Better late then never...My introduction.

[Beaubeats]

Hey everyone. Joined a month or two ago and forgot to introduce myself.

My name is Chris Beaupre (hard one to pronounce, I know. Its like Bow-Pray) or Beau Beats.

I have messed around with making beats since I was about 12 years old. I am 32 now. I have not made beats that entire time constantly unfortunately and am just recently starting to do it again. 17-19 was my prime and I had a great deal of fun making beats for rappers at a local studio in CT. Grew up idolizing Dr.Dre, Timberland, Swizz, Outkast, Rza and a few other greats of my day. I struggled with creating dope beats. I knew nothing of music theory or arrangement so some beats would take me 12 plus hours to create from scratch.
I took a break for nearly ten years due to a busy manual labor work life and the frustration I use to face when trying to get the sounds out of my head into a DAW.
When I was 24 I started teaching myself how to play the guitar and piano. During that time I put a lot of work into finding my sound and practicing singing. It was the most passionate few years of my life and I lived and breathed to be with my guitar. Nothing else mattered.
Then fast forward to 27 when my first son was born. This changed the amount of time I could practice and focus on music so I made a decision to be more committed to my family life and raising my now two sons. I put the dreams of being on stage, playing guitar and singing out of my mind at that time (a very hard decision to make for someone like myself).
Fast forward to last summer. My nephew wanted to start getting into making beats so I told him I would help him get started. He had some temporary dreams of being like the internet money kids but time would prove he didn't actually want to put the work in. The good that came from it was me seeing that around that same time FL Studio came out with a native MAC OS version for the first time. I bought it simply for nostalgic reasons at first. It was the first DAW I ever used and I loved it as a kid. I used Logic Pro 8,9 and X for a few years for recording tracks but never liked the workflow for making beats. When I got back on FL I felt like a kid again. The magic of starting from silence and being able to create something cool just got me hooked again.
The only difference this time was my knowledge and how much more powerful that program is today.

I have been working hard the past six months to learn more about mixing, mastering and just all around composing. I have never been afraid of putting effort into accomplishing my goals and I hope to continue learning and growing as a producer and a creative everyday. I am in no rush to get where I am going and I know that if I keep up the momentum, leave my mind open to learn, study the industry and put in thousands of hours of work I will achieve my goals in the industry and in life in generally. For now, I make alright beats. Occasionally a little too complex or off the wall for rappers but I will get a good formula as time goes on.

If you actually read all this, thank you. I hope to build some solid relationships here and I will always be someone who tries to give more than he takes. I also love working on other peoples beats. If you have one that has good bones and ran out of creative steam for I really enjoy putting my spin on things.

Im on all social media as beaubeats1. beaubeats.com is my site also if you want to take a look at some of my work.

Damn thats long winded. Keep grinding beat fam. I look forward to getting to know this community.

 

[Armani]

Hey everyone. Joined a month or two ago and forgot to introduce myself.

My name is Chris Beaupre (hard one to pronounce, I know. Its like Bow-Pray) or Beau Beats.

I have messed around with making beats since I was about 12 years old. I am 32 now. I have not made beats that entire time constantly unfortunately and am just recently starting to do it again. 17-19 was my prime and I had a great deal of fun making beats for rappers at a local studio in CT. Grew up idolizing Dr.Dre, Timberland, Swizz, Outkast, Rza and a few other greats of my day. I struggled with creating dope beats. I knew nothing of music theory or arrangement so some beats would take me 12 plus hours to create from scratch.
I took a break for nearly ten years due to a busy manual labor work life and the frustration I use to face when trying to get the sounds out of my head into a DAW.
When I was 24 I started teaching myself how to play the guitar and piano. During that time I put a lot of work into finding my sound and practicing singing. It was the most passionate few years of my life and I lived and breathed to be with my guitar. Nothing else mattered.
Then fast forward to 27 when my first son was born. This changed the amount of time I could practice and focus on music so I made a decision to be more committed to my family life and raising my now two sons. I put the dreams of being on stage, playing guitar and singing out of my mind at that time (a very hard decision to make for someone like myself).
Fast forward to last summer. My nephew wanted to start getting into making beats so I told him I would help him get started. He had some temporary dreams of being like the internet money kids but time would prove he didn't actually want to put the work in. The good that came from it was me seeing that around that same time FL Studio came out with a native MAC OS version for the first time. I bought it simply for nostalgic reasons at first. It was the first DAW I ever used and I loved it as a kid. I used Logic Pro 8,9 and X for a few years for recording tracks but never liked the workflow for making beats. When I got back on FL I felt like a kid again. The magic of starting from silence and being able to create something cool just got me hooked again.
The only difference this time was my knowledge and how much more powerful that program is today.

