring melody to your samples and full-length recordings. By creating catchy hooks to go along with your percussion, you can help your artists go from free-styling performers to radio-friendly superstars.
A mixing console (also called a mixer, mixing board or mixing desk) allows you to take your percussion tracks, melodies and effects and capture them professionally on a computer or recording device. With a mixing console, you can control the incoming frequencies, including the bass, mid-tones and treble sounds, along with the volume and panning, either left, right or center placement. You can monitor your mix through a pair of stereo headphones and make adjustments as needed.
Though optional, an effects processor can connect directly to your mixing console and provide effects to the incoming audio signals. For instance, if you want to produce crunk music, you will need a lot of reverb, which you can add with an effects processor. You can also add delays, echoes, chorus effects and even vocal processing, such as the autotune effect.
It may seem self-explanatory; but if you plan to record with artists in a home studio, you will need your own mics. You must also consider the type of microphones needed for the most professional recording quality. For best results, invest in at least one condenser microphone. Condenser mics are ideal for vocal recording because they have a broad frequency range and can capture the human voice more clearly and accurately than other types of microphones.
Your mixing console will not be of much use if you do not have a recording device to which you can connect it. By connecting the device to your computer, you can record beats and vocals directly onto it with production software, such as Adobe's Audition, Apple's Logic or Avid's Pro-Tools. Although you can also use a multi-track recording device to record, these devices do not allow you the same editing, exporting and mass-production capabilities of a professional computer recording program.
Though not as crucial in some other genres, samplers are used a lot in hip-hop to quickly generate beats and effects that producers can then loop. In some cases, your original instrumentation just might not have the effects you need for a particular song, or you may want to throw together some short audio sample loops quickly while on the road. A sampler allows you to layer these effects together and repeat them, thus enabling you to piece together original beats with minimal effort.