Rap beats without copyright. Download Rap Beats Online – Licenses and Samples – A complete overview

Download Rap Beats Online – Licenses and Samples – A complete overview

When it comes to recording and performing rap and trap music, picking beats is an integral part of your work. Instrumentals make half of your track. And no matter how tight your lyrics are, people will always like your music more, if it also sounds good.

Finding beats is surely a matter of taste. You just need to feel the vibe. Further on you should mind the production quality. Especially for live gigs and for playback in clubs, you will need well produced instrumentals to compete with other professional productions.

Free Rap Beats vs. Paid Licenses

Nowadays there are tons of free rap and trap beats in the Internet, e.g. on YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. If you are new in the game, free beats are pretty helpful to do your first demo recordings. Some free beats are of pretty good quality. Actually I have heard a couple of free beats which were even better than some other beats for sale.

As soon as you want to achieve more with your music you should have a closer look on licensing when picking beats.

The Difference between Free Beats and Free Beats

If you find so-called Free Beats on the Internet, you should always have a closer look, especially on YouTube. For example a beat may be titled “Free Beat”, but what does that mean? Is it free for non-commercial use or also free for commercial use? Are there any conditions, such as author attribution, etc.?

Keep in mind: A “Free Beat” always requires further information. It does not automatically indicate it is totally free for any use. Without any license details you will not have any guaranty that you may publish a song with that beat.

In the beginning, copyright issues may seem unimportant, but if you take care too late they may turn into an even bigger plague.

Picking/Downloading Beats from YouTube

When picking beats from YouTube you should keep in mind that most YouTube videos are released with the YouTube Standard license. The YouTube standard license does not cover any modification (e.g. adding vocals) or re-publishing, etc. To publish your song with a beat which is published under YouTube standard license, you will always need an extra permission.

Attention: YouTube Content ID Protection

Also keep in mind that any beat you download may be protected by digital rights management such as YouTube Content ID. If this is the case, the instrumental may be recognized when you upload your song and the video will be claimed. Then it might happen that the music will be removed or the copyright owner will earn money with advertising on your video.

Only if you have a license to use the beat, you can remove the claim and everything will be fine.

Why Professional Artists do not use YouTube Converters etc.

Whenever a beat is uploaded to YouTube, a lossy codec is put on the audio (MP3/AAC). For this reason you cannot restore the original quality while downloading. Even if you convert from YouTube to “HQ WAV”, it is pretty much eyewash and the downloaded audio file will have lower quality than the original HQ beat file. Further keep in mind that the YouTube terms do not allow downloads with 3rd party websites, converters, etc.

If you find a real free rap beat instrumental on a professional YouTube channel, there should be a legal way to download an MP3 or WAV without any converter tools. Further there should be at least some basic notes about the usage/license of the beat. Otherwise you’ll have absolutely no warranty for using the beat.

The Fairy-Tale of “Non-Commercial” use

Many people believe, that you may use any kind of music for a non-commercial purpose. This is a misconception with a long tradition but still not true. Copyright applies to any public use and not only to commercial use.

The Fairy-Tale of “Copyright-Free” Music etc.

Often you read terms like copyright free, no copyright etc. which are misleading terms, because for any creative work there is an author who is holding the copyright just for the reason of his authorship. Although an author may publish his work for free use, but creative work is never free of any copyright.

Real Free Beats under a Creative Commons (CC0) license

The safest way to use Free Beats is a Creative Commons (CC) license. There are a few common license types such as CC BY, CC BY-SA and so on. A detailed list can be found on the Creative Commons website. YouTube has a tool to find beats which are released under the CC BY license. Just type in your search, then open the search filters and select “Creative Commons” in the features column.

As you filter the search to Creative Commons, you will realize that the number of search results is much smaller.

Advantages of professional (non-free) Beats

As you have read, the field of free licenses is pretty complex: Many so-called Free Beats are released without any license information or even contradictory information, so it is not always save to use them without further permissions.

