Frequently Asked Questions About Type Beats

Aj Shine

Music Producer, Entrepreneur

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A TYPE BEAT? (WHY DO RAPPERS LOVE TYPE BEATS)

The term “type beats” also makes it easier for rappers to find a certain style of instrumental they are looking for on Youtube. It also puts the rapper / singer / artist in control ; the artist picks the beat that they have an emotional vibe with after they have looked through a number of tracks. (Classic Internet shopping … to find the style of you are looking for – u type in J Cole type beats on the Internet and get an assortment of tracks that you can take to your your private dressing room … take as much time as you want … and make a purchase decision). Rappers love type beat producers because they can find a beat without knowing the producer specifically. Also, The type beat category is a reference that gives an artist a better gauge on what the beat sounds like before he hears it so the artist can use his selection time more wisely. Type beats are fast becoming part of the current hip-hop underground culture. Amateur rappers want to sound like their favorite rappers so they look for type beats of their favorite rappers.

DO “TYPE BEATS” HELP BEATS / PRODUCERS GET MORE EXPOSURE ?

The answer is, simply, “yes”. Beats with type beat in the title get more views on Youtube compared to the same view with just the name of the beat. So the term type beat has become a good form of search engine optimization. The whole point of naming it a type beat is to rank higher in the YouTube search algorithm, getting more traffic and hopefully more sales. Type beats began as a marketing strategy. It also became a way for underground producers define their sound by styling or naming their existing production after a particular popular artist. The term pops up more in suggested videos of famous producers (on Youtube) and it’s helps lesser known producers get sales from customers.

Type beats gives producers who don’t have industry-level contacts a way to showcase their production catalog to the world. It is the perfect hustle for producers looking to sell material to amateur rappers, not the professionals.

The type beat is priced accordingly based on what the market will pay for good production. Beats range from free to a ceiling of cost of $15.00 per beat, on average (for a type beat rental – more on this later). Most beats are sold in a cluster (for example buy 1 get 2 free, buy 1 get 3 free, buy 1 get 4 free, buy 1 get 5 free etc.) The typical most common price for quality production is 29.99. After that producers adjust the the cluster strategy to their liking. For example, at WSOBeats.com – we offer a buy 1 get 2 Free beats for 29.99 as our intro beat license. (This makes the cost of the average beat in a buy 1 get 2 free cluster around $10.00). We increase the amount of free beats per license type though to give artists a better deal on buying a higher license. Our Premium license is buy 1 get 3 free, the Pro Track-Outs License is buy 1 get 4 free, and the Unlimited License is buy 1 get 5 free.

There is a lot of info in that last paragraph so let me break it down. I’m sure your first question might be where are the free beats cuz I’ll just use them.

There are different “types” of free beats. Some Free beats are generally beats that producers give away so they can begin to develop a relationship with rappers. These are usually the free beats rappers give in exchange for you joining their email list. In general, these are the producers’ throw-away beats (meaning not the best beat that the producer has to offer). That’s not to say you won’t find a few gems in the free beat collections that you gather from producers. But it won’t be their best and definitely not their most current work. And as we all know, production changes over time. So alot of times those free beats may not be bad, just outdated. That being said the producer usually gives away free beats so you get an idea about the style and quality of their production. They are hoping you like it enough to check out the rest of their work and become a paying customer.

Then there is the Youtube Free Beat. Most producers use the term “Free Beat” in their Youtube title. That’s because free beats get searched for more than one’s without the term “free” in it. These beats are “free” for non-profit use. Which means if you wanna make a demo for your Mom and give it just to her for Mother’s Day then the beat was free. But if you wanna do a show, put the beat on a Youtube or on a mixtape that you wanna sell, or otherwise promote your career the beat isn’t free. Now you gotta buy a license. It’s basically free if you wanna look at the beat but not free if you wanna use it. The thing about the Youtube beats is they are usually the producers best and most current work. That’s why the producer was uploading it to Youtube in the first place. Producers place vocal tags on their beats to do marketing and promotion, and to protect their work from being used without permission. Producers also sometimes upload lower quality beats to Youtube as a way to protect their work.

The Youtube Free beats are usually the beginning artists playground. Underground wanna-be rap stars have a habit of pilfering beats off Youtube to create their first mixtape. They have no intention of paying for a license because a) that would be beneath them (since they are stars already lol) and b) why would anyone pay for something they could just steal? The problem with this logic is that these same rappers are usually rapping about being ballers … with baller type-chicks … and then it become obvious they can’t afford beats without tags and other rappers can afford beats without tags. So they pretty much destroy their own street cred by not being able to afford beats without tags.

