I usually start with the drums, even if it’s just a simple pattern with a kick, snare, and a hihat, just something to get me started. Then I’ll make the melody and go back to the drums once the melody is finished and tighten them up, add more to them, shakers, little percussion sounds, stuff like that.

You can try it both ways, you might do better making the melody first, it really doesn’t matter how you do it. 

I’ve always done beats on the fly, never hummed a melody or anything like that. I just sit at the keyboard and play around, freestyle on the keys until something sounds good I can work with.

Depends on the mood I’m in, if I’m in that fire beat mood where everything’s working right then I can knock out a beat in 20 minutes or less. I’ve made 10 beats in a day before, when you catch that fire you can’t stop lol.

And then some beats you get stuck on and have to come back a day or two later and work on it some more. Lately I haven’t even felt like sitting at the keyboard so if I try to make a beat in that mood it’s gonna take all damn day to do and end up sounding like shit.

The longest part is finding that first melody, once you find that then the rest usually falls into place easily, so say 30 minutes to an hour per beat.