Licensing a paid beat from a professional producer has a bunch of advantages. If you are aiming for a professional music career you should consider those things:

• Not all Free Beats are save to use (Read the license details!)
• Professional beats are more unique, not used by hundreds
• Professional beats are available as wave file or stems for better quality
• Paid producers may purchase better software and sounds for better quality
• You may want to honor the work of a good producer

Leasing vs exclusive licenses

Most producers and beat stores offer two different license types: The so-called beat leasing is a non-exclusive license which means that others can also purchase the same license for that beat. You may find high quality beats for leasing for just 10-20 dollars. Exclusive beats are licensed just for you and therefore more expensive. in reliable stores vary between 100 and thousands of dollars. Famous producers may sell beats for much higher prices.

For your first releases and demos, leasing beats may be totally fine. Especially if you are confident about your rap style, you should not care too much about some others who might use the same instrumental. In some beat stores you may also see how many licenses of a beat have been sold already. E.g. in my rap beat archive on AudioJungle, there is a small stat icon with a number indicating the “sold” count.

For example in my beats you will mostly find Leasing, WAV Leasing, Stems Leasing and Exclusive Rights:

The proper file format for beat downloads

For a high quality recording you should use a wave file of 16bit/44kHz or better. The beat should be exported directly from the DAW software of the producer and not have too much overall compression/limiting because a master limiter usually applies one more time to the full song (including the vocals). The most professional way is to ask the producer for stems of the beat. These are the separate tracks of the beat, e.g. drums, bass, instruments, etc. Beat stems offer a maximum of flexibility when it comes to mixing the track.

MP3 Beats and YouTube Conversion

MP3 files are compressed with a lossy algorithm. You may use them to record demos but not for professional studio recordings. MP3 files with 320kBit or more may be close to the WAV quality but still not equal. If you record a song on a lossy MP3 or YouTube download and then upload the song to YouTube or Soundcloud, the lossy codec is finally applied twice to the instrumental.

Also streaming websites like YouTube, Soundcloud or similar use lossy audio codecs like MP3 or AAC. Converting a YouTube video back to WAV format will not help at all. Once the audio has been compressed, you cannot restore the same audio quality as in the original WAV file from the producer.

Beats with Samples and Loops from other Music

Personally I prefer to produce beats without sampling other music. This gives more place for my own creative work and is better for rap artists and singers when it comes to copyright. But still sampling is a very common approach in modern rap and trap music. So if you want to purchase beats, it’s good for you to know some basic things:

Samples should be referenced by Producers

Maybe you have seen beats for sale with a hint saying that the instrumental includes a sample. Sometimes you may also find beats for sale without any hint but a sample is very obvious. This is a shame but unfortunately many producers do not have a good understanding of copyright (or they do not care a lot). In the worst case you may find a beat in which you do not recognize a sample. So you use that beat to record a song. Just after your release someone else recognizes the sample and the copyright owner might charge you and/or force a take-down of your song.

Samples in Beats should be cleared

The use of a sample mostly requires to be cleared with the copyright owner. The owner might be the artist himself or a record company. In Hip-Hop music it has become popular to use samples without licensing or asking the copyright owner in advance. Indeed an artist may get away with this as long as he is not selling a lot. But the more popular your music becomes, the more risky it is to have uncleared samples in your productions.

One friend of mine who is an EDM/trap producer once used a sample and released a single. The track went pretty well in the dance charts but the copyright owner of the sample claimed 100% of all income because the single was categorized to be a “remix” of the original track. Lesson learned: My friend should have negotiated about a fair share before releasing the track.

Melodies (Remixes) should be Cleared

Also keep in mind, that copyright protection also applies to reenacted melodies (from other music). Your producer might play the chords and melody of a famous song himself to use it in a beat, but still a license/permission by the original artist will be required.

The safe Way: Beats without Samples

To avoid copyright issues with samples, you might use beats without samples like those of Baumann Beats. If you are not sure if a beat is making use of samples, you may ask the author for confirmation. If the producer does not ensure that the beat is free of samples, then it’s better to be careful.

About the Author

Jan has been a music producer and beat producer for almost 15 years and worked on various Major releases. You can Listen to his Rap Beats on YouTube and you can license his Rap Beats on Airbit.

Support my work

If you like my blog and music feel free to donate a coffee or beer.

