Question Time

music box · Post by **music box** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:41 pm

1 What type of breaks do people use for there drums funk, jazz etc. Is there like a rinsed drum break. or a set technique. often i think my drum patterns are well jackson then days later shit any help with the theory would be of great help.

2 That distinctive bass sound the heavy wer wer sound. hows it achevied

sorry i am newbiee cnut

ramadanman · Post by **ramadanman** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:07 pm

1. in drum and bass yes there are rinsed breaks. examples include the amen break, the funky drummer, the think breaks and the apache. if you google search these i'm sure you can find audio

2. if you're talking about what i think you are, this is done by applying an LFO (low frequency osc.) to either cutoff on a filter or to amplitude of the wave.

music box · Post by **music box** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:12 pm

Cheers mate, so no common breaks for dupstep drums.

ramadanman · Post by **ramadanman** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:14 pm

well most dubstep doesn't distinctively use breaks - i mean producers might use hits, but to me they're hardly recognisable. there is another sub genre called breakstep - people like distance, toasty who have more breaks orientated production.

music box · Post by **music box** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:20 pm

I find trouble getting good one hits,would a pro get them from old drumbreaks and then mess around with them to get them sounding edger?

boa · Post by **boa** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:25 pm

a healthy mix of tweaked sampled hits and straight up machine hits is a good place to start...

ramadanman · Post by **ramadanman** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 11:39 pm

basically generally producers layer hits. this way you get a thicker sound. ie take a snare that has a good snap, a snare that you like the the decay etc and combine them together. then you'd eq, compress etc each part. this is the key to getting crisp pro sounding productions. i've used like 5+ snares layered in some of my tracks - it does make a difference. you could even add claps etc

prismatic7 · Post by **prismatic7** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:44 am

i like using clicky hiphop snares (like Dre's work for Eminem or Timbaland/Neptunes style clap+snare layers) and a tight 'thud'-sounding kick with a fair bit of low end. For hats, a really techno-ish closed hihat (like a 909 kind of sound), low in the mix and maybe with reverb or delay gives a feel that I like to think of as floating through the smoke haze at 3am. Kind of a background ticking...

Never underestimate the power of effects on your percussion - short or multitap delays, overdrive, distortion, amp simulation, reverb, even using compression or limiting as an effect can create some great (and unique) sounds. Use EQ to keep your percussion clear of other sounds - it'll help tighten up a mix and keep it from sounding swampy and indistinct. Took me ages to learn that lesson - and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right!

Oh, and don't listen to rules.

djrq · Post by **djrq** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:52 am

prismatic7 wrote:Never underestimate the power of effects on your percussion - short or multitap delays, overdrive, distortion, amp simulation, reverb, even using compression or limiting as an effect can create some great (and unique) sounds. Use EQ to keep your percussion clear of other sounds - it'll help tighten up a mix and keep it from sounding swampy and indistinct. Took me ages to learn that lesson - and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right!

Oh, and don't listen to rules.

nice post.

prismatic7 · Post by **prismatic7** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:05 am

Music Box wrote:
2 That distinctive bass sound the heavy wer wer sound. hows it achevied

ha - i forgot this bit! everyone seems to ask that question... maybe we should put together a production FAQ?

Whatever VCO's (tone generators) you use (square waves are pretty much the shit), mostly you'll want to be using a two-osc synth (maybe with a sub-oscillator) that has an filter envelope generator or an envelope that can be assigned to the filter - nothing fancy, just four steps (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) is fine. Novation's BassStation VST is great, so is an SH101 (hardware) if you can pick one up cheap.

Basic Bass Basics

- Set both oscillators to Square/Pulse wave and detune one slightly. Down or up, whichever sounds better! Adjust mix or to suit the sound you're after. You can even use one oscillator if that's what you prefer. More oscillators and a sub-oscillator will 'thicken' or 'fatten' your sound.
- Any envelopes for the VCO's should be set to short attack, longer decay, sustain and release to your preference.
- Use and route LFO's to your preference, too - this will help make a unique sound.
- Switch the filter type to lowpass and low cutoff/high resonance (Q) Again, adjust for your preference.
- Make sure the filter routing is to Manual or Envelope, not LFO.
- Set a medium-to-long attack, shorter delay and sustain and release to suit. This means that the filter will open up from 0 to your setting over the specified period (attack), then close back down more quickly to the level set in sustain (thanks to the decay setting), making the required 'wer wer' sounds!
- post-filter, effect, EQ and compress til you're happy.