I have been working hard the past six months to learn more about mixing, mastering and just all around composing. I have never been afraid of putting effort into accomplishing my goals and I hope to continue learning and growing as a producer and a creative everyday. I am in no rush to get where I am going and I know that if I keep up the momentum, leave my mind open to learn, study the industry and put in thousands of hours of work I will achieve my goals in the industry and in life in generally. For now, I make alright beats. Occasionally a little too complex or off the wall for rappers but I will get a good formula as time goes on.

If you actually read all this, thank you. I hope to build some solid relationships here and I will always be someone who tries to give more than he takes. I also love working on other peoples beats. If you have one that has good bones and ran out of creative steam for I really enjoy putting my spin on things.

Im on all social media as beaubeats1. beaubeats.com is my site also if you want to take a look at some of my work.

Damn thats long winded. Keep grinding beat fam. I look forward to getting to know this community.

if you ask me, you should stick to learning how to play the guitar, i promise you, a producer/beatmaker who can play an instrument is Way better than one who can't. Happy to see you here.

 

[JorgeRamosBeats]

Hey mate, welcome! As you know I'm also new here. We'll see eachother in the showcase and beat battle sections. You can also PM me anytime about anything that comes to mind.
So you are from the states but have french influences in your family?

 

[Beaubeats]

if you ask me, you should stick to learning how to play the guitar, i promise you, a producer/beatmaker who can play an instrument is Way better than one who can't. Happy to see you here.

Sorry I wasn’t clear on that. I still play the guitar quite freaquently, have 4 of them. Also one bass guitar I like to tool around on. What I meant to say was I don’t compose original songs for myself to play and sing live anymore. I only use my guitar and piano to add to my beats these days or play for fun.

 

[Fade]

Great intro! Welcome to the ILL. There's tons of people using FL Studio, I haven't used it in years though but it looks solid.

 

[Beaubeats]

Hey mate, welcome! As you know I'm also new here. We'll see eachother in the showcase and beat battle sections. You can also PM me anytime about anything that comes to mind.
So you are from the states but have french influences in your family?

Yes, I am an American mutt. 25% French Canadian, Irish, Italian and British (as far as I know). Don't know much about my family history other then what my father was able to learn over the years. One of my aunts tells me we are distant relatives to King Henry IV, or Henry the Great from the 1500's. Not sure how true any of that is though. A long line of poor immigrants who came to the states with nothing. All of my great grandparents were immigrants though and they didn't pass down any history to speak of so when my grandparents were alive they didn't know much of where they came from.
I will see you on the beat battle field. I'll be trying to check out everything I can that people do on here in my free time. Hope to see more of your work.

 

[Beaubeats]

Great intro! Welcome to the ILL. There's tons of people using FL Studio, I haven't used it in years though but it looks solid.

Thank you. Happy to be a part of the group. FL is great nowadays. Mostly a comfort thing for me.

 

[Fade]

French Canadian? Do you have family in Quebec? I'm in Montreal.

 

[Beaubeats]

French Canadian? Do you have family in Quebec? I'm in Montreal.

not that I know. My family had a lot of issues back in the day so I probably do, just never met any of them.

 

[OGBama]

Welcome @Beaubeats and please always play an instrument and don't be afraid to outsource mixing and/or mastering.

