Drum & Bass Beats from Scratch!
Tutorial | Apr 19, 2024
In the video, I demonstrate the process of creating a drum and bass track from scratch. I start by adding drums using Addictive Drums, then layer in synthetic drums and create variations. I also explain how to mix and master the track to achieve a polished sound.
You can watch the Video on Youtube - support me on Patreon
In today's music production session, we focused on creating a drum and bass track using Addictive Drums. Here's a concise overview of the steps and techniques employed:
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Setting Up:
- Started by placing a peak limiter on the master at -2 dB.
- Loaded Addictive Drums, selected a drum kit, and set the tempo at 120 BPM.
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Drum Programming:
- Laid down basic patterns for kick and snare drums, focusing on simplicity and varying velocities for dynamics.
- Applied minimal reverb and looped the drum pattern.
- For more attack, selected lower velocity samples for the kick and disabled alternative samples for both kick and snare.
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Sound Shaping:
- Adjusted the kick and snare sounds by disabling round robin sampling and cutting some low-end frequencies.
- Incorporated ghost notes to add complexity to the rhythm.
- Used EQ and pitch envelope adjustments to enhance the snare's transient attack and adjusted mic positioning for a more cohesive drum bus sound.
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Processing and Effects:
- Separated the room mic output for individual processing, employing EQ and mid-side processing to enhance spatial effects.
- Applied transient control and light compression to refine dynamics, occasionally using hard clipping for a more controlled sound.
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Bassline and Synthesis:
- Created a bassline using a synthesizer, employing modulation for texture and a notch filter to carve space for the kick drum in the mix.
- Layered additional drum elements and processed the bass with EQ and dynamic effects to integrate it smoothly with the drums.
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Final Adjustments and Bouncing:
- Made final tweaks to the drum and bass elements, ensuring they fit well together.
- The session ended with bouncing down the tracks, adjusting project tempo, and discussing the use of effects like reverb and distortion to finalize the sound.
Overall, the session was an effective demonstration of creating a dynamic and textured drum and bass track from scratch, emphasizing drum programming, sound design, and mixing techniques.
Questions & Answers #
Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:
How do you create a drum bass tune from scratch? #
To create a drum bass tune from scratch, I start by loading Addictive Drums and selecting a drum kit. I then lay down some notes for the drums, focusing on a kick drum and snare drum setup. I add velocity action and apply some reverb, and then loop the drum pattern to create a foundation for the tune.
What techniques do you use to mix and process the drums? #
To mix and process the drums, I use techniques such as EQing, pitch envelope for the snare, mic position and snare bus, and adding a room effect. I also use a hard clipper and transient control to shape the overall drum sound. Additionally, I use sidechain compression to create ducking between the drums and kick drum.
How do you create a bass sound to accompany the drum pattern? #
To create a bass sound, I use a Phase 4 synth and choose a specific key for the bass. I layer modulation and noise to add depth and character to the sound. I also use EQing and distortion to shape the bass and create a complementary frequency range with the drums.
What other elements do you add to enhance the track? #
In addition to the drums and bass, I add atmospheric elements such as chord sounds and pads using the Analog and Operator synths. I apply effects like delay and reverb to create space and depth. I also use techniques like reversing and layering to add variation and interest to the track.
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.
[00:00:00] You know what? We just make some music today.
[00:00:04] Just put your peak limiter on the master.
[00:00:08] -2 dB, that's enough.
[00:00:12] And we start by doing some drums.
[00:00:16] Addictive drums.
[00:00:20] Takes a while to load.
[00:00:24] Then we select your kit.
[00:00:28] Let's use this one here.
[00:00:32] Let's use this one.
[00:00:52] Then we lay down
[00:00:56] some notes for the drums.
[00:01:00] I want to go for drum bass.
[00:01:04] Let's say 120 BPM here.
[00:01:08] Kick drum, snare drum.
[00:01:12] Just a simple setup.
[00:01:16] A bit of velocity action here.
[00:01:24] [drums]
[00:01:28] I think I don't need the reverb here.