Buying a beat usually means access to high quality stems, or at least a good WAV. Rappers who use really low quality mp3’s they have stolen from Youtube or Soundcloud usually have demos that sound like crap. So again they destroy their own career before they get started by not being able to afford a high fidelity beat.  No artists with serious commercial intentions will ever use a tagged low quality beat.

For the most part type beats use an artists name. Examples of current type beats : Nba Young Boy type beats, Lil Uzi Vert type beats, XXXtentacion type beats, Juice World type beats, Lil Baby type beats, Ynw Melly type beats, Lil Peep type beats, Kodak Black type beats, Playboi Carti type beats, Blueface type beats, and Drake type beats. The other way to describe type beats are moods or feelings or instrument type beats. Examples: Sad, Guitar type beats or Soulful / Inspiring rap type beats. Some artists prefer titles that are unique like this because they have specific sound in mind or mood for the song/idea they are working on.

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR OF THE “TYPE BEAT”?

For most aspiring artists, the only thing that matters is the quality of the beat.

It should be noted first and foremost that the term “type beats” exists because of the Internet and by Internet, I mean Youtube. Type Beats and the process of buying them are the equivalent of the Amazon shopping model for your neighborhood rapper or singer. You can get someone in Australia purchasing a beat from the WSOPhilly brand in Philadelphia or a rapper from California get music from a production team in Germany. As for the phrase itself, it is just the part of the culture. Producers used the phrase because they were trying to market their production to amateur rappers, not professionals.

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON COMPLAINTS (rappers opinions) ABOUT “TYPE BEATS” & “TYPE BEAT PRODUCERS”?

These are actual complaints about type beats that I’ve heard or read:

1. Type beats involve biting some else’s vibe.
2. Feels like you have no clear vision.
3. It’s just so overdone that I tend to lump them all together and assume they’re mediocre.
4. Producers who are interested more in the financial gains and exposure — so they succumb to a lack of originality.
5. The beat will be so f—-in wack I think to myself  “the type Artist would never rap on this bull—-.
6. Producers pinning themselves to one sound, which is someone else’s sound.
7. Producers don’t develop their skills and depend entirely on copying the styles of existing songs to produce.
8. Producers are trying to make someone else’s sound in order to sell it or gain cheap clout
9. No one you respect has ever gotten there by being someone else. They made their own sound and believed in it till it worked.
10. They water down producing and end up making every song sound the same because most of these beats are straight up bad and copy the same songs.
11. Producers need to stop trying to emulate other producers and make their own sounds. The world of beat production is entirely too over saturated with generic (insert artist here) type beats.
12. I know there’s definitely the possibility of like 30 other minor rappers being on this same beat.
13. The problem is that most of these don’t even sound like the actual producer they’re trying to emulate.

IS MAKING A TYPE BEAT AN ADMITTANCE THAT YOUR BEAT IS NOT UNIQUE (producers opinions)?

Underground Producers have a really practical way of looking at the type beats game.  Some of their thoughts on the subject are:

• Type Beats a reality of the modern world and they seem like the only way for your average producer to actually get noticed and make money.
• It’s simply a changing of the times. I actually take pride in trying to cover several sub-genres. My take is this – If my goal is to sell beat how can I produce what’s in demand”  I can still put my twist on it and call it mine, right?
• I name my beats like “Lil Skies Type Beat” just to help me remember the vibe of the beat and whether it was done and etc. and that just helps if I’m going back to it.
• I rather be known than unknown, simple as that.
• Learning how to emulate/copy others is the most effective method of learning, though.
• It’s a great way for practice and making beats FOR someone.
• If people like the rapper’s choice of beats … they will want to rap over a beat similar or one that has the same vibe.
• What’s wrong with that ? I mean let’s be real, who doesn’t copy each other? Everything already sounds the same.
• That’s how music evolved, people were influenced by one another. It’s like an infinite chain, obviously rappers had different styles … whether it be their voice or their flow, whatever.  But that’s how it works – it’s the same thing for the producers, except they make the beats.

ARE MAJOR ARTISTS STARTING GOING TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCHING FOR THIER OWN TYPE BEATS TO FIND?

Major artists are DEFINITELY starting to go to youtube and search their own type beats to find stuff.  The most notable artists to do it so far are Asap Rocky and DESIGNER with Panda (a #1 hit).  Panda was a “Meek Mill / Ace Hood Type Beat” and was good enough to land on a Kanye album.  The beat was sold for $200.  Migos has been known to search em, along with others who routinely show they do it on IG streams. No one can be sure what the future holds for the “type beat” and the type beat producer, but it doesn’t look like they are going anywhere soon.  Much of what is successful on the Internet / Youtube happens organically.  “Type beats” have gone viral and it looks like they are here to stay.