Dubstepforum.com

soronery wrote:that's why I added imo on the end

to indicate its my opinion and not an actual rule

first thing i said was acknowledging that you were stating an opinion but c'mon we're talking about RHYTHM-DRIVEN CLUB MUSIC. just because you dont prefer that workflow it's awful and nobody else should? i've never had a problem writing "melodic elements" around a groove, seems plenty other producers here feel the same.

'imo'

soronery wrote:'imo'

okay i've already acknowledged that you were stating your opinion, get over it. what significant contribution your opinion brings to this thread, i'm not so sure. but okay, it doesn't work for you to start with drums so it's obviously just an awful way of working and you just needed everyone to know it's awful. thanks for sharing that.

for any newbies reading this thread: there's no right or wrong way to work. do what works for you. start with your drums if you very well please! absolutely nothing "terrible" about that. i couldn't even imagine writing a bassline with no groove first, but whatever works.

Kick and sub bass note together-then loop and adjust/add hats/percs-mids, pads and leads last

I tend to start with the drums at 140bpm of course, but around the time of draggin the patterns onto the template i then just throw the mouse halfway accross the room to get my basslines and synths.

Get your barebones drum pattern going (kick, snare, simple hi-hat pattern, etc.), then write out a subline until you can listen to it on loop for a couple rounds and stay interested.

When you move to making a bass, get a good base sound straight from your synth/sampler, then start processing it (if you decide it needs it).

Then, fit a synthline around the bass & drums for a groove and create it to your liking.

Do all of it in a 16 bar loop, then break it down. (16-32 bar intro of synth and drums or whatever, 32 bar drop with bass and drums and synth surprises, 16 bar bridge with synth, 32 bar drop, 16-32 bar outro)

Then you'll be ready to mix it.

Come up with a pattern in your head while treating the bass as something more rhythmic and percussive, draw the pattern into your piano roll as a basic default massive patch, change the notes to whatever you want while keeping the timing/amount of notes the same.

After that it's just a matter of deciding which sound you want to use for each note hit. Sometimes one patch can work, but may get a little monotonous; so it's advised you copy/paste the midi notes to new tracks and experiment with adding other patches/instruments performing the same sequence.