[00:01:32] Just a little bit reverb.
[00:01:36] That's okay.
[00:01:40] Then we want to loop this.
[00:01:44] [drums]
[00:01:48] Then here, but for the kick drum we use no alternative samples
[00:01:52] switch off the round robin.
[00:01:56] Then we select something from the lower velocity samples.
[00:02:00] The snare also no alternatives.
[00:02:04] [drums]
[00:02:08] This has better attack.
[00:02:12] [drums]
[00:02:16] Like it more.
[00:02:20] Let's see, we can cut some of the low end out.
[00:02:24] [drums]
[00:02:28] Then we bring in some ghost notes here.
[00:02:32] [drums]
[00:02:36] A bit lower.
[00:02:40] [drums]
[00:02:44] Okay, that's fine. Let's duplicate this here. Double content.
[00:02:48] [drums]
[00:02:52] The second part here we do open hi-hat.
[00:02:56] [drums]
[00:03:00] Or maybe we do something like this.
[00:03:04] Then also doing some kind of floor.
[00:03:08] [drums]
[00:03:12] [drums]
[00:03:16] Maybe we do one here.
[00:03:20] [drums]
[00:03:24] [drums]
[00:03:28] Also nice.
[00:03:32] Okay, let's duplicate this again. Double content.
[00:03:36] At the end here we do
[00:03:40] maybe something different.
[00:03:44] I think it's okay for now.
[00:04:13] Let's use some EQing here.
[00:04:21] Or maybe let's use for the snare here the pitch envelope.
[00:04:32] So we slightly pitch here the transient up, maybe one octave to get a bit more of this
[00:04:41] transient attack.
[00:04:48] And let's change here the mic position.
[00:04:55] And the snare bus here.
[00:04:56] This is basically the bus sound influences more or less also the kick drum.
[00:05:07] So the snare bus basically rattles when you hit the kick drum normally.
[00:05:14] So it glues also the drums a bit more together because sometimes ask me people what gluing
[00:05:19] actually is.
[00:05:21] So the snare reacts to the kick drum so it belongs together, right?
[00:05:25] So it's also a form of gluing.
[00:05:40] Okay so the room here we want to separate a separate output here postfader.
[00:05:49] And then we use the embittling add missing chains.
[00:05:51] Then we get the room here.
[00:05:54] Right?
[00:05:55] There we can use an EQ on that.
[00:05:58] Or maybe use a mid-side split because it's a stereo signal so we can cut out all the
[00:06:05] low end from the side channel.
[00:06:08] We boost a bit here to make it more wide on the top end.
[00:06:32] Okay let's put the transient control on that and boost here to sustain a bit.
[00:06:45] Maybe an EQ to bring it more of the high end here.
[00:06:54] Maybe a low cut.
[00:07:02] And then we can use a compressor or maybe just I like to use actually just a hard clip.
[00:07:22] Let's make the kick drum shorter and the snare.
[00:07:35] That sounds a bit more gated but not too short.
[00:07:51] I probably want to put some synthesized drums below that later anyway.
[00:07:57] Okay let's stick with this.
[00:07:59] I'm kind of rushing a bit here because I want to make a video, right?
[00:08:02] I don't want to bore you with the details basically or with my you know figuring out
[00:08:09] what's the best for the sound but I'm just rushing here a bit.
[00:08:13] But normally this process I take a bit more time.
[00:08:18] Let's bounce this out.
[00:08:22] So again here's a clip I write, it clips at 0 dB.
[00:08:25] Now this is a 30 bit, that's okay for me.
[00:08:29] And this one here is now pitch mode, re-pitch, right?
[00:08:35] So it pitches up when we change the tempo and it's exactly what we are doing.
[00:08:42] We go from 120 now to 173.
[00:08:55] Maybe I should have put something more on that or maybe an amplifier or something to
[00:09:00] get more dirt.
[00:09:02] If we see on a 20.
[00:09:19] I just want to mix here a bit of distortion into the dry signal.
[00:09:49] Maybe not too much.
[00:10:12] That's okay.
[00:10:13] Let's bounce this again.