Download Music for your Project

• Corporate Music
• Motivation Drive
• Happy Music
• Inspiring Acoustic Music
• Epic Cinematic Music
• Love Romantic
• Fantasy Adventure Music
• Emotional Piano Music
• Time-Lapse Music
• Trap Dubstep Beats
• Latin Salsa Music
• Jingles Sound Logos

Make your own beats. with the free version of Music Maker

Want to make your own beats? Then you’re in the right place. Our colleague will show you how to make your own beats with MUSIC MAKER free.

You can download MUSIC MAKER as a free full version here. The beat program already includes several hundred free sounds samples, 3 software instruments and various effects. All you need to do is download the program, then you’re ready to get started with us! If you want to see directly in the program how the beat is built, then download the demo project for free.

Make Hip Hop Beats

Before you start your project, you should first define the basic tempo for your beat. For the beginning, it is best to start with a tempo of about 90-92 BPM, at least if you want to build a classic boom bap beat. For trap beats, we recommend going towards 75-80 BPM. The tempo for Lofi Hip-Hop is almost always between 60-90 BPM. Unless they’re working entirely with samples from records, most beat producers start with the drums when making their beats. In MUSIC MAKER there are two different ways to develop your own drums.

Making Beats with Drum Loops

For a start, MUSIC MAKER already includes several hundred free samples. including various drum loops and free beats. You can simply drag and drop them into the timeline and extend them as you like. The loops already contain complete drums complete with kicks, snares and hi-hats.

In this example I used the drum loop Kitty Compress A and pitched it down to 91 BPM – as in I just changed the project speed. The hip hop beat already has a nice old school touch and follows the classic boom bap structure of kick, snare, kick, kick, snare. This is accompanied by a simple but pretty tight hi-hat (= tz, tz, tz, tz, tz, tz, tz).

Loop the beat.

If I now drag the outermost right edge of the drum loop with the mouse, I can easily extend the beat from four bars to as many as I want. i.e. loop it.

The beats in the MUSIC MAKER are designed to prevent awkward pauses and jolts during looping, allowing you to create your own beats quickly and easily.

Extra tip: Make your own beats – Drums via MIDI

Note: This extra tip is NOT part of the demo project. For this beat you really have to do everything yourself. The best way to do this is to use the Vita 2 Sample Player included with the free Acoustic Drum Kit. Change the tab on the right side from Loops to Instruments. Then just drag and drop the VITA into the Timeline and drag it onto the second track.

At this point I simply add the sound of the Acoustic Drum Kit to the drum beat. To do this, I delete the MIDI object that appeared by default, in order to design the beat according to my own ideas. This means that I click on Edit and select Create new MIDI object. Now I have a nice blank canvas of 4 bars that I’m free to design however I want.

Programming beats via MIDI

If you have some previous experience and equipment, you can control the VITA with a USB keyboard or your drum machine. Now I’m just using the mouse and keyboard to create the beat. You can now see a four-four time in the section itself. This means that the simplest rhythm I could create here is a beat with 4 beats. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. But for the hip hop beat I prefer to use the classic Boom Bap structure of kick, snare, kick, kick, snare.

Basically, the kicks are typically found on the hits one and three. the snare always on two and four. On the VITA you will find the kick at the end of the piano keyboard at C1, the snare on the white key next to it. Simply draw the strokes with the pen tool. At the beginning, your beat looks totally simple like in the graphic on the right.

This still sounds quite basic for now, but it’ll get a lot better as soon as you use two strokes on the Three.

Layering while making beats

If you now play both tracks in parallel and tune them to each other, this is called layering. Professionals create separate tracks for each element (e.g. for the kick) and layer the sounds on top of each other. The art at the end is to tune the frequencies so that the sound in the mix doesn’t sound completely muddy. But mixing is another topic. In the free MUSIC MAKER Store you can buy your own drum machines or your own small beat programs especially designed for Hip Hop beats. Check out the fat urban drums.

For the techno makers among you, there are also all kinds of synthesizers and electronic drum machines. But we’re gonna finish the beat here first.

