The evolution of rap music in the United States

The evolution of rap music in the United States

by Henry A. Rhodes

Rap music is truly an American minority artist creation of which students need to be proud. Unfortunately, rap music is not perceived by many Americans as an art form, but as a fad which they hope will soon fade away. One of my intentions with my unit is to show that rap music is not a fad, but a musical art form that has been around for over 20 years in the United States.

Tutorial 8: THE PLAYLIST (Part 2)

In this chapter we are finally going to work with the Playlist. In Tutorial 7, you learnt to distribute several samples or instruments in different tracks or patterns so now you can work with the Playlist.

Yes, do  it, do it, don’t be afraid,  open the Playlist (F5), you have permission, but don’t forget to study the steps of our previous tutorial.

Tutorial 7 THE PLAYLIST (Part 1)

Once you have all the instruments (samples) you want in the Step Sequencer, or at least some of them to start with, then you need something to organize the whole thing: The Playlist (F5)

The Playlist is where you give real shape to your song. As a rule, you don’t use all the samples at the same time, sometimes you want to stop using a specific sound or use it again later on the song. Of course, this cannot be done from the Step Sequencer or the Piano Roll. The tool for this purpose is The Playlist, lust like the director of the orchestra determining who is going to sing and when, and who is going to remain silent. To do this operation we´ll need to separate one sound from another in different tracks. After we have achieved this part we can decide where to locate the sounds within our song. First you have to pick which sample or group of samples you want to define for each track.

Tutotial 6: THE PIANO ROLL (Part 2)

Tutorial on how to use the Piano Roll (part 2)

In this tutorial I will teach you some basic tips to work with the Piano Roll and that are very helpful in certain situations. Let’s see some of them; take a look at Figure 1.

- How to change the size of the Piano Roll: To expand the grey working area just double click on the upper bar where the name of your sample is, or click on the button at the right upper corner (6), just at the left side of the X (which obviously closes the Piano Roll so don’t touch it). The other button below the X (7) shows a two-direction cursor when you cross over it and by holding down left click you can change the working area’s width, which sometimes is necessary to look back at what you’re doing. 

Tutorial 5: THE PIANO ROLL (Part 1)

Tutorial on how to use The Piano Roll  in FL Studio (part 1)

Now that you are supposed to know how to use the Browser and the Step Sequencer, at least in general terms, you are ready for the incredible Piano Roll (F7).

As you already know, when you add some samples into the Step Sequencer you can choose the notes or scales using the line of buttons at the right to (check previous chapter, do your homework) but the Step Sequencer is sometimes very limited and “small” to manipulate lot of notes. However, if you are ambitious and wish to create sophisticated notes which make a better and a non-monotonous track you will need a special tool, because the Step Sequencer is good to work with loops or constant, repeated sounds for example a kick for a disco song, but to do something more complex there’s nothing better than the Piano Roll.

Tutorial 4: What is the Step Sequencer? What is it good for?

Tutorial on how to use the Step Sequencer in FL Studio

Perhaps the Step Sequencer (F6) is the heart of FL Studio. It‘s just steps in a certain sequence represented by the small line of buttons or steps located at the right side of every channel.  By default they are 16 steps divided four in groups of four steps and once you click them and press play they begin to sound from left to right until it reaches the end of the line, then the process repeats again in a “loop”.

It’s easy to work with this tool, which is very convenient because maybe, as I said before ,it is the most important part of FL Studio. Now, let’s take a closer.

Tutorial 3: What else can I do with the browser?

Tutorial on using the browser in FL Studio

The Browser is full of different sounds, but that’s not all, in addition, you can also find the plug in database, generators, channel presets, your projects, etc. (it even has some voices or short electronic phrases in a submenu called Speech, click on them too, some are really funny), and almost everything can be added to the Step sequencer.