[00:10:15] Maybe a clip does a bit more this time.
[00:10:18] Let's go for 7.
[00:10:42] Let's try this.
[00:10:45] You can see it's much louder now.
[00:10:49] Let's go to 170.
[00:11:06] Yeah maybe back to 120.
[00:11:11] Maybe here this one.
[00:11:14] I go to this.
[00:11:18] So we don't have this open hi-hat on every first kick drum so I can cut the file later
[00:11:23] on differently.
[00:11:28] We can disable this now.
[00:11:44] Let's call this drum loop.
[00:11:49] Maybe let's try and layer this snare drum with the rim shot.
[00:11:57] Let's see if I have some samples on here.
[00:12:03] Something with the nice attack.
[00:12:06] Something like this maybe.
[00:12:17] Of course I just want to use it a first bit.
[00:12:28] No key tracking of course.
[00:12:35] No key tracking and this needs to be monophonic.
[00:12:55] Now we put here an EQ on that and maybe also a hard clip.
[00:13:10] Want to push the frequencies around here and then we go straight into the clipper and
[00:13:13] this one makes sure we don't go over 0.
[00:13:37] Keep on of this.
[00:14:03] Pitch this up here a bit.
[00:14:19] Cool so that's that.
[00:14:25] Maybe you want to mix this together.
[00:14:28] We can delete this here but I just hide it for now.
[00:14:44] Cool maybe I want to put a kick drum below that.
[00:14:49] We can use some e-kick or something like this or let's use e-kick.
[00:15:08] Let's focus here on the kick drum for a moment.
[00:15:15] Go to 20.
[00:15:20] Let's bring out here a bit more of the top end.
[00:15:28] This is G0.
[00:15:29] Yeah G0 is fine.
[00:15:32] I like G0.
[00:15:42] With X2 we can split the spectrum in half and then I use an EQ2 on the top end.
[00:15:50] I can put a slight distortion on the top so we get more knock.
[00:16:04] I kind of like it.
[00:16:05] And then we bring this into a hard clipper.
[00:16:23] That's very...
[00:16:44] Okay so now we can duck here.
[00:17:05] Duck basically drums.
[00:17:08] Side chain, note side chain.
[00:17:10] We use here drums to kick.
[00:17:15] It's very short.
[00:17:27] Nice.
[00:17:47] And then also maybe here for the rim shot.
[00:17:52] Drum's rim shot.
[00:17:57] You know so we just duck basically here the transients in the beginning.
[00:18:05] Too much.
[00:18:10] Okay cool.
[00:18:21] This is the kick.
[00:18:22] Kick is down, down, here and down.
[00:18:30] Nice.
[00:18:32] Maybe it's a bit too loud.
[00:18:59] That's okay for now.
[00:19:19] So then we have to put this here together of course with a transient split, not a transient
[00:19:23] split, a transient control.
[00:19:28] Let's use it.
[00:19:33] So we have here 173 milliseconds for one eighth note.
[00:19:53] I'm not really happy with the kick drum but for now it's okay.
[00:19:56] I'll put an EQ on that.
[00:20:01] EQing something together is always a nice way to clue sounds.
[00:20:18] Let's go into a hard clip again.
[00:20:33] Okay let's try and make some kind of bass sound to that phase four.
[00:20:39] Let's go for E.
[00:20:44] Let's go down here.
[00:20:47] Use a sign.
[00:20:56] That's very deep but I like it.
[00:20:59] So this is full modulation.
[00:21:01] We modulate here this yellow one with itself so we get noise.
[00:21:06] We bring the noise into the B.
[00:21:15] And then we sustain nearly no release and we pull this here to monophonic.
[00:21:21] We don't need a modulation here.
[00:21:26] And to push here to drive.
[00:21:35] Kind of nice.
[00:21:40] And then we want to, let's say, we actually can use here a notch.
[00:22:03] And yeah, where the kick drum is, maybe around 200 shirts, we can cut out basically here
[00:22:08] the spec drum.
[00:22:10] Let's actually use an EQ here.
