Producing Drum and Bass from Start to Finish
Tutorial | Thu Nov 18 2021 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
In this tutorial, I explained my thought process for producing drum and bass inside the studio from start to finish. I started with the bass first, and explained how I use smooth ball synths to create the bass groove, which then influences the pattern of the drums. I also shared some tips on how to create interesting patterns, such as using automation and steps mode to modulate the pitch, LFO and ADSR. Finally, I explained how to use reverb, distortion, chorus, and EQ to add effects to the bass and create a unique sound.
You can watch the Video on Youtube - support me on Patreon
Questions & Answers #
Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:
What is the best way to start producing drum and bass? #
The best way to start producing drum and bass is to start with the bass line first. This will set the foundation for the rest of the track and will help determine how the drums will sound. Start by using smoothball synths to create a bass line and then combine the different bass sounds to create a riff or pattern. This will also help you stay within the scale of E-frigian which is great for creating funky bass lines.
How can I create interesting bass sounds? #
Creating interesting bass sounds can be done by using distortion and phase four settings. Use the drive knob for overdrive and use the voice gain for clipping the output, which will create overtones. Modulate the frequency of the bass sound with an LFO and go with Hertz, which is not synchronized to anything. This will create a groove that you like. You can also use the pitch modulation and automation to create an ADSR as well as duplicate the base and delete different notes from each one to create an interesting pattern.
Transcription #
This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.
[00:00.000] Hey, welcome back to another video.
[00:20.560] In this tutorial, it's about drum and bass, how you can produce drum and bass inside
[00:25.280] the studio from start to finish. It's a two hour long video and I try to explain along
[00:32.080] the way my thought process. And it's not like a, you know, that drum bass tutorial because
[00:38.520] drum bass is like you have multiple styles in drum bass and every producer used to make
[00:47.720] drums differently, bass differently. There are different styles of how you make bass
[00:53.400] sounds, how you make the drums and how you structure a track like this. But I try to
[01:00.360] explain in clear terms where you can part in different ways and on what kind of stuff
[01:10.040] you need to focus and what's important and so on. So, yeah, let's join you on this
[01:16.240] ride and have some fun. So, how do we start making drum bass in
[01:23.360] a bit of a studio? And usually I start with the bass first. When I started to become
[01:29.800] or when I started to make music, I usually started with drums first, but I found that
[01:36.040] it leads to the same results. So, my theory is that how you start the track or how you
[01:44.680] start a project leads to how it ends. So, for instance, when I started to, started drum
[01:56.400] bass with making drums first, then it leads to the same kind of groove because I started
[02:02.680] to make a two-step kind of beat first and then made it in the same way every time. Maybe
[02:11.720] that's not how you work. Maybe you really enjoy making complex beats and then it, of
[02:17.000] course, leads to different results. For me, it's more like I like to start nowadays with
[02:23.000] the bass groove first and then the bass groove leads to how the pattern of the drums looks
[02:30.040] like. So, where I put my kicks, for instance, or where do I put my snares in heights and
[02:36.240] so on. So, the bass groove decides how the drums are sounding. That's how it works for
[02:45.120] me. It's not something in general. Maybe for you, it's completely different, but that's
[02:51.280] how I work. So, I used to start with the bass line first. So, in Bidwick, you can use
[02:59.480] smooth balls to the sizes for making bass lines. You can use pretty much everything to
[03:05.000] make bass lines. So, I want to use smooth ball synths for smooth ball bass sounds and
[03:12.800] then I combine these bass sounds to make some kind of bass riff or pattern. So, I start
[03:17.880] here with the bass 4. That's my beloved synth for making nice sounding bass sounds and
[03:26.560] I probably also want to increase the main tempo of the project to 172 maybe. I can also
[03:35.560] go with 170 or make it even slower if you want to have it more old-school. Go to 160. I
[03:43.000] go to 172. Some people prefer even faster for 74 or 76 maybe. It's also something I
[03:53.600] saw. So, 72 is a nice middle ground and everything I do is in the scope of eight patterns or
[04:06.440] eight bars, something like this. So, this is the main block size basically of the arrangement
[04:16.200] structure. So, I create here a note clip first and I concentrate maybe on this small
[04:23.360] portion first to just get a nice bass sound running. And, usual notes for the bass sound
[04:30.720] are in my opinion on E here. E, F or F sharp around this area, right? D sharp upwards.
[04:41.120] This is most of the times too low-end or too deep for bass speakers. If you just want
[04:46.960] to have some kind of rumble, you can do that too if you kind of like that style. Some
[04:54.080] people also have bass lines up here on A, which is pretty high and it also gives you
[05:00.120] a lot of overtones from the get-go. If you have, for instance, a sign, just a pure
[05:05.880] Sine-Wave as a bass, then you probably want to go with higher notes because it's more
[05:12.080] audible to the listener when you have it on headphones and so on. And, yeah, but I usually
[05:21.440] go here for kind of E or F. And the good thing about E is that when you start with E and
[05:31.680] use all the white keys, as you can see here, you're automatically in the scale of E-fritgen,
[05:39.600] which is pretty nice for funky bass lines and bass grooves. So you will see. So I prefer
[05:53.240] E here as a starting point and maybe just make your long note to create our first bass
[05:59.240] sound. So let's play this. So we are already here at the right frequency. It's at here
[06:07.760] and if you see what's going on. So already below 100Hz, which is nice. So you can even
[06:26.120] go lower. You can either go here to E0 with the ratio at 11 or you go to E1. That's what
[06:36.800] I usually do. And then switch at the ratio to 12, which is just half of the frequency.
[06:43.880] So it's an octave lower, basically. And I switched here maybe to sine. And only this
[06:50.200] operator is active at the moment. We only hear sine wave or you probably can't hear anything
[06:56.440] if you use headphones. But on a normal speaker, you can hear this pretty clearly or can
[07:03.200] feel it, basically. So what we need to do now is to create overtones because that's just
[07:11.280] a pure sine wave. There are no overtones as you can see. It's just a pure sine wave.
[07:16.400] You also use an oscilloscope here to see that. Just zoom in here. Yeah, it's pretty
[07:26.240] pure. So overtones you can create with distortion. You can use the drive here. Drive knob as
[07:32.560] you can see. It's overdrive. And you create some harmonies here up here. What you also
[07:38.920] can do with the Phase 4, the output or the voice gain. That's how it's called. It has
[07:46.480] also some kind of clipper at the end. So it clips the output, which also creates overtones
[07:53.360] here. So you can already create with this nice bass sounds without touching any of the
[08:02.600] operators and only using a sine operator here as an oscillator. So you can already do
[08:15.760] pretty much just with this. Maybe it does here a bit back. We still have a lot of low end.
[08:23.560] So if I like this, it's still overdrive. It still creates harmonies. So let's bring in
[08:30.760] here the operator B. B is blue and you can see here's a blue knob. So we can mix in this
[08:40.840] operator into this operator. And by mixing in, I mean, this operator modulates the frequency
[08:47.000] of this one. It's not just an audio mix. It's a modulation mix. So we modulate the frequency
[08:54.280] of the red operator. So something like this. And now we can change the ratio of this operator
[09:12.960] here. Get maybe a frequency 1 octave higher. And we also want to slightly detune it.
[09:30.000] You can already hear it sounds like a real drum bass bass. So detuning gets in some movement
[09:45.920] as you can hear. When it's at zero here, it's pretty static. And you bring in the detuning
[09:51.520] then it's brings in some movement, right? So all you need to do is basically modulate
[10:14.280] this here and you get a nice movement. Let's go with the classic LFO maybe here. No three
[10:26.640] triggers. Every time we retry out this note here, we start in the same phase and modulate
[10:33.880] this here. And this is also something here. Usually back in the days, I would classically
[10:46.240] synchronize the LFO to a tempo, right? To a time base, one, four, one, sixty, which is
[10:54.360] something you can do. It's not a problem at all. I still do it. But I really like to have
[11:01.840] the LFO running completely free and use Hertz, which is not synchronized to anything. And
[11:08.760] you can clearly dial in your own frequency and go by ear and listen to it and then settle
[11:17.240] with the frequency that's creating a groove that you like. And that's okay for now.
