Making dnb/breakbeat for school as a noob

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Posted by Darkarbiter on Jul-21-2008 11:50:

Making dnb/breakbeat for school as a noob

Ok so just found out we're using sony's acid pro for music tech at school. My knowledge production was extends to what I know from dj theory (stuff in minor sounds better, harmonic scale and how stuff sounds different at different bpms etc). I have like 2 weeks to prepare for this... and I really don't know what I'm doing. Can anyone link some tutorials to acid pro... or give some general recomendations? I'd prefer to be doing dnb... but the high bpm scares me... so I might just try breakbeat as it (sounds like) its easier to make with a decent breakbeat and some strings and stuff. I don't expect to make anything half decent ofcourse... especially concidering I'm going to have to use my $50(not exactly great) buds for it.

no one? I guess you guys are mostly trance/house stuff?

Posted by kitphillips on Jul-21-2008 13:27:

Re: Making dnb/breakbeat for school as a noob

quote:
Originally posted by Darkarbiter
stuff in minor sounds better
I really don't know what I'm doing.

Evidently.

Posted by Darkarbiter on Jul-21-2008 14:27:

Re: Re: Making dnb/breakbeat for school as a noob

quote:
Originally posted by kitphillips
Evidently.

That is not terribly helpful. Also I'm sure there was plenty stupider stuff you could've qouted in my post then minor keys sound better(or less cheesy or more complicated). Why else is most of edm in minor keys?

Posted by JustinMead on Jul-21-2008 14:36:

There is no set rules, just expand on the keyboard

Posted by ASFSE on Jul-21-2008 18:51:

Re: Re: Re: Making dnb/breakbeat for school as a noob

quote:
Originally posted by Darkarbiter
Also I'm sure there was plenty stupider stuff you could've qouted in my post then minor keys sound better(or less cheesy or more complicated).

that was the stupidest stuff

Posted by Ray_Chappell on Jul-21-2008 22:19:

Re: Making dnb/breakbeat for school as a noob

quote:
Originally posted by Darkarbiter
but the high bpm scares me... so I might just try breakbeat as it (sounds like) its easier to make with a decent breakbeat and some strings and stuff.

I vote this.

Anyway, you could check out their site for the manual (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com.../trials/acidpro), buy a tutorial DVD (http://www.softwaretrainingtutorials.com/acid-pro-6.php) - haven't used that, but that's one example, check out Acid forums (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/) - haven't read those, but it came up on the search, or scour YouTube for some good tutorials.

Ultimately, if you are just getting started and literally have two weeks, your best bet is to use loops. Find some good loop cds and samples, play around with what sounds good together, and put up an arrangement.

There are alternatives, like samples, but I haven't used Acid in 7 years, so I couldn't begin to tell you much about that with that program.

Posted by kitphillips on Jul-22-2008 02:55:

Sorry, that was probably a bit harsh. DnB isn't that much harder than breakbeat from what I've found, but I only just started with DnB myself. breakbeat is a lot more detailed from my experience, and much closer to trance, often using unusual synthesis methods. DnB can afford to be quite unsubtle and in your face, which means less attention to detail (and therefore engineering skills) is required.
The people marking this probably have no idea so I think you can get away with a lot whatever you do.
I'd recommend laying down some DnB loops then adding in some strings, bass and pads, make it a 3 minute track, and keep it to maybe two progressions. You haven't told us what VSTs you'll be using, so its really limited how much we can help you.

Posted by Darkarbiter on Jul-22-2008 05:56:

Well knowing what the school is like probably none, at least probably no synths. I don't have two weeks... I have 2 weeks to prepare for it... and then probably around 4/5 weeks to do it (and I do ofcourse come home every night so I can allways get more stuff) and hopefully if they haven't got any synths/their synths are shitty I'll be able to write the synth parts in reason.

@Ray thanks for the link.

Anyone know any places that you can find free breakbeats (or if necassary and their def good for cheap so $5-10)?

Thanks for the help... and yeh I'm sure the teacher will spend at least 30 minutes trying to work out how you have music that isn't heavy metal at 170bpm. I think I'm gonna mess around (and hopefully get somewhere) with reason first.

Posted by kitphillips on Jul-22-2008 06:02:

You could probably pull breakbeats from old funk songs, because its for school, that makes it for educational usage, which I suspect means that copyright might not be a problem But if theres no soft synths, then frankly I think your stuffed, unless you write everything at home, then bring it to school to mix.

Posted by cybernetica on Jul-22-2008 07:19:

imo Goa Trance is fairly easy to make. At least easier than Breaks or DnB.
Dont get me wrong, I love Goa, and I think producers like Simon Posford are godlike, tho hes out of reach for average producers anyway.

Anyway. Its really not too difficult to pull off something decent in Goa trance. It doesnt even need a clear production, a little imperfection is oldschool

Pick a 909 percussion set, a saw bassline, add a gated pad and an arped synth, LFO on the cutoff, drown it in delay. There is really not too much more to do for a listenable track.

... I think DnB is a challenging genre because you need razor sharp precision. Sure, you could always add a low reece bass, throw in a few loops and see what happens, but it will be lacking the precision which is really essential to modern DnB. You will need to chop up your loops, lowpass/highpass filter your bass in the right moments, make your drums sit tight with EQ and compression, and synthesizing a proper DnB reece can be pretty challenging.

I dont have much experience with breakbeat, but this is a track I made recently with just a few loops and a simple bassline synth, not too much more. I think the outcome was not too bad considering it was only a few hours work.

You'll get PM soon.

Posted by Sh!fty on Jul-22-2008 11:31:

Re: Making dnb/breakbeat for school as a noob

use the 50$ to pay some1 to make something for you

Posted by Ray_Chappell on Jul-22-2008 22:57:

quote:
Originally posted by Darkarbiter
Well knowing what the school is like probably none, at least probably no synths. I don't have two weeks... I have 2 weeks to prepare for it... and then probably around 4/5 weeks to do it (and I do ofcourse come home every night so I can allways get more stuff) and hopefully if they haven't got any synths/their synths are shitty I'll be able to write the synth parts in reason.

@Ray thanks for the link.

Anyone know any places that you can find free breakbeats (or if necassary and their def good for cheap so $5-10)?

Thanks for the help... and yeh I'm sure the teacher will spend at least 30 minutes trying to work out how you have music that isn't heavy metal at 170bpm. I think I'm gonna mess around (and hopefully get somewhere) with reason first.

Here's a link to some loops - they claim to have some free breakbeat loops... may check these.

http://www.breakbeatsonly.com/

Posted by montana on Jul-23-2008 19:03:

for breakbeats you can pull some of them from http://www.junglebreaks.co.uk/ they have some of the essentials (hot pants, apache, amen, think, circles etc etc). cybernetika's advice are good guidelines aswell.