Music

Learn to DJ & Make Compelling Beats

Unlock Musical Creativity & Expression

Teaches Producing and Beatmaking

Timbaland

Meet your instructor: Timbaland, producer of countless Top 40 hits for artists ranging from Jay-Z to Missy Elliott and Justin Timberlake. In your first lesson, Tim shows you how to create an entire track with just your voice and a microphone.

1. Introduction

Introduction

Step into the studio to see improvisation and creative feedback at work. Tim teaches you how to build a song around a beatbox, starting with the loop he created in the first lesson and adding harmony, melody, and texture.

2. Studio Session: Making a Beatbox Beat

Studio Session: Making a Beatbox Beat

It's essential to establish a workflow that serves your personal creative process. Tim talks you through his digital rig and reveals his process for selecting the sounds that he uses in his music.

3. Building Beats: Tim’s Process

Building Beats: Tim’s Process

Collaboration with producers and engineers is a key part of Tim’s process. In this chapter, Tim teaches you how he shares music with his team to get them excited and into the creative groove.

4. Making a Beat: Getting Warmed Up

Making a Beat: Getting Warmed Up

Tim recalls how he built the backing track for Jay-Z’s hit “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” and explains how to create a complex texture from simple elements.

5. Song Origins: “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”

Song Origins: “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”

Complex songs can develop from simple ideas. Tim and his co-producers show how a four-bar chord progression can form the structure of a multi-section song.

6. Making a Beat: Starting With a Chord Progression

Making a Beat: Starting With a Chord Progression

Tim’s drum sounds are legendary. Learn how careful audio engineering can turn dry drums into something that thunders through headphones.

7. Making a Beat: Tweaking and Layering Drums

Making a Beat: Tweaking and Layering Drums

Using Ginuwine’s “Pony” as an example, Tim demonstrates how choosing unique sounds can make your music production stand out from the competition.

8. Song Origins: “Pony”

Song Origins: “Pony”

Join Team Timbo in the studio as Tim’s co-producers Fede Vindver and Angel Lopez teach you how to imprint your signature sound on samples through effects and plug-ins.

9. Making a Beat: Manipulating Vocal Samples

Making a Beat: Manipulating Vocal Samples

Tim believes that contrast is essential in keeping a song interesting from the first beat to the last. Here he shows how to create that contrast without changing the song’s chord progression.

10. Making a Beat: Creating a Breakdown

Making a Beat: Creating a Breakdown

With help from New City vocalist Adrian Mitchell, Tim shows you the most important step in making a chart-topping hit— creating the vocal melody or “topline”— and shares his philosophy on lyrics.

11. Making a Beat: Adding a Topline

Making a Beat: Adding a Topline

Tim pays homage to some of the great producers who came before him and explains what influences helped him shape his own sound.

12. Tim's Influences

Tim's Influences

Tim believes resilience and dedication are critical for success. As he concludes his MasterClass, he reveals what drives him and how you can keep focused on your inspiration and goals.

13. How to Persevere

How to Persevere

Timbaland Teaches Producing and Beatmaking

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From TIME ©2022 TIME USA LLC. All rights reserved. Used under license.

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