[11:36.520] We probably play around with this later on a lot when we have the drums ready and also
[11:44.160] maybe another bass sound ready. And then we kind of want to find how everything fits
[11:50.200] together and you tweak this a lot probably. So we have a nice, basic bass sound patch
[11:58.040] running here. Maybe you'll go with the sustain all the way up or maybe not maybe like this.
[12:04.080] And also click here on the front of the phase four and go to voices and go to mono. So
[12:10.440] just pull this down, click and pull down. And you get your voices mono, which now is the
[12:15.360] phase four in a monophonic mode, which means when you play two notes at the same time or
[12:21.680] play a chord, only one note plays. So it's monophonic, which also helps by creating
[12:29.080] your patterns when you have for instance, accidentally overlapping notes. This one,
[12:35.040] this note is then cut off and this note is then playing. So you can accidentally overlap
[12:40.520] notes and you have never played two notes at the same time. Something like this, right?
[12:51.880] So okay, okay, maybe we duplicate this here and say double content. So now we have this
[12:58.120] one clip again, but we have double the size and the same content. And maybe we'll remove
[13:04.560] here this. So we make a small little change up. So we have only this note here in this
[13:11.720] section. As you can see, yeah, this is also nice here with the E-frigian. We start with
[13:16.720] a root note and then half step up after root note is again a white note. So which is
[13:25.480] great in drum bass in general, using basically half tone steps. You can also go here for
[13:33.760] maybe this, which is not in the scale of E-frigian, but in drum bass, nobody really cares.
[13:39.920] We go straight for the sound, how something sounds. You shouldn't get that much maybe
[13:44.360] for harmonies or for harmony theory in general. If it sounds good, then it's good. It also
[13:54.280] maybe it bent on what kind of style you want to produce, right? If you go for liquid,
[13:59.520] which is more like a main theme or main harmonics chords and a chord progression, then you
[14:07.280] maybe want to stay in some kind of harmony theory or some kind of scale. But if you go
[14:14.520] for some tech step or some neurofunk, then usually how many theory goes straight out of
[14:20.880] the window and you go straight for the sound and only frequencies and how it sounds. So
[14:28.760] let's listen to this here. So we have this. Maybe we can bring in some interesting things
[14:43.160] here. Let's go with the pitch modulation and maybe we can do here an ADSR. So every time
[14:52.080] the note triggers, we trigger this ADSR here. So you can see here. And maybe we want
[14:59.000] to let you pitch by one octave, which is plus 12. Let's see. But we only want to have
[15:15.960] this on the first note. And we can use automation for this. Or we can use the steps, steps
[15:23.720] mode here. And say eight notes. It's exactly now how long our bars here, two bars are
[15:36.720] clipped. And we raise this here and we go into here and put this to zero and create
[15:46.080] a plus one. Maybe go to smoothing here, all the way up. Okay. So now we have basically
[16:13.800] this ADSR modulating this pitch here, only on the first note or the start of the sequence.
[16:20.240] So this is a small little change up. So this is basically what all we do. We create a
[16:26.960] simple pattern and then we alterate this pattern in simple, small little ways to create
[16:33.480] interesting complex patterns in the end. But we start with the simple pattern first.
[16:41.320] So this is how I approach it at least. So maybe we can also change here the speed of the
[16:49.560] LFO, depending on where we are in the pattern. So let's say we start off, this is our main
[16:57.000] frequency here, 1.29 hertz. What we want to change is over time. And so I go with the,
[17:07.920] I click this and then I have here the line in here. You can see it shows also 1.29 hertz.
[17:15.560] And then maybe I want to speed up the LFO at the end here slightly. Just a slight change
[17:45.520] up here and there. Okay. So now that we have this, maybe we can also change the shape here
[17:50.520] over time. We can also use automation for this. I really like to do this with automation.
[17:59.040] But you can also use a step smart for that. I show you both ways, basically you can use
[18:04.960] step smart and automation and maybe click this. And also we can use this as a start
[18:11.360] and we're going to show all the automation we created. So let's go with the shape here.
[18:18.520] Maybe change this over time.
[18:41.200] Okay. We also maybe can double get this here, make this even longer. And here we maybe
[18:51.880] change the speed of the LFO even more. Maybe we'll remove this here. We select both
[19:13.680] and can use control and J to combine these two clips into one clip. Yeah, maybe we
[19:27.520] just leave it at that. Okay. So now we have a nice little sequence running here. To
[19:54.880] make this more interesting, I just click here this, yeah, this track and use control
[20:02.200] and D to duplicate this. So we have the same base pattern, yeah, twice. And the second
[20:09.720] one here, we go into that and delete all that. And the first one, we delete the first
[20:16.240] note here. And for the second base here, I'm using also phase 4, but I change different
[20:23.840] things here. So I want to have a kind of a small, different sound for the first part.
[20:32.160] So maybe we switch this up to a saw. So yeah, maybe we go with the shape. We draw in here
[20:44.600] modulation. Maybe change it to LFO, the rate. Let's use all of this. This is the rate,
[21:02.240] yeah. I don't feel like this. That's all about creating, yeah, interesting pattern. So
[21:31.240] now we have basically our first small base thing here. Maybe we check here also the volume
[21:37.160] on this. We go to zero. Yeah, also to zero. Maybe we group this together and call it space.
[21:49.840] And what we need on this base group is of at least a tool device here at the end so
[21:54.360] we can change the volume. So we can see we exceed here our, our ceiling. So maybe it's
[22:07.680] time for some audio processing. And I use here an FX2 on the bus or all two base sounds
[22:13.960] that are usually more or less the same. And I use a split frequency of 300 hertz because
[22:19.040] when we remove here the high frequency, you have a lot of nice little low end content.
[22:30.680] And we can go in the low section here and say maybe the tool device make the low end
[22:36.160] mono if you want to. We don't need to. It's actually, it's monophonic and it's, yeah,
[22:44.000] we have no stereo formation here at any point. So maybe, yeah, I just leave this in here
[22:51.840] just to show you how it's how it's done. And in the high band here we go with an EQ
[22:57.840] 2. This is also what I use a lot. And then we go for high pass and we can change here
[23:03.560] basically, yeah, the cutoff frequency. And what this does is basically we have now information,
[23:12.240] low end information up until 300 hertz. And then we have a notch because of this one
[23:17.360] here until we hit the ceiling after frequencies. So you can carve out basically the middle
[23:27.400] of the, your track where your drums are. And you get this nice little, yeah, drum based
[23:34.480] soundish, high end, the base sound. But we have the low end and the high end in the middle
[23:40.600] is completely cut out for the drums. And it still sounds fat. It sounds like there
[23:50.400] is something in the middle. But it's actually not. So it's more like a piece, yeah, how
[23:58.680] it's called. I don't know how it's called. It's an acoustic phenomenon. So it's, it sounds
[24:07.840] like something is there, but it's not. So now we can put on here some reverb. You can,
[24:14.840] you can, you can, you can hear when you use it the fusion at zero, it sounds more like
[24:26.320] a delay because reverb is, is delays with multiple different reverb times, delay times.
[24:36.320] And in drum bass, you can do a lot of stuff that's usually not allowed or, yeah, audio
[24:55.680] engineers say, please don't do this. For instance, using distortion after reverb, because
[25:12.000] we only add this here at the high end, on the high end box, you completely leave our low
[25:17.640] end untouched. Maybe just mix it in a bit. You can also bring in maybe chorus. Okay, so
[25:36.720] you can put on all kinds of effects on here, just how you like it. Nobody cares really.