Mind you, I'm doing all this from memory and I'm not at my studio. I could be wrong...

broken silence · Post by **broken silence** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 5:03 pm

Fully agreed with primsatic7 on those bass techniques, but bear in mind that for pure low sub, you need a VCO producing as few harmonics as possible, you end up swamping the fundamental out if your not careful at the really low frequencies. Try a combination of a sine wave and a square (which are indeed the shit), and detune the square. Watch the volume of the square wave as well, think of it as more the "character" of the bass rather than an integeral part, the sine should give all the meat you need.
I think the "wer wer" bass your refering too is a sub with its pitch modulated by a simple sine wave LFO, set to a shallow depth but a high rate.
You can then automate this if you like to get weirder bass sounds. For those without the pleasure of computer automation you can just sample yourself playing a sine note and messing around with the lfo controls, that i find gives some really organic results.
As for breaks, i dont know about anyone else but for music of any tempo 140 or less i find myself programming the beats by hand, usually from a break that i really liked the sound of cut up and layered with other sounds.
Found an old amen break from some long lost hardcore tune that has these outragous kicks that bounce heavy ,but with this really airy quality, like the drummer was hitting a 4 foot wide bass drum with a foam mallet. Oddness.
Another technique which i see more poeple getting into (time, space and money prohibiting) is getting into a recording space, or indeed several, and getting a session drummer (or a mate with a kit) to play some breaks based on what you'v have programmed.
With creative mic'ing and utilising all the differant room's unique ambience, you can get some really personal and nice sounding breaks, which you can then off course cut up, fuck up and mash to your hearts content. Hope this helps.

music box · Post by **music box** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:03 pm

cheers guys

the bass sound i was refering to is in el-b- amazon,skream- monsoon and vexd- pop pop its a wer sound i guess played twice its a wer wer.

music box · Post by **music box** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:16 pm

would the korg ms-20 be suitable for the bass sound.

prismatic7 · Post by **prismatic7** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:36 pm

Music Box wrote:would the korg ms-20 be suitable for the bass sound.

Yeah - that'll work great! But the key is to play with the sound! Dial up a preset, sure - but modify it, effect it and mangle it until it sounds great! Check out this tutorial for some tips...

Jubz · Post by **Jubz** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:57 pm

ramadanman wrote:well most dubstep doesn't distinctively use breaks - i mean producers might use hits, but to me they're hardly recognisable. there is another sub genre called breakstep - people like distance, toasty who have more breaks orientated production.

No no no. There is no other subgenre.

ramadanman · Post by **ramadanman** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:02 am

i beg to differ

breakstep varies a fair amount from dubstep

doomstep · Post by **doomstep** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:57 am

Jubscarz wrote:No no no. There is no other subgenre.

True That !!!

broken silence · Post by **broken silence** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 3:17 pm

Agreed, its all dubstep to me man. The names used are nice and sound murky but it gets silly after abit, with subgenre being broken down into smaller and smallers subgenres and so on and so on. I think dubstep is broad enough to encompass it all, their is no one sound to it with so many cats bringing so many differant styles, which i think is one of the best things about the music. Breakstep, half step or whatever, its all differant tags for the same thing for me.
People like toasty and vex'd do audibly use whole breaks (however mashed up) in their tunes to punishing effect, which does set their sound apart, though i wouldnt class em as anything other than dubstep.
How toasty boy gets his breaks sounding so phat and crisp id give my left nut to know.

nonseq · Post by **nonseq** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:39 pm

The Worm break (Jimmy McGriff) is a good one. Loefah used it in Root, if I'm not mistaken.

toxin · Post by **toxin** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:18 pm

its all about experimenting withe different hits and breaks.....
ive been rinsing Teflon's (G Unit) drum kit which i got my hands on, the snares are snappy and the kiks are punchy........
I think that all of the use of amens in some tracks is good and is a logical progression from not incorperating breaks in dubstep........as a music dubstep is growin at quite a fast rate now and i think that there are going to be more subgenres croppin up in the not too distant future.....

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