 

[Beaubeats]

@OGBama thank you. I outsource for the beats I make for artist. Always best to let the professionals do what they do while I still learn. The local engineer is super talented when it comes to mixing and mastering and the artist over there get it for free with their monthly dues. I don’t make enough money of my beats yet to pay anyone for help unfortunately. One day I hope to.
I will probably try to learn so more instruments later in life when I have more time for me and my hobbies. For now, I will producer and hopefully teach my kids to play some instruments if they desire to learn.

 

[2GooD Productions]

Listening to your story and your music our tastes are very similar as is our story. I have learned a lot over the years about the mixing process and my understanding of the whole process has grown massively over the last year or two, that said, most of the tracks on your soundcloud sound well mixed as it is. I get a feeling we are going to get on well and Im here to help on mixing if you have any questions, Im no mixing expert, I dont think I ever will be, but I know quite a lot.

 

[Beaubeats]

@2GooD Productions Thank you. I spent my early years using only my ear and had no knowledge of theory but i could always tell when things were off as far as in key or out of tune. Clashing sounds and such. Always revert to Dr.Dre saying "Take time to perfect the beat". Unfortunately i didn't know anything back then and youtube didn't exist so the countless hours id spend mixing each track really started to piss me off. Plus not knowing theory made it really hard to play something cohesive on the piano or what chord I should add to a progression. I eventually craved piano lessons so I could learn simple theory. After six months of that I started playing guitar and got really into scales, chords, progressions and creating specific emotions through the use of artistic arrangements and such. A whole new world of possibilities became open to me. Today its almost to easy for me to make a catchy melody with some thick chords. I make a lot of modern music so the sounds are simple and sometimes it sounds like its one note to the untrained ear but if you listen closely you can tell its five notes, sometimes more all at once. Making music in one octave is way to boring for me and my ears will get tired of it before i ever add drums.

I love seeing how others mix or the process they have. What do you usually start with? Stereo separation and placing my drums in specific spots in the mix has really raised my skill level since around December when I started actually learning how pros do it. So many tutorials i added to a playlist on youtube that I reference from time to time to brush up, make sure im accounting for the right things and what not. My boy just told me two of the beats for him I made six months ago will be on his EP next week and all I could think was "I better mix those beats before he releases it". Spent some time on them today and boy o boy do they sound better. it is crazy how much we can progress in such a short time when we dedicate ourselves to something.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I always start with the drums, and the bass as they are the most dominant parts of the mix. Specifically the kick and the bass, I get them to sit well together first, then mold everything else around those. Starting with the snare. The process from there varies according to the genre and the actual sounds being used.

Ive always said making music is like kung fu, the more you practice, the better you get.
With the university of youtube can can learn a lot from pros by just watching them.
Its a satisfying feeling when you get a lot more consistent, and can hear the improvement on mixes you did just a couple years ago. It is for me anyway, I love the technical aspect of mixing, find it enjoyable and a challenge. I love a challenge.

 

[Beaubeats]

I always start with the drums, and the bass as they are the most dominant parts of the mix. Specifically the kick and the bass, I get them to sit well together first, then mold everything else around those. Starting with the snare. The process from there varies according to the genre and the actual sounds being used.

Ive always said making music is like kung fu, the more you practice, the better you get.
With the university of youtube can can learn a lot from pros by just watching them.
Its a satisfying feeling when you get a lot more consistent, and can hear the improvement on mixes you did just a couple years ago. It is for me anyway, I love the technical aspect of mixing, find it enjoyable and a challenge. I love a challenge.

Me too. No progress in comfort.
That’s the same mixing process I have. If my ears are lost in the mix I turn everything all the way down and work from there. I go between the headphones and monitors for every sound too and how they sit in the mix. And I think it’s really important to avoid to much time mixing sounds solo. How they relate to one another is way more important then how they sound alone. I usually just do that when I think I am losing frequencies because of clashing sounds. Then I eq in solo to make sure I don’t take to much of the meat out of the sound.
The information and skills are all right there for us to learn. It truly is an amazing time to self learn for those of us capable of watching, retaining and practicing what we are taught. A lot of the younger producers I have been networking with are afraid of learning. They few that aren’t I try to help the best I can and in the few short months I have known them they are way better than they were a few months ago, just like myself.