[25:42.880] And I saw people going to, yeah, the extremes with this, this kind of stuff here. We can
[25:52.360] also use an EQ plus here, maybe. Yeah, bring in some notches here, here and there. Yeah,
[26:11.360] maybe you can modulate this. Why not? LFO, heat LFO, and frequency modulation here.
[26:33.240] And yet the right frequency, which, you know, sounds nice. So this is also something
[26:51.480] you can do. You can modulate here the reverb. It's going with the mix knob. Maybe we won't
[26:56.520] also, we won't only have reverb here at the start. So it sounds more dry. And then just
[27:13.960] start, you know, you have more like a wet signal. Okay, so that's that. So now we have here
[27:26.920] a nice little baseline running. We can go back here to our first patch. And what I also
[27:34.480] like to do with these operators here is to bring in noise. And there is no noise in,
[27:40.760] in the phase 4, but you can kind of create noise by using here the yellow operator or any
[27:48.800] other operator. And mix in the operator to itself. So operator Y mixed in with operator Y
[27:59.120] to the 100%, which creates pure noise. It's completely chaotic. But then you can bring
[28:06.920] it into operator red here. Okay, so it gives you no, it's basically mixed in. And this one
[28:18.720] then goes to the drive here to the overdrive. And then we have also here a clip by the end.
[28:23.840] So it sounds pretty distorted then. Okay, but you can also mix it into operator B here.
[28:43.200] So what we maybe can do is we, we modulate as you can see here operator B into it. Maybe
[28:51.360] we make default this. And then we use this here to modulate it out. So it's basically
[29:12.360] the opposite modulation. So when this one comes in, the noise goes out. And when this one
[29:17.240] is out, the noise comes in. So it's basically back and forth. That's something we can
[29:26.680] do. Oh, it's also sounds nice. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe you also modulate this here.
[29:35.200] We haven't seen. Maybe not too much. Okay, I think that's it for the bass, bass line
[30:04.760] on now. I don't want to make it too complicated. You can completely go crazy with this kind
[30:13.200] of stuff here. Sometimes I make tunes here with four or five of these phase four layers
[30:20.160] with different settings for each instrument. Sometimes I use different instruments, different
[30:27.960] synthesizers for different tracks and layers. This is just one example. And maybe you don't
[30:35.480] want to go that crazy with bass sounds, then you usually just need to use, for instance,
[30:43.920] fully sent here. Just to show you this real quick, you can create a clip here. Let's go
[31:00.680] with this. You have a low, little song. Maybe you can use a tunison. If you bring this
[31:17.480] one down, the stereo spread down. So we have it monophonic in the middle. And because
[31:25.840] it's not really monophonic now, we need the tool. Bring the width down. Bring the
[31:37.940] drive up. You get this nice, little deep, nice sound here with the polyscent. Maybe
[31:57.040] we go here to one octave higher and use the glide here. Right, you can create these typical
[32:18.280] breeze sound, bass sounds. Then go to zero, everything into a peak, peak limiter. You can also
[32:44.400] go here with the epics too. Maybe we use this here for some part or at some point in
[32:52.680] our arrangement, but be useful maybe. The chorus only, oh it's a wrong one. Maybe also
[33:09.880] re-bock. Maybe in LF all here, just to bring in some movement.
[33:38.400] Also, it's monophonic, yeah nice. So this is our re-space line here and maybe we use this
[33:57.680] later on. Just to show you how you can make a bass with a different synthesizer. Okay,
[34:05.440] so let's move on to the drums here. We mute it, everything. And drums is, it's basically
[34:12.440] it's a whole chapter, a whole five hour video. Because there are so many different drums
[34:18.040] in drum bass nowadays, how we can make drums. You can use classical drum loops first and
[34:23.800] layer in synthetic drums or go on with synthetic drums or create your own drums by layering
[34:30.400] different kick sounds, different snare sounds together. Just using samples from some
[34:37.360] sample services, also a viable option. So there are so many options in how you can make
[34:44.760] drum sounds and I can only show you one way basically in this video or in the scope of
[34:50.120] this video. You probably find a lot of tutorials on YouTube how you can make drum bass drums.
[34:59.040] And how I approach it usually is to show you what kind of situations you need to focus
[35:09.080] your attention basically is. When you have a bass sound here, you want probably to have
[35:17.680] your kick drum around 100Hz here or above 100Hz because usually below that you have your
[35:23.880] main bass frequency. So you need to have some room here. And then what people usually
[35:30.520] do is a high pitched snare up on here, one pay, which is the main frequency of your ears.
[35:41.320] Basically it's perceived better at this frequency. And usually when you call someone on the
[35:52.120] phone, the phone is usually just having a band pass here on this frequency just because
[35:59.120] you perceive loudness in a special way at 1K. So yeah, let's start with the kick drum.
[36:09.680] And I start here pretty basic with the e-kick of Bitwig Studio. I also use it every time.
[36:18.600] It's let's bring in here one note at the start. And it doesn't matter which note you
[36:24.960] are, it's not dependent on the keyboard. So you can just paint in any note at any point.
[36:32.360] And yeah, go to the e-kick here. And I usually tune my kick drum to G0. So you can see
[36:41.040] and you can also just type this in G0. And then you add perfectly 49Hz. And I don't
[36:50.560] tune my kick drums to the root note of the bass of my tune. I did this multiple times,
[37:01.320] but I found it's not really, yeah, it doesn't give you any, it has more drawbacks than
[37:11.040] it has benefits. Because then the kick drum sounds like it's part of the bass sound or
[37:21.840] the bass line. And then you can distinguish the bass and you can't distinguish the bass
[37:27.280] and the kick any more. So it sounds like one thing. And maybe that's exactly what you
[37:34.400] want, but usually you want to have a kick that's snappy and accentuates the bass at the
[37:40.160] start and at certain points in your pattern. So I usually go here with G0 even though our
[37:47.120] bass line is on E0. And there if you're pitch mod off maybe 19, I don't get it. 19,
[37:56.720] because it's 7, 7 and 40 and then 7 again and we are at 19. So it's basically a three fifths
[38:09.600] stacked. You don't need to use 90. You can also use 20 or 21. It's not really important.
[38:16.400] It's just my, I don't know, a synation with numbers. That's my usual numbers I type in
[38:25.760] all the time. So 19, it's basically a three time stacked fifth. And also maybe go with 24,
[38:33.440] which is too octave higher. And go with 19. So it pitches down basically from 19 semitones
[38:42.720] up down to the root note of G0. And how fast you can decide here by the decay setting.
[38:48.160] Write this all the way up. This way, bass sound. And this setting I usually tune with my bass
[38:59.840] bass sound. So I want to stick to have my kick drum stick out from the bass a little bit.
[39:07.600] So you can see you can barely barely hear the kick drum here. It's usually also wired because
[39:15.440] this is too loud. And if you go here for minus 40b on the bass.
[39:21.040] So maybe we need more overtones, right? So we can do more overtones by bringing in the decay.
[39:31.280] So we have more high end or more of the higher frequencies of the pitch modulation.
[39:48.960] And we can bring in here EQ. Cut down or cut off here a bit of the low end because we don't
[39:57.120] need that. We only need the knock here around this. And this is audible to the ears. And maybe we
[40:02.480] get some high end here. Okay. And then I usually go for FX2, which is the same technique as we used
[40:12.240] in the bass line. And then I put in the high end here a frequency shifter, which
[40:18.960] auto's basically only the frequencies above three and the thirds. And maybe you can bring in
[40:29.040] the distortion also here just to the top end. So it becomes pretty knocky.
[40:38.160] So you want us to have the kick drum stick out a bit to accentuate the bass. But it's not
[40:51.120] like that you want to have maybe the bass drum too heavy and dominate the whole mix. So you have
[40:58.960] to find a sweet spot. And the sweet spot depends on what kind of style you're going for.
[41:04.000] For instance, in in liquid funk, you have more like a more like a pronounced snare drum.
[41:12.080] And the kick drum is more a small back. It's more reduced. And then you have neurofunk where you
[41:20.480] have a very heavy fat kick drum sometimes. Sometimes it's a pretty short kick drum. And
[41:27.040] you only hear basically barely the transients. And the bass line dominates the mix. So it depends
[41:34.400] on what you are going for. You have to find a sweet spot for your style and what you are going for.
[41:40.000] And everyone has different tastes and preferences and so on.
[41:45.040] So this is how I approach it. I just want to give you basically a rough guide on
[41:49.840] what you need to. Yeah. On what kind of things you need to focus. Okay. What we can do now is
[42:04.000] we can also dial in your maybe 1% of difference between the left and the right channel. So the left
[42:10.480] channel is frequency shift that slightly differently than the left channel. So we have some kind of
[42:15.760] stereo effect. So the top end of the kick drum is a bit, you know, stereo left right.
[42:29.760] Makes it a bit more interesting but can barely hear it.
[42:35.440] So we have the kick drum and it's perfectly tuned to the bass which is important in my opinion.
[42:39.920] It's not so important that the kick and the snare and the high-hat brocks together,
[42:44.240] it's more important that the kick works with the bass and the snare works with the high-hat,
[42:51.280] I would say. So you have to not group it by a category like drums together and you know,
[42:59.280] bass together, it's more like the bass needs to be fit with the kick and the snare needs to fit
[43:05.120] with the high-hat. So now we can find here some nice spots for the kick drum together with the
[43:12.160] bass pattern, I would say.
[43:27.200] So this is a typical two-step beat here.
[43:29.280] I really enjoy it.
[43:36.960] like this. We accentuate basically the baseline to make this pattern even more supported
[44:06.480] by the drums. Let's see if this rocks out. I don't know. Okay, snare drum. You can also
[44:24.800] use it the snare by bitwig, but I usually use samples for snares because we want to
[44:33.720] have some kind of dirty layer on top. We can search it in our sample library for some
[44:41.320] kind of snares. You don't need to have special snares. You can use some, I don't know,
[44:48.700] some drum bass sample packages from the internet. Download something or just use some random
[44:54.760] snare samples to bring in some dirt. What I also usually like to use is rim shots. It's
[45:11.400] also a nice tip. Hey, my own samples. Yeah, I don't know, a sample like this can bring
[45:38.200] us in, drag this into the tracks section as we can create a sample. Then we need to disable
[45:45.000] the key track, which is a bit annoying and bitwig introduces at some point. Every drum
[45:52.720] sample you drag in is key tracked. This means when we play in here, you know, we can
[46:00.400] pitch it, but I usually don't like that. So I disable this so we have the same pitch
[46:10.600] at any key. And yeah, let's paint in here at 1214. So we have this layer, which is kind
[46:36.800] of okayish. Maybe it's a peak limiter. So we hit scrap the ceiling. Maybe use an EQ,
[46:48.280] a Q, Q, Q, Q. So it needs more high end. And this is something you need to learn basically
[47:03.480] what kind of frequencies you need to focus and how it needs to sound. And it takes time.
[47:09.960] I know that I instantly can hear what what the sound needs basically in my opinion. But
[47:19.600] you gain this experience or this knowledge over time and it takes time. So I know that
[47:30.760] I want to put here now my e-snare, this one here. Maybe track this down to the same track.
[47:38.800] So maybe just click here, the sampler hit control and G. So now the sampler is in a rack
[47:44.600] in instrumental layer. And we can put here our e-snare in there. Bam. We can delete this
[47:53.640] track. So now we have the sampler here with the rim shot and the snare on the same rack.
[48:01.560] And now we need to tune at the e-snare to match basically our rim shot. So I go for oscillator
[48:07.400] one which is this section here. Maybe tune this down so we can... The only one to have
[48:21.000] a pretty short sound. In general all drums and drum bass are pretty short. They are barely
[48:30.360] go beyond the transient nowadays. Just to crank out the loudness and only let the drums
[48:37.320] do what the drums do best and this accentuates the bass or the groove.
[48:41.880] Now this sounds maybe nice. Maybe bring in what can we use here? My hard clip,
[48:58.040] hard clip preset. Makes it pretty nice and okay.
[49:28.040] Maybe bring the hard clip also here on the sum basically on the rim shot and the snare
[49:34.280] together. So we have it in the FX box here. Maybe use an EQ here again.
[49:41.960] Maybe bring in some white noise. Something like this, I don't know. This is usually something you
[50:11.400] can tweak for hours. To find the right settings. But when you have the right settings,
[50:19.720] then the rest of the tune is basically easy peasy. So it's like getting the fundamentals right
[50:29.080] and then the rest of the track is not that hard anymore. It's just walking out the structure and
[50:34.920] making the usual things. So now because of the rim shot sample, you have some dirt in there.
[50:47.640] It's processed and it's probably recorded with drum set. And to support this dirty sample,
[50:55.960] we used here a pretty clean e-snare synthesizer, which is probably just a sine wave generator.
[51:08.920] Maybe make this a bit shorter.
[51:22.840] Oh, maybe use a different sample now.
[51:53.080] Okay, hi-hat. We can use the e-hat also here. Probably better is to use some hi-hat samples
[52:15.240] because the hi-hat sounds always like white noise. In some cases, it works. So let's paint in your
[52:23.320] pattern. Or maybe use just one note and use the arpeggiator. Make it maybe four steps.
[52:35.000] And like this, we have your velocity sensitivity. Sensitivity can bring up. Then we can draw in your
[52:41.640] nice little groove. So like this. Bring this out. Add some expression settings here.
[52:58.920] We can use the velocity to change the K. Maybe it's now time to bring in the global groove a bit.
[53:19.800] You need to make this a bit louder here.
[53:27.720] You can hear this without groove. Let's bring in the groove.
[53:50.840] Okay, so this is one way of doing it. So we group this together and call this drums maybe.
[54:04.760] Maybe I don't like the snare at all, but that's normal.
[54:34.760] I have to find a sweet spot here with everything.
[55:04.920] Okay, so we have a nice bass here and maybe we call this the Sermon project.
[55:22.040] So what else can we create? So I'm searching basically for sounds. I can add and
[55:27.960] to create some kind of pool of patterns, I then can use the flesh out the structure, right?
[55:35.000] So I'm build patterns and sounds and new tracks just to have a nice pool of sounds.
[55:43.480] So maybe we can create some accultions here. Maybe search for bongos, I don't know.
[55:52.520] Something like this. I think we did this also with the last tutorial with the melodic
[56:02.120] techno thing. I used the drum machine here and just drag in some percussion samples.
[56:12.200] Something like this. And then I use macros here.
[56:16.200] And then go into the cell, bring everything down in one cell and say copy value to all layers,
[56:25.080] copy value to all layers, copy value to all layers. Use the modulation here to the decay setting
[56:32.120] and say copy modulation to all layers. And now we can change the decay all samples in all cells.
[56:38.440] And we need to create, of course, here a small pattern. And this pattern goes completely random like this.
[56:47.720] Just like playing all samples. Maybe also use macro here, bipolar and go for the pitch.
[57:17.720] Because the global roof is active is already shuffling.
[57:48.040] Maybe frequency shift is also nice.
[57:58.040] Ah, the layers maybe too much.
[58:15.560] This is something like this. This is something we can use at some point.
[58:19.480] Let's call those percussion. Maybe we need some some atmospherics, right? So let's go for the
[58:27.000] polysynth here. And we know that we are at E. So we can just use an E here.
[58:35.960] Troll is in. Maybe a unison. Maybe a low cut. Maybe an LFO.
[58:47.560] We need LFOs. It's also okay. Modulated LFO to pedal off.
[58:58.760] And again, I go your completely un-sync because I like the organic feel of that.
[59:05.800] Maybe you re-bub. Maybe a band pass. Maybe mix in the second oscillator here.
[59:36.600] Yeah, maybe we use a random modulator here for the pitch. Just a touch.
[59:47.560] Make the smoothing up here. Three. Only phonic bipolar.
[59:56.040] Now it's modulating in the pitch.
[59:57.400 --> 01:00:07.400] Maybe it's too fast.
[01:00:27.880 --> 01:00:32.760] So maybe it's too low. Maybe you need it way up here. Oh, it's.
[01:00:32.760 --> 01:01:00.840] And we can also bring in this note which brings some dissonance. Maybe E again.
[01:01:02.760 --> 01:01:30.120] So you have to find the sound that's, you know, that's, that pitch attract is pretty
[01:01:30.120 --> 01:01:39.080] odd. Maybe you want to have not that dissonant of a sound here. Maybe go one fifth up.
[01:01:39.080 --> 01:02:08.040] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
[01:02:09.080 --> 01:02:38.040] Maybe let's try the re-space here.
[01:03:09.720 --> 01:03:19.800] That's maybe better. Maybe you use this for different sequence.
[01:03:24.840 --> 01:03:29.960] So maybe we can use now on the base here a tool device.
[01:03:29.960 --> 01:03:38.120] And the side chain, the outside chain, and modulate the volume down.
[01:03:39.960 --> 01:03:47.640] So make this pretty short. Bring in the kick here. Every time the kick comes in, we
[01:03:47.640 --> 01:04:04.600] do it here. Yeah, make the base sound quieter.
[01:04:04.600 --> 01:04:15.560] Here we can modulate this, or automate this later on. Then in the track to bring more movement in.
[01:04:15.560 --> 01:04:38.600] That's a bit uninteresting. Maybe we need some, something in there here that brings in a bit
[01:04:38.600 --> 01:04:48.120] more interesting parts. Maybe I go for XO, which is also something I like.
[01:04:48.120 --> 01:05:09.080] We'll bring in some random snare samples. Let's see if.
[01:05:48.120 --> 01:06:04.280] That's something like this.
[01:06:04.280 --> 01:06:20.440] Maybe a few of the low ends.
[01:06:34.280 --> 01:06:58.440] That's some kind of swing.
[01:06:58.440 --> 01:07:14.600] Okay, so we can just bounce this here as an audio file. Just forget the rest.
[01:07:14.600 --> 01:07:30.760] Okay.
[01:07:44.600 --> 01:08:00.760] I think this sounds better.
[01:08:14.920 --> 01:08:22.680] Maybe it's something like this. Okay. So maybe let's move on here.
[01:08:24.520 --> 01:08:30.280] What is over here? It's a bit longer or maybe twice as long.
[01:08:32.120 --> 01:08:38.840] We can see here we are in our 8 bar kind of block size.
[01:08:38.840 --> 01:08:45.880] So I want to change everything every 8 bars. So maybe you start with this one here.
[01:08:45.880 --> 01:09:08.040] Then we switch to a section where we have only percussion.
[01:09:08.680 --> 01:09:13.960] And we can support this with the bass line here with the cut off. So we can say when there is
[01:09:13.960 --> 01:09:22.280] some kind of a pad sound, we want to have the bass tone down and then when we switch the
[01:09:22.280 --> 01:09:38.440] percussion, we want to maybe open up here. The frequency is a bit more by 100 and back to 1.
[01:09:52.920 --> 01:09:59.480] And maybe we make the small express of here. We go up there,
[01:09:59.480 --> 01:10:29.320] way down, up there, down, up there and just replicate the sound.
[01:10:29.480 --> 01:10:58.600] Maybe we also introduce here some EQ. Do we have this already? No.
[01:11:00.200 --> 01:11:04.920] Let's use an EQ class here.
[01:11:09.240 --> 01:11:13.400] Okay, let's modulate around this frequency here.
[01:11:13.400 --> 01:11:29.320] We can also use a filter, it's not, we don't need to use the EQ class.
[01:11:43.640 --> 01:11:57.080] That's okay. Also minus 4. It's my magic number for basses.
[01:11:57.880 --> 01:12:03.800] I have to bass basically at the ceiling of the peak limiter or at the track itself.
[01:12:03.800 --> 01:12:13.080] And also the drums. Let's see, let's bring another clip here again. Lipping at 0 dB here for the drums.
[01:12:21.000 --> 01:12:27.720] And this one is also at 0 dB. Then I bring down the bass by 40 dB or 3 dB and it's usually
[01:12:27.720 --> 01:12:36.040] pretty fine for me. In terms of mixing.
[01:12:36.040 --> 01:12:51.720] I think it needs some distortion.
[01:13:06.040 --> 01:13:23.480] So, yeah. So, I'm trying basically to max out the frequency distribution of the bass.
[01:13:24.360 --> 01:13:33.080] I'm going to have a nice, fat little low end or fat low end. And yeah, the high end should be
[01:13:33.080 --> 01:13:45.080] at least in this track. I want to the high end pretty much up front and then I try to match it
[01:13:45.080 --> 01:13:51.480] with the drums, which are also pretty loud. And they should be equally loud, in my opinion,
[01:13:51.480 --> 01:13:57.320] the bass and the drums. So, it's drum bass where you need drums and bass up front.
[01:13:57.320 --> 01:14:04.280] So, you try to pronounce the frequencies from the bass that you really need, which is the low end
[01:14:04.280 --> 01:14:10.760] and maybe the mid-range modulation. And the drums, which is the knock at around 1 on the
[01:14:10.760 --> 01:14:28.200] 20Hz and the snare drum. But ever hurts, you have the snare drum, in my opinion, it's pretty high pitched snare.
[01:14:28.200 --> 01:14:49.000] 300Hz. So, what I usually do with the drums, I make them as loud as fuck as you can see over
[01:14:49.000 --> 01:14:59.320] the hard clip, I pretty much flip the shit out of the drums. It also depends on what kind of sound
[01:14:59.320 --> 01:15:05.720] you're going for. For liquid drums, you maybe want to tone down the clipping of the drums.
[01:15:07.560 --> 01:15:12.280] Or some more like, you know, tone down drum bass you want to have this. Maybe you want to have some
[01:15:12.280 --> 01:15:19.880] pretty drastic drum funk shit. You pretty much crank this up or make it loud and distorted. So,
[01:15:21.080 --> 01:15:32.680] it depends on the style. Oh yeah, what they're also like to do, which is kind of a trigger,
[01:15:32.680 --> 01:15:39.720] would say, in Bitwig Studio, to balance the frequencies, excuse me, the FX3. And putting a
[01:15:39.720 --> 01:15:48.680] limiter in all boxes here, which is just a multi band limiter. But instead of limiting
[01:15:50.280 --> 01:15:57.400] everything fuck out and make it flat as possible, I just try to increase the input here,
[01:15:58.360 --> 01:16:05.960] until something scratches the ceiling, which makes every box or every frequency section
[01:16:05.960 --> 01:16:15.000] here equally loud in terms of peak volume. Let's see here, the low end is this one here.
[01:16:18.120 --> 01:16:24.040] It peaks. It barely scratches here, the limiter. So, it's not limiting at all.
[01:16:24.040 --> 01:16:35.880] And the middle part here, we can also just go a little bit into the limiter. I end as a bit of
[01:16:35.880 --> 01:16:48.920] room here. And then after that, I'm using a hard clip here. And limiting everything until it
[01:16:48.920 --> 01:16:59.240] sounds distorted enough and loud enough. You can see with the setting at 4.5 dB octave tilt,
[01:16:59.880 --> 01:17:10.920] it's pretty much straight. The kick is maybe a bit too heavy because it's basically a bit too long.
[01:17:10.920 --> 01:17:20.360] You can hear it's super meaty and heavy. Just shorten the kick drum you have sometimes.
[01:17:24.600 --> 01:17:30.120] I actually don't want to have something like this, which takes a lot of room away from the bass.
[01:17:30.120 --> 01:17:47.560] I just want to accentuate the bass.
[01:17:47.560 --> 01:17:58.440] Maybe let's measure this here just for the interest.
[01:18:02.920 --> 01:18:08.520] The short term loudness max minus 6.4 dB loves for the drums.
[01:18:08.520 --> 01:18:16.360] And it's also something you can do. You can put on the dB meter or some kind of loves
[01:18:16.360 --> 01:18:25.640] leveling dB, some loves meter on some groups and sounds and measure the sounds and then remember
[01:18:25.640 --> 01:18:34.920] certain numbers. This is helpful sometimes to get consistency throughout your tracks, right?
[01:18:34.920 --> 01:18:41.960] You notice when you make multiple tracks and then at one track the drums sound completely different
[01:18:41.960 --> 01:18:49.160] and loudness in terms of frequency balance than in another tune. And yeah, it makes me
[01:18:49.160 --> 01:18:59.560] pretty mad actually when something like this happens. And yeah, just using a meter here at some
[01:18:59.560 --> 01:19:07.720] points, some meter you like and measuring the loudness of different sounds and then remembering
[01:19:09.800 --> 01:19:15.560] the numbers helps sometimes just to bring in consistency into your mix downs.
[01:19:17.400 --> 01:19:21.880] And it doesn't need to be the same number every time, right? We need to be obsessed with having
[01:19:21.880 --> 01:19:29.800] the same number. It's just that you are roughly in the same area. And yeah, here I completely don't
[01:19:29.800 --> 01:19:36.840] care for the number, right? I just go for the ear. I look that the sound is not too distorted
[01:19:36.840 --> 01:19:42.200] and also not too clean because the drum bass you need some dirtiness, some roughness in there,
[01:19:42.200 --> 01:19:49.160] right? Okay, so let's move on here a bit. So the drums are loud enough. I think we have to
[01:19:49.160 --> 01:20:03.640] reach bass line here. Just okay, I think how it is now.
[01:20:03.640 --> 01:20:23.320] Oh yeah, maybe we need to cut here also the low end of the high box a bit.
[01:20:34.120 --> 01:20:52.280] So now we have basically here in the in the chain of the rees, we have just a tool to make it
[01:20:52.280 --> 01:20:59.400] mono. We have an EQ here to make this notch, notchy sound here in the top end.
[01:20:59.400 --> 01:21:10.120] And then we have the splitter. In the low end, we have a tool with zero. In the high band here,
[01:21:10.120 --> 01:21:17.400] we have a lot of modulation scores. We brought the EQ setting here at the roll of the low end
[01:21:17.400 --> 01:21:24.120] at distortion only in the high end now. And at the end, we have a limiter to control basically the output.
[01:21:24.120 --> 01:21:32.200] And we have the side chain thing here, which ducks down the volume every time they kick
[01:21:32.200 --> 01:21:45.480] place. Maybe a bit too much. Okay, and we bring this to zero and we use this here for minus 40b.
[01:21:45.480 --> 01:21:57.000] Okay, so now we have this. Maybe we bring in some more percussion elements. For instance,
[01:21:57.000 --> 01:22:14.200] a ride. Always nice. Something like this. Bring us here. So we just change basically some
[01:22:14.200 --> 01:22:22.600] percussion elements here to keep it interesting over long part or long periods of time.
[01:22:23.560 --> 01:22:29.160] There's nothing really changes in the bass, the patterns itself.
[01:22:29.160 --> 01:22:43.720] This switch of the Q-tracking here, and it looks like it's heavily pinned to the left, so
[01:22:43.720 --> 01:22:59.640] I'll bring it to this down.
[01:23:44.120 --> 01:23:57.640] So now all you have to do is basically keep it interesting, which is hard to do sometimes.
[01:23:58.600 --> 01:24:04.280] But here, just bring in some different drops.
[01:24:04.280 --> 01:24:13.640] Right, at this point, we have this snare here or this pattern.
[01:24:15.960 --> 01:24:24.680] Or actually, let's cut this here so it doesn't duplicate to the other tracks.
[01:24:24.680 --> 01:24:39.800] We can move this also over or here maybe.
[01:24:39.800 --> 01:24:50.760] And maybe here we bring also different snare pattern in.
[01:24:50.760 --> 01:25:07.320] That's something like this. Automate between the two.
[01:25:11.720 --> 01:25:18.600] Maybe we also create some kind of riser, and I usually go just for police sent here,
[01:25:18.600 --> 01:25:23.480] and we can crank up the noise all the way using band pass here.
[01:25:26.920 --> 01:25:32.920] Draw in a long note. Doesn't matter which note, just one note.
[01:25:35.240 --> 01:25:36.680] Right, so we have here the noise.
[01:25:36.680 --> 01:25:52.520] Only this. Use the macro controls here, the filter, maybe also the resonance.
[01:26:07.320 --> 01:26:11.720] Maybe you can also use an LFO, and the beat LFO is perfect for data, I would say.
[01:26:15.640 --> 01:26:22.760] Let's see. Crank also the LFO speed up, and then the LFO modulates maybe,
[01:26:22.760 --> 01:26:38.840] maybe maybe this one here. No, this doesn't drop.
[01:26:38.840 --> 01:26:54.920] Let me go over this.
[01:26:54.920 --> 01:27:08.360] Yes, it doesn't sound that good. Maybe just leave it at that, put the reverb on it.
[01:27:08.360 --> 01:27:19.400] Just fade in the volume all the time.
[01:27:19.400 --> 01:27:42.680] Then we have this small rule. Fading happening here at the end of the section.
[01:27:49.400 --> 01:28:18.680] Yes, and real. That's I think okay for now.
[01:28:19.880 --> 01:28:35.080] Maybe you need some kind of crash, rush symbol.
[01:28:35.080 --> 01:28:46.920] Yeah, let's go for 909, bring this in here, keep tracking off. Just need to tier the first.
[01:28:46.920 --> 01:29:07.000] Maybe high pass, reverb on it.
[01:29:17.560 --> 01:29:25.560] And what I also like to do is here, to use the crash as a rough guide for the eight bars,
[01:29:25.560 --> 01:29:34.520] so you can make this exactly eight bars long. Then you can loop this. Then you have a perfectly
[01:29:34.520 --> 01:29:39.880] guide where you know exactly every time this crash happens here, something needs to change.
[01:29:39.880 --> 01:29:49.320] Maybe we put this over here. It's over here. Maybe we use the second baseline on this point.
[01:29:49.320 --> 01:30:17.480] So let's see how this sounds. Oh, it's muted.
[01:30:19.320 --> 01:30:34.040] Yeah, it like that.
[01:30:34.040 --> 01:30:54.600] It gets you down a bit.
[01:30:54.600 --> 01:31:10.600] What happened to our noise scene?
[01:31:10.600 --> 01:31:18.600] Oh, let's see.
[01:31:18.600 --> 01:31:36.600] And the second part here, it needs a second, right?
[01:31:36.600 --> 01:31:44.600] It's also a nice trick just exchanging the sound sometimes.
[01:31:44.600 --> 01:32:02.600] Yeah, it's an easy trick.
[01:32:02.600 --> 01:32:26.600] Oh, maybe change up the pad on the bit.
[01:32:26.600 --> 01:32:44.600] Let's see.
[01:32:44.600 --> 01:33:12.600] Right, so just changing up here with the percussion elements.
[01:33:12.600 --> 01:33:22.600] I have sometimes just to keep the song alive without changing the group or the bass sound at all.
[01:33:22.600 --> 01:33:26.600] But you can do this too, you, of course, change the bass sound a bit over time.
[01:33:26.600 --> 01:33:30.600] And we also did this here with the re-space, right?
[01:33:30.600 --> 01:33:36.600] Introduce here some modulations here and there.
[01:33:36.600 --> 01:33:46.600] So now we have already here for nearly one minute of play time without getting bored too much.
[01:33:46.600 --> 01:33:54.600] Okay, maybe it's time to duplicate this here.
[01:33:54.600 --> 01:34:04.600] And now we have one minute 25 and this is probably our first part after the drop.
[01:34:04.600 --> 01:34:10.600] So the drop is at 65, right?
[01:34:10.600 --> 01:34:26.600] But before we do that, we just group here some sounds together.
[01:34:26.600 --> 01:34:42.600] We also in the drum group and we call this group here as music.
[01:34:42.600 --> 01:35:04.600] So now we can group the bass and the drums together and call this drum and bass bass.
[01:35:04.600 --> 01:35:12.600] Because usually this is more heavily compressed than the music bass because the music is just, you know.
[01:35:12.600 --> 01:35:24.600] Or like, it would be more like dynamics or we want to leave in some dynamics in the music and crank up the volume on the drum bass bass.
[01:35:24.600 --> 01:35:38.600] And here is a hard clip at least and we can crank this up a bit here.
[01:35:38.600 --> 01:35:44.600] And you can also use here some tools like unfilter from Zynaptiq.
[01:35:44.600 --> 01:35:54.600] And this balance is all the frequencies here automatically.
[01:35:54.600 --> 01:36:10.600] So this is with the drums with unfilter just without.
[01:36:10.600 --> 01:36:38.600] It's way too loud now.
[01:36:38.600 --> 01:36:42.600] And maybe we need something here at the end of this section.
[01:36:42.600 --> 01:36:48.600] That's a bit more special than what we have now.
[01:36:48.600 --> 01:36:56.600] So maybe go for a different...
[01:36:56.600 --> 01:37:08.600] And also maybe we pitch this down here.
[01:37:08.600 --> 01:37:28.600] And just, you know, pitch it maybe down to minus 5.
[01:37:28.600 --> 01:37:38.600] So we can copy this over here.
[01:37:38.600 --> 01:37:46.600] So yeah, back to our drum bass bass here.
[01:37:46.600 --> 01:37:48.600] I just used unfilter.
[01:37:48.600 --> 01:38:00.600] You can use tools like this on here, but you can also just leave it there and maybe use an EQ and just balance it out by ear.
[01:38:00.600 --> 01:38:12.600] Or you can use the same trick as before using my FX3 thing here.
[01:38:12.600 --> 01:38:18.600] And this is also nice to check here the levels. So you can see it. This is basically now.
[01:38:18.600 --> 01:38:20.600] You can see the kick.
[01:38:20.600 --> 01:38:24.600] The kick here pretty clearly and the bass where the bass level is.
[01:38:24.600 --> 01:38:30.600] So the kicks stand out from the bass pretty heavily.
[01:38:30.600 --> 01:38:50.600] In the lower end here, up until 284 Hz, maybe you can increase the loudness of the bass a bit, minus 4, maybe too much, minus 3 maybe.
[01:38:50.600 --> 01:39:18.600] So just level this out here until it scratches the surface again.
[01:39:18.600 --> 01:39:28.600] Oh, we need to bring up here the pitch again to zero.
[01:39:28.600 --> 01:39:32.600] Of course, of course, of course.
[01:39:32.600 --> 01:39:35.600] Like this.
[01:39:35.600 --> 01:39:39.600] Okay. Now we have it.
[01:39:39.600 --> 01:39:49.600] Let's go back here.
[01:39:49.600 --> 01:39:52.600] Yeah, it's okay.
[01:39:52.600 --> 01:39:59.600] You can see we are pretty loud here already on the drum bass bass. It's maybe too loud, minus 4.7.
[01:39:59.600 --> 01:40:10.600] And we haven't done anything really to, you know, there's not a crap load of plugins on there. It's just hard clipping and EQing.
[01:40:10.600 --> 01:40:13.600] And yeah, it's not even a compressor on there.
[01:40:13.600 --> 01:40:30.600] Just by balancing out everything you get easily, easy loudness.
[01:40:30.600 --> 01:40:49.600] Also go, always go back here to your drum kick drum here, right? And see, maybe it's still too long.
[01:40:49.600 --> 01:41:09.600] I think it's quite okay. I just put in your limiter so we don't exceed the zero to be on the bass on the track. It's not really needed, but it's, you know, habits.
[01:41:09.600 --> 01:41:20.600] Now we have this pad synth here, which is a boring alone. So maybe we need to do some melody shots or some interesting bits here and there.
[01:41:20.600 --> 01:41:28.600] And we know that we are in E, so we can use here E.
[01:41:28.600 --> 01:41:48.600] So let's create your interesting sound.
[01:41:48.600 --> 01:42:12.600] Reverb. Maybe delay.
[01:42:12.600 --> 01:42:21.600] So let's use some keys, white keys.
[01:42:21.600 --> 01:42:32.600] Until it sounds mysterious or I don't know, funky depends.
[01:42:32.600 --> 01:42:45.600] And general rule here is also using as many half steps as possible. It doesn't sound too melodic to, you know, cheesy.
[01:43:02.600 --> 01:43:31.600] So let's go.
[01:43:31.600 --> 01:43:42.600] Something like this. Then duplicate this and these are basically now questioning and begging for an answer.
[01:43:42.600 --> 01:43:50.600] And to answer this maybe with a different sequence.
[01:43:50.600 --> 01:44:10.600] This is a different sound.
[01:44:10.600 --> 01:44:29.600] And here maybe we changed something like this.
[01:44:29.600 --> 01:44:49.600] So let's go.
[01:44:49.600 --> 01:45:13.600] Maybe it doesn't answer every time.
[01:45:13.600 --> 01:45:28.600] So we need this.
[01:45:28.600 --> 01:45:52.600] Low cut here on the music because we don't need no low end here.
[01:45:52.600 --> 01:46:16.600] Maybe you can also change the kick pattern or we change the kick pattern here and then the first section.
[01:46:16.600 --> 01:46:31.600] Something like this.
[01:46:31.600 --> 01:46:55.600] Until here then we start a different pattern.
[01:46:55.600 --> 01:47:24.600] Also what's a nice thing to do is making some surprising switches in the structure.
[01:47:24.600 --> 01:47:47.600] For instance here we expect to just behave normally, but just at this point here, just bring in the kick and remove everything else.
[01:47:47.600 --> 01:47:56.600] Here I have the right crash, we can lift this in.
[01:47:56.600 --> 01:48:23.600] We can also make a base change.
[01:48:23.600 --> 01:48:50.600] So you have a different sound here and the expectation then surprises you or your expectation is differently.
[01:48:50.600 --> 01:48:57.600] So you basically clone this small section what we created in the beginning.
[01:48:57.600 --> 01:49:08.600] You clone this the whole track and then you edit smaller details here and there the surprise, the ear or the listener.
[01:49:08.600 --> 01:49:23.600] It makes a small change up to the sounds and the rhythms to the patterns and so on.
[01:49:23.600 --> 01:49:41.600] There's not much creativity there, I mean you can put in a lot of creativity in terms of what you do and how you do it.
[01:49:41.600 --> 01:49:52.600] You need just to flash out the tune and make it longer and keep it interesting in various ways.
[01:49:52.600 --> 01:49:58.600] We have a drum bass bass, we have a music bass, we can group this together and call it all.
