During the pandemic I tried to learn how to make beats, mainly by making something every day. I now have a Google Drive filled with my progress. With three years of music, I am treating these one-offs sort of like an audio collage.
Gear: Most of what I make I use a very inexpensive midi controller (AKAI MPK mini), free Audio Workstation software (usually MPC beats) and live instruments / vocals plugged into a audio interface (currently the Volt 2, before that I was using Scarlet Solos which are fairly solid and cheap). One thing I've learned from interacting with other musicians is that I have no "gear-head" tendencies so I can't say much more than this.
The first thing I learned how to do was learn how to sample other songs and turn them into beats. I was motivated by sample-based hip-hop producers like Knxwledge, J Dilla, RZA, Nujabes, Kanye and others as well as collage-ists like the Avalanches. I jokingly call this sound "mid-fi beats to walk to" cause I never quite have gotten into the "study lo-fi" space and they sure aren't hi-fi.
I wanted to learn how to make synth music like Mort Garson or Rei Harakami, I haven't really figured it out yet but its fun
my Top Albums list, generated from my Spotify data.
A selection of playlists: