This has been a issue for me since I jumped into hardware and stopped using fruity loops. I sit for hours coming up with 8 and 16 bar loops of sketches that I just can't figure out how to extend to 2 mins and keep interesting. I think I'm just impatient and just move on too quickly but it would be nice to find some way to record all these parts and set it up as a song like accidentally. So I don't notice that I'm hearing the same beat for too long. Once I got a drum loops with a bass and a few samples getting busy on top of each other, I just fumble and jump to something else like a retard. Like, what are some cool ways to break a beat down, like intro, "the beat" and the end. It's weird to me because I have a good understanding of the components of an song and what parts it consist of, just for some reason I technically can't do it. I think I'm just posting this to see if someone shares my grief and may have dug their way out of this shit.

just make an 8-bar drum loop for the verse and then copy that same drum loop for the chorus, but overdub a few kicks to change up the loop a bit...like this

say the loop is like this: kick snare kick snare

make the chorus loop like this: kick snare ki-kick snare

but, i've found it difficult to work with loops, ..always felt restricted. like if i have a synth line i want to play in my head, but the drum loop i have doesnt fit...im screwed.

i've always just found loops or made my own, then go back and chop them. that way you'll still have the "rhythm" of that loop if you chop correctly, but now you have the ability to play the sounds back anyway you want.

change up the sample at the end of 4, 8 or 16 bars. add a different sample or chop it differently for the turn around. drop out the bassline, drums, sample, etc. its hip-hop you don't need to get super structural

once i have a loop. i.e drums,chops,bass. For variation i can then add a combination of the following

-1shots
-reverse drum hits (i.e adding a reverse snare before the main snare hits sounds cool"
-fills (drum fills, chop fills,etc).
-effects
-track element mutes
-add a halftime/double time section
-for an intro maybe just play a few bars of just drums and then let your other elements come in. or maybe play a random vocal sample and then go right into the beat.

try listening to songs you like just to hear their formula. my technique is usually to take the chops from a sample and arrange them in two different ways with different drum and bass lines, then using the pattern sequencer i just switch between the two, and ill usually do an intro that is just a stripped down version of the first verse, and sometimes a short simple section between the verses to tie them together nicely.

Thanks guys. These are some pretty goood tips here. Im going to definitely have this page up when i have my next beat making moment. I know there are a lot of different things that people do but i need to at least start doing something then take it from there. Baby Steps, baby steps......

Don't start with the drumline.

First, piece together samples that work well with each other.
Play with it a bit and get different ways to flip the sample. Maybe bringing other ones in at times too.
Once you got that all tracked out, then build the drums around it.

You'll find that type of workflow less restrictive. And give you more flexibility in creative experimentation.

Hmmm. Thats a dam good comment sir. I always start with the drums. Even when i have samples ready to go, i always lay the drums first and yes, it is very restrictive. Ill try it the other way around and see what happens. Back when i used to record my buddies back in philly, i used to make a beat in fruity loops. Bring the beat to cubase and have em record vocals over the beat (keeping the tempo precise) Then i would export the vocal tracks as 1 wave file and bring that back into fruity loops and make a ton of beats around that one vocal track. It would be about 2 mins of vocals but i knew where the beat started and what its tempo was so i could just plop the vocals into fruityloops and set the tempo and make whatever beat i wanted and it would fit. Made a ton of beats that way (they just thought of em as remixes) but it was a different way of building a beat that i found pretty fun back in the day. The vocals were sort of like my metronome. So ill try this method you've proposed and let the samples be my metronome. Thank you sir.

Easiest method would be to have multiple layers and mess with the track mutes and bring samples in and out of the mix. Listening to "violent by design" u can see how stoupe takes a simple loop and throws vocals all thru out the beat and weaves like water or a squeak in the beat to make it sound different.

-Have drums each on a diff track, like kick track 1, snare track 2 etc
-sample ( if looped resample with diff fx, if chopped u can add another sequence with a variation on the chops)
-bassline ( if filtered u can mute and it makes a big difference.)
-any fx or other random samples u might have found while diggin just eq and throw on top. It makes the beat seem different every time and u might not catch it the first listen.

All that and just mute and unmute tracks....jam out.. I guess it might be a bit more work on a sp...

along with everything posted, i agree with the 'jam out' method, just rock your patterns and try and do on the fly effects and muting, one shots, and just 'jam' that shit for a bit until your comfortable with everything about that track, jumping around banks and between pattern and sample mode, where you need to be with the remain button, setting up effects, all that shit, and after a while you should have a few ideas of things you definitely wanna make sure you do for the 'final' cut, maybe realize a new pattern or whatever, then just continue to jam out but while recording it, then if you gotta shorten up the track afterward on the comp its easy enough, but i always find myself listenin to random half finished beats i jammed out to tape and being partially discouraged from going back to work on them because there is something i really like about the spontaneity of trying to rock variations off the cuff and how it makes a track come out, even though i still probably want to do more with it

I have this problem, but have just started understanding how to develop loops. I'd recommend listening to some of Mr dibiase. I love the way that sample wise, three isn'tmuch going on, but his arrangement combined with the use of fx is awesome. Try using the filter on the main sample to create a verse part, then open it up for a chorus. Stop and start drums by dropping some snares, kicks or hats in there. Drop vocal stabs in there too and use the djfx looper. Try all of these things in combination

This is how I've ended up working too. Sets of samples ready to go. Then I drum against the samples in the 'quantize off' sequencer.