[01:49:58.600 --> 01:50:12.600] Do this because sometimes I use a beat comparison, so you can put in here maybe a song.
[01:50:12.600 --> 01:50:30.600] I can put in here a reference track already production or a tune you like and you want to compare it with your own tune.
[01:50:30.600 --> 01:50:44.600] There's a lot of stuff on the master because when you have a reference tune it goes through the master and then you have maybe a limit on there and it gets compressed too.
[01:50:44.600 --> 01:51:05.600] You have everything on here and here's my reference tune at some point, then you go to the mixing page and bring a B. So your tune is A and the reference tune is B and then you can switch between the two.
[01:51:05.600 --> 01:51:19.600] And can quickly basically judge if your tune is far off from your preferred production quality.
[01:51:19.600 --> 01:51:23.600] But that's just how I do it.
[01:51:23.600 --> 01:51:44.600] Yeah, on the master, what to do on the master, maybe a cue just to control everything, maybe just a peak limiter or use another hard clip that does basically not really that much.
[01:51:44.600 --> 01:52:05.600] I will do much. So here at this point, we are at B, minus six, minus six loves.
[01:52:05.600 --> 01:52:21.600] Yeah, the master chain is the whole different story for itself. What you do to your audio production, then in the end, and I want to go not too deeply and do this in this video.
[01:52:21.600 --> 01:52:35.600] But for now, I just want to focus on that you get a nice sounding loud drum bass tune easily. And I hope I made this kind of clear in this video.
[01:52:35.600 --> 01:52:49.600] I just want to show you how we proceed now. So we have now the drum bass bus and the music bus together and all we can now easily move you the whole thing around.
[01:52:49.600 --> 01:52:55.600] And we have to focus now on the intro. The intro is the next hard part because it's completely different than the rest of the tune.
[01:52:55.600 --> 01:53:03.600] The rest of the tune is just cloning this section here and you know, keep it interesting, as I said.
[01:53:03.600 --> 01:53:12.600] But in the intro, we have to completely support the tune here just without bass line and anything, maybe just have here.
[01:53:12.600 --> 01:53:20.600] This one, bring in the melody bits at some point.
[01:53:20.600 --> 01:53:42.600] These, these the melody, these this build up with fade ends and different sounds, maybe we want to bring in a vocal sample or something like this.
[01:53:42.600 --> 01:54:11.600] The intro is not easy. Maybe we want to automate here the modulation amount, frequency, maybe it's a bit lower.
[01:54:11.600 --> 01:54:24.600] It sounds a bit cheesy but it's a lot of work to actually make the intro uneasy and interesting at the same time.
[01:54:24.600 --> 01:54:32.600] Maybe we want to also bring in some hi-hats. Let's see.
[01:54:32.600 --> 01:54:45.600] Maybe we duplicate the hi-hats and we have different pattern.
[01:54:45.600 --> 01:55:05.600] And remove this here. You know, I have something for the DJ2 mix, kind of metronome.
[01:55:15.600 --> 01:55:32.600] Maybe we make it this, maybe bring in also the crash.
[01:55:32.600 --> 01:55:53.600] Maybe too much here. What you also can do is, which is an easy way, maybe sample the bass line here.
[01:55:53.600 --> 01:56:11.600] Sample this and then hide cut it and put it in the intro.
[01:56:11.600 --> 01:56:29.600] Bring this in here.
[01:56:29.600 --> 01:56:58.600] Put it all in.
[01:56:58.600 --> 01:57:19.600] Just quiet in the background to prepare the listener what's coming.
[01:57:19.600 --> 01:57:39.600] Let's see.
[01:57:39.600 --> 01:58:08.600] Yeah, it's not easy. You have to make a lot of sounds.
[01:58:08.600 --> 01:58:21.600] Paydance, FX sounds, vocals.
[01:58:21.600 --> 01:58:31.600] Another trick I can show you for drum bass is also the trick of nudging the bass pattern around.
[01:58:31.600 --> 01:58:43.600] For instance, when we have here this section and you get bored of it.
[01:58:43.600 --> 01:59:06.600] You can just delay the whole thing by maybe one bar or not a bar, maybe 16th notes or two.
[01:59:06.600 --> 01:59:22.600] There's also something a lot of producers do sometimes.
[01:59:22.600 --> 01:59:29.600] Just create the pattern and when you think it's not groovy enough, then just nudge it around.
[01:59:29.600 --> 01:59:48.600] Then go all the way up until maybe you can do this here in this part.
[01:59:48.600 --> 02:00:00.600] Because we have the same thing, we just delete this and say let's move this over here.
[02:00:00.600 --> 02:00:24.600] And then we cut the end here off and put it in the front.
[02:00:24.600 --> 02:00:48.600] Right, so you have a different groove, the same groove, but just different.
[02:00:48.600 --> 02:01:11.600] You can duplicate this over here and maybe say here, we do the same again.
[02:01:11.600 --> 02:01:25.600] Cut the rest off here.
[02:01:25.600 --> 02:01:32.600] So you get kind of interesting grooves and patterns without doing too much.
[02:01:32.600 --> 02:01:47.600] You can use it to make an alteration on alternate version of your initial bass groove that doesn't feel too different, but it's different.
[02:01:47.600 --> 02:02:05.600] Oh, it's different enough to keep it interesting.
[02:02:05.600 --> 02:02:28.600] The second part is not too much.
[02:02:28.600 --> 02:02:35.600] Let's just stick with the first one.
[02:02:35.600 --> 02:02:39.600] Yeah, that's how we do it, basically.
[02:02:39.600 --> 02:02:41.600] It's all there is to it.
[02:02:41.600 --> 02:02:46.600] Maybe there's some point here, some mid part, or we are already at 4 minutes here.
[02:02:46.600 --> 02:02:51.600] Maybe at the 3 minute mark here, you want to have some kind of break.
[02:02:51.600 --> 02:03:02.600] And what most tunes do at this point here, we have maybe some kind of elements from the intro, maybe also on the hi-hat here.
[02:03:02.600 --> 02:03:07.600] Maybe fade in here to go back into tune again.
[02:03:07.600 --> 02:03:20.600] Maybe some of the chord elements here.
[02:03:20.600 --> 02:03:29.600] That's maybe too much, too long.
[02:03:29.600 --> 02:03:35.600] It depends on what you want to do again.
[02:03:35.600 --> 02:03:52.600] And then you go back into tune at some point.
[02:03:52.600 --> 02:03:55.600] So we are already over the 2 hour mark.
[02:03:55.600 --> 02:04:06.600] I think I'm closing down here because the rest is basically the same thing over and over again.
[02:04:06.600 --> 02:04:15.600] Like I said, you clone the patterns you created over and over, make alterations, keep it interesting.
[02:04:15.600 --> 02:04:27.600] It's all about changing things up and just keeping it interesting with new sounds or with the same sounds and different patterns.
[02:04:27.600 --> 02:04:36.600] And you can also do a lot with FX sounds, transitioning sounds like I did here with the noise fade in.
[02:04:36.600 --> 02:04:48.600] You can also make some sweeps and impacts here and there. And it does a lot to the track, actually, instead of just changing the patterns of bass and so on.
[02:04:48.600 --> 02:04:55.600] You want to have this continuity throughout the track, to have the same bass sound and the same bass patterns.
[02:04:55.600 --> 02:05:06.600] The listener thinks it's still the same track, but you can do a lot with these FX sounds to transport or to keep the track alive, basically.
[02:05:06.600 --> 02:05:08.600] And I think that's it.
[02:05:08.600 --> 02:05:13.600] I think you can also download this then in the description of the video.
[02:05:13.600 --> 02:05:30.600] In this project, this is in beta 3, 4.1, so you can download this and play around with it and look into it and have some fun.
[02:05:30.600 --> 02:05:45.600] Thanks for watching.