Listen to music you find interesting. This music can come from any genre. You’re listening for a small section of melody or sound that catches your attention or makes you bob your head. Import the small section of melody or sound onto a track in the drum machine or sound recording software you’re using. This imported sound is a sample. Repeat as necessary to import all the samples you want to use for a given song. If you’re not using samples in your rap beat, skip steps 1 through 3.
Edit each sample according to your taste. Sampling is about taking a simple or familiar sound and turning it on its ear so that it feels fresh and innovative. This can be accomplished by changing the tempo of the sample, passing the sample through a filter to accentuate certain sounds and chopping up the sample and rearranging it, among other tactics.
Organize the arrangement of the samples you’re using (if you’re using more than one sample). The musical arrangement is how you choose to orchestrate the different sounds. For example, perhaps you want to play a horn sample followed immediately by a guitar riff sample; or you could choose to overlay the two sounds. Once you figure out the organization of the samples, loop the arrangement so that it keeps repeating.
Create a drum line for the beat (if you’re not using a sampled drum beat) using the MIDI synthesizer or drum machine. The drum line acts as the backbone of the entire beat. In fact some rap beats contain little more than percussion (refer to Audio Two’s classic rap song “Top Billin’” or the Beastie Boys classic “Paul Revere”). The entire drum line only needs to be as long as one to two music measures. The drum beat is the simplest element of the beat to perform on the keyboard or drum machine. Create the drum beat, then loop it.
Add instrumentals to the beat. You can create your own instrumentals to play on top of the drum beat (using the synthesizer), or lay the sampled instrumental composition you created in steps 1 through 3 on top of the beat. The instrumentals function as the groove element of the beat. This can include a bass line, a melody, and even just an unusual sound, note or vocal rhythmically repeated. The instrumentals part of the beat should be ear-catching. There’s no particular formula for creating an original instrumental groove. You have to use your imagination. If you choose not to create the instrumental from samples, you must have enough musical skill to play the instrumental groove you imagine in your mind on the keyboard. Like the drum beat, the main instrumental groove only has to be one to two measures long.