Making Beats with Drum Loops – tips for more variety

Going back to our demo project, for more variation in the drums, I cut the drum loop Kitty Compress A after 2 bars and inserted a short drum break. In bar 3 I gave the kick on 1A a short break. This makes the beat sound much fatter. A nice hip hop board has now been created within the 4 bars.

Now I’m adding some more driving ride beats in off-beat rhythm using the VITA and the free drum sets.

Making beats via MIDI is much more demanding, but also gives you much more freedom to experiment.

Making beats: Here comes the bass

For the bass I’m using the free synthesizer “Revolta 2” in MUSIC MAKER. It comes with a cool range of presets while also giving you tons of sound design options.

For the bass, I’m using the preset Scorpio Funker. It has this beautiful pumping West Coast sound. so it’s just right for our Hip Hop beat.

The Revolta 2 can also be controlled via MIDI. so I can really easily draw the rhythm with the mouse.

Most of the Hip Hop Beats have a pretty simple bass and most of the time I stay on one keynote. in this case D2. Only at the very end do I change one tone lower to C2.

Make your own rap beats: The piano

The essence of most rap classics can basically be reduced to three essential components: Drums, bass and a piano sample.

For this, I’m using the Concert Grand LE in MUSIC MAKER. It only has one preset, but it sounds really good. With the knobs and effects for Delay, Chorus, Pitch, Reverb and EQs, the default preset can be rotated in various directions. For the rap beat I’ll now play a few simple chords with my USB keyboard, again using the keynote D2.

As a MIDI file it will look like in the graphic on the right.

Can’t be missing in any Hip Hop Beat: The Bell

In the next step I’ll add a chime to support the piano a bit. This time I’m using the free Revolta 2 synthesizer with the preset: SynthAmbient Distant Swirling Bells. In the beat grid, I set the chime to the second beat together with the snare.

Free beats, free sounds free samples

If making music with a MIDI seems too complicated, you can just work with the Soundpools in MUSIC MAKER. Here you simply drag and drop finished melody blocks into your beats. The 5th track in the demo project already contains several hundred free samples including free strings among others. So for this I’ll choose the Soundpool again – this time “Feel Good”. I’ll then take the sound modules Rolling Cellos 2 and 6 and place them on tracks 5 and 6. Now all you need to do is cut a little bit and the first raw version of the beat is ready.

You can also buy new sound packages for the hottest music styles directly from the Store in MUSIC MAKER and easily combine them with each other. For guitar beats, simply take a rock Soundpool and combine it with your finished, free Hip Hop beat. If you want, you can also put acapellas from the Hip Hop Soundpools over your rap beat. This was done in the demo at the start.

Rap beats without copyright

Trap Rap Beats for Singers Songwriters

What is a copyright?

Copyright is an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression; such as a song, book, or sound recording.

Get Exclusive Rights for only 299 for a limited time.

What is a rap beat?

A rap beat or musical production is a combination of sounds such as kick drums, snares, claps and synths as well as a top layer pattern that makes a song recognizable. Before the lyrics are added, the beat itself is catchy and makes, what we call a backing track, to the rest of the full song when it’s complete. If you want to check our rap style tracks: click here Rap Beats

Purchase buy rap beats on line from our beat store, with over 10,000 rap tracks for sale. We’re sure you’ll find the right rap beat instrumental to make your song great with instant delivery. If you don’t hear one you like, we can also create custom exclusive instrumentals for you and your freestyle rap ideas and/or social media.

When making a hit song on the radio, it’s important to have a modern instrumental beat (like a trap instrumental or east coast type) if you do trap music, that’s current and can climb the charts.

Instrumentals music from 20DB are a good way to try and see if you can make a hit with a rap instrumental beat at a cheap cost.

Whether you need instrumental songs or a beat for your lyrics, or royalty free music, or you want to do a music video, 20DollarBeats has the reputation of top 40 hip hop instrumentals that are royalty free for your projects from top hip hop producers.

When buying instrumentals, or you need a tracked out lease, unlimited lease or a premium lease, visit our Exclusive Beats site or contact us for more info.

How can I get free instrumentals?

