How To Make Beats For Clairo - Bedroom Pop Guide
Are you a fan of Clairo's dreamy bedroom pop music? Do you want to try making own beats in a similar style? Look no further! In this guide, I will walk you through the process of making Clairo type beats.
1. Understanding the Bedroom Pop Sound
Before we start beatmaking, you need to understand the essence of bedroom pop. This genre is characterized by its lo-fi production, intimate vocals (sometimes raw sounding), and DIY approach. Think of cozy, intimate vibes with a touch of nostalgia. Below you can listen to the one of Clairo's bedroom pop songs to better understanding the sound we're aiming for.
2. Choosing the DAW
To create beats for Clairo-inspired tracks, you'll need the DAW. Actually it could be any Digital Audio Workstation, almost every software allows you to do the same. Popular choices include Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Logic Pro. You could also choose GarageBand or Reaper if you're low on budget.
3. Drums
Start by layering drum samples to create a foundation for your track. Of course you can begin working on your clairo type beat by laying down chord progression but in this example we'll with drums. Experiment with different drum samples, focusing on crisp snares, warm kicks, and subtle hi-hats. One of the main rules is to choose samples that aren't sound too clean and modern, it's a lofi genre so you gotta keep that homemade vibe. If you don't have the right drum kit yet then check out our Bedroom Pop Sample Packs. Below is an example of a simple Bedroom Pop drum pattern.
5. Chord Progression
Once you have your drum pattern, it's time for chord progression. Where're looking for something with nostalgic vibe - that's our main goal. A great way for achieving that kind of sound is by using seventh and ninth chords, it's not a hard rule but could be a useful start point. Common keys in Clairo's songs include C major, G major and A major but you can try out other keys as well, whatever sounds good to you! Look at the simple bedroom pop progression Gmaj7 - Dmaj - Em - Cmaj7 below.
6. Sound Selection
One of the most important aspects of every beat is sound selection. For main theme of clairo type beat you should choose either lofi sounding synth or guitar. If you are a good sound designer then any synth would work for you but if you are looking for some recommendations then I would say go for Vital or Serum. Both of them are pretty popular so finding presets for any of them won’t be a problem. Check out our Bedroom Pop Vital Preset Bank if you looking for high quality sounds that barely need any mixing. Look for ethereal pads, detuned lofi sounding leads, and vinyl or cassette noises to add textures to enhance the vibe. Don't be afraid to experiment, you don't need a lot of different synths and melodies in the beat but they need to be catchy and unique sounding.
7. Arrangement
With arrangement you can go for standard pop verse - chorus - verse - chorus - bridge - chorus structure. The other variant that is worth trying starts with chorus instead of verse, this way your song will have more impact at the start so it have more potencial in trending on tiktok. Usually the verses are the busies part of the song so don't use too many sounds in the verses and keep the best for the hooks.
8. Mixing
One of the main rules in Bedroom Pop beats is to not make it sound too clean and profesional sounding to keep that lofi DIY aesthetics. My pro tip for Clairo type beats is to use a lot of tape wobble effect on tracks. I like to use RC-20 Retro Color and Sketch Cassette, these plugins have great warp effect, what's more you can use them to filter high frequencies to achieve authetic lofi sound. Other useful thechnique you should try is slap delay, especially on plucks, synth leads and guitars. When it comes to EQ as I said before you should avoid airy high frequencies, by that I mean most of the sonics over 10khz, of course it's not the rule, but if you struggling with mix sounding too 'digital' then it could help you.
9. Summary
I hope that this guide will help you in making beats in the style of Clairo. This is just a collection of general tips that can guide you on how to approach creating Bedroom Pop beats. Remember that the most important rule in music is that there is no rules, so don't forget to test different ideas, because this is the only way to find your own style and create something unique. Good luck! :)