Yo!
Greetings! Hello to the forums, new here, nice to enter the SP community.
I'd like to ask in what order do you usually lay down your beats and why? It's interesting experience-wise. Me, I usually start with the sample, then add drums and bass and the rest. I know some people prefer having a drum loop first and putting layers on that.
How do you do it?

i usually need to come up with the sample first and feel it out dry. then i go into the snare, hh, kick, etc. bass/low end in the mix somewhere. id say it depends on how im feeling the product. when im rocking the synth i might put the drums first so i got something to feel besides a metronome.

order of operations for me... main sample, drums, bass, sprinkles.


in my case, if i work on my drum sound too much, it limits my mind to what kind of samples i think will fit. i start to hear a root note in the drums the more i listen, know what i mean.... i agree with sasquatch about synths. when you do drums first you can write your own melody instead of lucking out with sample.

but if you have the sample first, you can imagine the swing and the timbre of the drums in your head, then you have an idea of how you want it to sound. if i'm tweaking 'when the levee breaks' drums, then look for a sample...i'm gonna be looking for something as heavy-sounding, and i may miss some good stuff along the way going through records.... also i like my bass lines to correspond with my drum patterns, where the kicks hit....etc... so i do that usually last. plus, i get a kick out of the bass as the icing on the cake when i'm excited to finish something i like! it's the final touch that makes the shit official! BOOM!

Depends on the beat. Usually, I layer drums over sample chops. But sometimes I come up with a cool sounding drum pattern or a way to chop a break and the ideas for arranging samples come from there.

I usually try and get as many pieces chopped up and ready first. I try to come up with something with the samples first but not record anything.

Once I get that, I make a drum loop and build off of that. That way, I can play the melody or samples to my drum pattern. If my drum pattern is off a little bit, I can play to that so everything still sounds together.

Or you can do it the other way around. It all depends what inspires me first really.

I generally start with a drum loop and then i experiment with sample chop patterns.