There’s tons of free backing tracks all over the internet. You can get free ones from us by going to the free beats page. Be sure to read the terms of use as some sites don’t allow any commercial use of their instrumentals using free ones. You can purchase the unlimited use rights to use it on major platforms like YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes.

We have many tracks for sale and free beats in our catalog since hip hop music changes so rapidly such as hardcore trap music, hip hop rap, trap, school beat, club banger, hip-hop beats, Chris Brown or Gucci, with hook and more types available for mp3 lease. Use the menu tabs on the top left to browse our full catalog of instrumentals in just about every genre for mp3 lease. You get untagged beats after purchase from our top beat producers, as a link to your email address.

You can go here to get a free beat. They are usually updated each month so check back if you already have them all.

If you cant find a particular instrumental, be sure to contact us and we’ll try to help you get the right ones online for you.

What is music publishing?

Music publishing is a relationship between the creator of a song (songwriter) and the copyright owner of the song. The copyright owner may be the songwriter or a third party publisher. A songwriter may convey ownership of the copyright in her songs to a publisher via single song agreements or exclusive songwriter agreements. The conveyance to the publisher is typically for the life of the copyright of the song. In exchange for the conveyance of the copyright in the song, the publisher should agree to use her best efforts to exploit the song, assist the songwriter in developing her craft, and pay royalties to the songwriter (typically 50% of the income the publisher receives from the song). The publisher also performs administrative duties on behalf of the songwriter.

Free Beats

Everyone needs something for free. It’s good to get something for nothing sometimes. When looking for music for your next project, it’s not likely that you’ll use a free beat for a serious thing you may be working on. However, from time to time, a free track can be useful for testing out a work in progress. You can also join the mailing list and get a free beat each month. We send out emails to our dedicated fans and loyal customers 2-4x per month with exclusive offers and free downloads to try out.

Rap Instrumentals

If you’re looking for instrumental hip hop, advertisement music, wav leases or instrumentals music, please contact us. You can get wav leases of our music production. They come as wav files if you purchase the stems (track outs). Stem tracks online are 99 per song. When a beat is sold exclusive, it’s removed from the store. Get a premium wav or premium lease for higher quality.

What is a sound recording / master recording?

A sound recording (as set forth in the U.S. Copyright Act) is a work that result from the fixation of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds, but not including the sound accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work, regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as disks, tapes or other phonorecords, in which they are embodied.

What Are The Rules Of FREE Rap Beats?

The terms of what you ‘can do’ with a beat labeled as ‘FREE’ really depends on what the beat maker said was allowed.

I’ll explain the default rules of using a beat you got for ‘FREE’.

What Does FREE BEAT Mean?

The term ‘FREE BEAT’ depends on what the beat maker determined and clarifies it means.

You can find that information at the top or bottom of the page or by clicking to the beats individual page on a site like Sound Click.

Below is a picture of a lenient beat maker who is basically letting people use his beats for whatever.

He is one of those beat makers who hopes you use his beats because they are free and that one of your songs will pop off, he will get credit for it and then be able to monetize it.

Pay attention to the ‘YOU MAY NOT’ section as well as beat makers usually include those when they mention free beats.

What FREE BEAT Generally Means

My idea for this article came from a fan who asked me the question below.

This is generally the rules when we are talking about a ‘FREE BEAT’.

Free Download Doesn’t Mean FREE Beat

I also recommend that beat makers offer their beats for a free download so that people don’t leave their pages without having their hands on the beat.

People don’t just MAKE SONGS all the time, sometimes they sit on a beat for months or even years before they end up using or making the song.

Yes, this is completely normal to sit on a song for this long.

If you get a YouTube Content ID claim that says you can’t use your beat check out my article on how to beat the YouTube Content ID System.

Different Types Of Beat Ownership

Also if you want to know the differences between all the kinds of beat leases and actually having ownership you can check this out

The best bet if you really want to know what you’re allowed to do with a beat is to read that beat makers page thoroughly.

If you purchase a basic beat lease sometimes it will come with a lease agreement with the beat file.

Some beat makers don’t even bother sending a beat contract unless you buy a premium or exclusive rights.

Make sure that if you ever get the exclusive rights that you get the paperwork saying so. You don’t want problems down the road.