question about Drum n bass snares and other stuff

[stephenxxx]

Hi there,

In the sample section of the forum there are some cool sounding dnb loops.
I wanted to reproduce something like that but I'm not sure how to go about it.
do I make the snares change in every beat, shall I use different snares or add some fx?
Are there any good video tutorials where I can actually see someone doing it, instead of just watching someone putting together sounds?
I really wanted to do something pretty crazy but with no ways to learn it's pretty difficult.

Thanks

[Rabbeast]

Hi,

The best thing to do, to help you and get inspiration, if to grab some tracks of the artists and dnb sub-genres that you like.

Listen to them carrefully, try to identify the kind/color of the sound produced by the snare, the kick, the hihats. And then try to find some similar hits in your samples library.

Concerning the snare, EQ and compression are really important. They are the necesary tools that will help you to make the snare "knock hard". In this field, I got my own tricks, but I am not sure that they are really the most efficient. So you should visit the famous DogsOnAcid forum and look for some threads on this topic. That's certainly the best place to get specific tricks concerning dnb production. They are a lot of really skilled and talented producers that visit this forum daily.

I found a really good tutorial on how programming the typical "techstep" drum pattern, here is the link : http://www.spinwarp.com/modules.php?...ticles&secid=1

This tutorial helped me a lot to understand the basics of this beats (basically a hip-hop beat at 170bpm), and this will certainly help you to analyse and understand the tracks of more exprencied dnb producers.

Regards,

Rabbeast

[Jonny]

Good advice from Rabbeast. Here's my couple of tips:

The duration of the hits is important. Gating / chopping that snare / hihat at a subdivision of the tempo adds tightness.

Sending all your drum channels (except perhaps the kick) to one group and applying compression + EQ etc to that channel will help "glue" different sounds together into one kit. This can be important when you are using samples from different sources.

Layer hits. You may have a really sizzly snare that you like, but it lacks "body". Layer it with another hit that has a bit more "oomph". Use filtering to cut out the frequencies that you don't want from each sample to prevent any possible phase issues. The same trick goes for kick drums too.

[stephenxxx]

rabbeast thx for the info. I will definitely check that forum

jonny, thanks very much for the tips .