[00:22:14] EQ and then bring in drums.
[00:22:20] E kick.
[00:22:23] Maybe use here huge.
[00:22:36] Let's put this here to C3.
[00:22:39] Then 100% key tracking.
[00:22:44] And then C4.
[00:22:45] It's the second harmonic.
[00:22:56] Still cut here around this.
[00:23:05] Has a bit of space for the kick drum.
[00:23:08] Which is not, I think it's a good kick drum.
[00:23:13] We need to tweak this a bit later.
[00:23:21] Then we bring in here a bit of.
[00:23:26] Yeah, we bring in a bit of modulation here.
[00:23:46] And then let's say another one.
[00:24:15] Or we duplicate us here and then do basically here a different sound.
[00:24:32] And here we go for different ratio.
[00:24:44] Maybe an EQ here at the end.
[00:25:11] Let's see how this sounds.
[00:25:27] Not the best.
[00:25:45] I don't want to have a different sound here.
[00:26:14] Maybe a reverb on this.
[00:26:32] Okay, so we put this here into a group.
[00:26:52] Bass tool device on that.
[00:26:59] Maybe we can just clone here this one.
[00:27:06] This already receives the kick on the snare.
[00:27:19] And here we do a slightly different sound.
[00:27:49] And maybe the mix here.
[00:28:19] Yeah, we do the laters here a bit.
[00:28:49] Oh yeah, that's the problem here.
[00:29:16] Cut out here the low end a bit.
[00:29:46] Yeah, it's add here some samples to it.
[00:30:16] Let's use maybe the same kit.
[00:30:25] This one here.
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[00:31:32] So, these are some writes.
[00:32:00] You can use later on. Maybe here.
[00:32:07] And I think the bass here maybe needs a bit of rock.
[00:32:35] Let's split through the frequency of the bass.
[00:32:49] Let's make the bass here a bit wider.
[00:32:54] And then instead of a peak limiter here, I use my auto level preset here.
[00:33:02] It works like a compressor in a way, but it tries to bring up everything to 0 dB.
[00:33:08] You can see here I don't need to limit anything.
[00:33:14] I can dial basically the dynamic in with this fall knob.
[00:33:43] Maybe here a bit of mid range boost.
[00:33:58] And also with the noise, you can make the noise a bit stereo by just the tuning here
[00:34:02] slightly.
[00:34:23] Let's try out the filter here.
[00:34:25] Filter + is my new favorite.
[00:34:28] I have Filter + on everything.
[00:34:31] So if you transfer, you can do some kind of a soft clip.
[00:34:41] And then here notch on this.
[00:34:48] Maybe here bandpass.
[00:34:49] Or with an XP, you also get here a peak.
[00:35:05] Let's go for a notch.
[00:35:12] And put here.
[00:35:25] Yeah, we also need here some kind of filter + on the second one.
[00:35:51] and a notch.
[00:35:56] And a notch.
[00:36:20] And maybe a small little movement here.
[00:36:37] Maybe do it differently.
[00:36:52] Like this.
[00:36:53] And just copy this.
[00:37:04] It writes a bit too loud.
[00:37:20] I probably need to layer some kind of drum sound in there.
[00:37:29] Maybe we can use a snare.
[00:37:38] Actually I can use a layer here instead of this here.
[00:37:45] We can use this here.
[00:38:05] And have a hot clip.
[00:38:32] I'm not a big fan of this attack.
[00:38:57] I'm not a fan of this.
[00:39:11] I'm not a fan of this.
[00:39:29] I'm not a fan of this.
[00:39:47] I'm not a fan of this.
[00:40:04] I'm not a fan of this.
[00:40:22] It's not perfect.
[00:40:38] It needs a bit of better tuning.
[00:40:41] But I don't want to do this in this video.
[00:40:44] It's okay for this video I guess.
[00:40:48] So now that we have the bass here, maybe let's put some atmospheric on top.
[00:40:59] So I want to put in this gap here basically.
[00:41:03] Some kind of chord sound.
[00:41:08] This is one four right here.
