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Posted by cybernetica on Mar-23-2007 16:25:

Learning Drum'n'Bass Production

Hey,
I've gotten into DnB recently, but my beats always sound lame... I would like to know where I can get some help on producing it. Do you know of any tutorials, especially on the drum programming and layering?
Sorry for this kind of noob question, but I dont know where else to ask ... the search did not help me much.

Posted by BOOsTER on Mar-23-2007 16:32:

hi mate,

I wonder...do you have ableton?

the best way I found out some basics of dnb beats was that I loaded Pendulum - Sounds of life (which starts with this drum n bass beat only)
and then loaded a bunch of my own samples, looked at the waveform from pendulum and positioned the samples on it's base.
Basically I "matched" the beat...

easy as a slap and it works...then you can just play around with some fills move some of your percussions around and see if it works...

Posted by cybernetica on Mar-23-2007 17:17:

Thanks.. well, technically, I got Ableton, but I dont really use it. I think FL works better for me.
Anyway, thanks for your tip. I will try that, its probably the best idea.

Posted by BOOsTER on Mar-23-2007 17:51:

it's kinda like ripping off someone else's work, but I guess that once you "debug" the basics from someone else's track in this case, you'll get the basics down and move on to start creating your own beats :-)

Posted by misjah on Mar-23-2007 18:17:

Try dogsonacid.com, you might find something useful there

Posted by cybernetica on Mar-23-2007 18:32:

Ok, I'll look into that

I just practised a little with booster's suggestion, and it turned out very good... and out came this neat little piece .. in case anyone is interested, take a look here: [[ LINK REMOVED ]]

Posted by jivamukti on Mar-23-2007 19:09:

http://www.spinwarp.com/modules.php...rticles&secid=1

http://www.simonv.com/tutorials/

http://www.drumnbass.be/forum/index.php

And definitely Dogs On Acid's enormous The Grid. There's a sh*tload of info there, if you have the patience to dig.

Hope those help you a bit to get your beats rolling.

Posted by mysticalninja on Mar-23-2007 21:53:

98.9% of the time dnb beats are sped up funk breakbeats from 60's and 70's vinyls. you then layer a fat kick and snare over the breakbeat. then you just need a monstrous detuned saw/PWM square playing 2-3 notes. BAM its dnb.

Posted by kitphillips on Mar-24-2007 06:39:

I could be utterly confused, but one of my mates told me that DnB often used a 13/4 time signature? That might be a good place to start, he said it was like 2 bars of 5/4 then a bar of 3/4...

Posted by montana on Mar-24-2007 10:25:

no, d&b/jungle is 4/4.

and when it comes to the actual beat, you have two ways to go. Amen break or the twostep drumpattern (K---S-----K-S---). the amen is more fun to splice up and just going nuts, even to like a aphex twin/squarepusher degree. but you might want to listen to like some of the older goldie,photek,ltj bukem,london elektricity records to listen to how they chopped up the amen. and splicing up the amen is pisseasy with FL.

Posted by misjah on Mar-24-2007 12:22:

.. and then get Korg Legacy Collection and make some sick bass sounds. Voila

Posted by jey on Mar-24-2007 15:55:

future producers forum i think is r&b wack/dope an all that lol

Posted by Frost-RAVEN on Mar-24-2007 20:14:

Finding old 70s funk beats and layering fat kicks and snares over them. Also the snare is pretty importan in dnb...it's what give the beat it's groove...Also the kick usally doesn't have much bass in it....Very differnt then the psytrance you are use to making. DnB kicks are usally cut at around 150 hz and down. The bassline takes of the rest of the space, getting as low as 50 hz. For the basslines a sawtooth is usally layered with a sine tone. The sine is what gives lowend feel, and the saw is what gives the harmonics.

Try lightly distoreding old funk beats...cut them up...crank the tempo to 170, and layer some new samples over them...

PM me...and I may be able to hook you up with some pretty kick ass dnb loops to start with.

Posted by DJSentinel on Mar-25-2007 03:01:

quote:
Originally posted by cybernetica
Thanks.. well, technically, I got Ableton, but I dont really use it.

So you paid $500 for something you don't even use... oh wait...

Posted by gk_nz on Mar-25-2007 04:51:

http://www.dogsonacid.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=4 is all you will ever need...

Posted by misjah on Mar-25-2007 05:25:

quote:
Originally posted by gk_nz
http://www.dogsonacid.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=4 is all you will ever need...

Agreed, that's dnb producer's heaven

Posted by cybernetica on Mar-25-2007 07:11:

quote:
Originally posted by DJSentinel
So you paid $500 for something you don't even use... oh wait...

Always good to know teh warez police is paying attention

Well actually I just have an older version of Live. I tried the newest version too but could not really get used to it.

Well, thanks for all the tips and suggestions, I've gotten a lot of input on DnB now!

Posted by nytrox on Mar-25-2007 12:08:

http://breakbeat.hattrixx.co.uk/

Posted by DJSentinel on Mar-25-2007 13:49:

quote:
Originally posted by cybernetica
Always good to know teh warez police is paying attention

Well actually I just have an older version of Live. I tried the newest version too but could not really get used to it.

Always here to help ;-)