[00:41:35] Next equal half.
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[00:42:18] Let's look at here.
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[00:44:00] We have a different setting here for all the analogs.
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[00:44:41] Or maybe you just balance some stuff here.
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[00:45:00] And something like this, bounce.
[00:45:05] We reverse this.
[00:45:08] And here we do another trick.
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[00:45:37] So I try to make some different variations of the sound here.
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[00:45:50] And then maybe a delay.
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[00:45:58] Maybe delay two.
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[00:46:29] Okay, we just bounce this.
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[00:46:39] And reverse this maybe here.
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[00:49:00] That's maybe two melodic.
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[00:49:42] Okay, so I could try here my crossover trick on these drums.
[00:49:48] Oops, reset.
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[00:50:18] Okay, so we can put this here into a group and call it,
[00:50:24] I don't know, pads, something like this.
[00:50:28] Cut some low end here.
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[00:51:04] So this drum bass bus here, everything together.
[00:51:08] Maybe you can put your also transient taper on that.
[00:51:12] I think it's the same.
[00:51:16] Yeah.
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[00:52:44] It's a bit of a cue in here and there, right?
[00:52:48] My idea is probably there.
[00:52:52] I could imagine to do here some different alternations of these sounds
[00:52:57] and bounce a lot of more variations out of this
[00:53:02] and then arrange it a bit differently to make it more interesting.
[00:53:06] But this is basically how I progress and create a drum bass tune from scratch.
[00:53:12] It's not always the same process, but roughly the same.
[00:53:17] So I want to flow with the breakbeat, right?
[00:53:21] So I create some breakbeats here with the addictive drums.
[00:53:25] Then I pitch it up, then I layer some synthetic drums to it.
[00:53:29] See that everything is in the right frequencies, right?
[00:53:33] Everything has its place in the frequency spectrum.
[00:53:37] Then create some pads and variations from it, some sound effects
[00:53:41] and then arrange it a bit and make some kind of small little arrangement here.
[00:53:45] This is like 20 seconds.
[00:53:49] And then progress from that.
[00:53:53] Normally if I like this kind of loop here, then I just duplicate this
[00:53:57] and go over to the second thing here
[00:54:01] and then make some variations with this, right?
[00:54:05] Maybe add some tambourines, some shakers,
[00:54:09] some percussion sounds and so on
[00:54:13] just to bring in a bit of variation over time.
[00:54:17] So this is basically how I progress. I put this here on to my Patreon for download
[00:54:21] if you are interested, if you want to create
[00:54:25] on top of this or want to finish it or you want to get some sounds out of it.
[00:54:29] I don't know. I put this on Patreon so you can
[00:54:33] have some fun with it. But I think that's roughly it.
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[00:54:49] You probably can use your mid-side split then at some point
[00:54:53] and also an EQ on the side.
[00:54:57] Get rid of some low end here in the side channel.
[00:55:01] [Music]
[00:55:05] [Music]
[00:55:09] Also, the EQ I like to use on the master.
[00:55:13] Just get rid of some harshness here.
[00:55:17] That's too much.
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[00:55:29] And it's probably already too loud here.
[00:55:33] [Music]
[00:55:37] It's already -470.
[00:55:41] It's because I'm using hard clip-offs on all kinds of places here.
[00:55:45] But I didn't push it too much, I would say.
[00:55:49] Maybe here with the crossover.
[00:55:53] It's a bit too much.
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[00:56:01] And also the bass we can do this thing down by 3db.
[00:56:28] Yeah, it's it's pretty much quick and dirty, but from now on I put a lot of time into into t details, right?
[00:56:36] Tweaking the drums the snare the kick drum until everything sits right, but it takes hours
[00:56:42] That's the problem. It's it's not possible to record right it takes hours
[00:56:48] But this is the rough process. I rushed it a bit
[00:56:52] Maybe you get something out of it. I don't know leave a like if you liked the video subscribe to the channel
[00:56:57] Have some fun. Have a great weekend and see you next week. Bye
[00:57:01] Bye.
[00:57:02] Thank you very much.