The art and science of beat making. Is there a perfect formula? Does it depend (like playing traditional instruments) on the players/ producer’s own mood and mind state. Or is there a strict set of guidelines that can churn out the perfect beat? If the latter then AI will probably out pace us all soon enough. In my opinion there is a formula to achieve a banger it includes complete bass interaction creating tension and release, and avoiding the staleness of an overheard predictable loop through the use of built in variation, A/B, and energy pockets. However, like a chef cooking up a meal or a graffiti writers piece, there are many variables to either perfect, or butcher during the process, so like any classic art form, the quality of the art totally depends on the producers mind state.
Let me talk you through my current for creating minimal drum n bass.
First of all, let’s all agree there must be a huge significance on what we prioritise during our time inside the DAW. Otherwise everybody would be churning out bangers in 30 min sessions. And let’s face it, some producers take days, weeks and months to never finish a beat.
Over the years of adhd hyper focused obsessive beat making I’ve boiled it down to one thing: How good is your synthesis? - one must pay respects to the architects of the genres that gave birth to the music your listening to today. Your beats are as fat as the strength of your synthesis game. You not only need to know your way round serum, but to compete in todays stupidly high standards you must have a deep understanding of certain classic basses that are fundamental to your genre.
Let’s talk about some….
Reece bass - . There are many Reece bass tutorials out there and I would recommend soaking up all the free knowledge you can find (as long as it sounds good!)
i find a sine wave with distortion works perfect and rather than prioritising waves, we need to apply a bend- to oscillator 1 . Now drag lfo 1 to the bend - parameter. Turn off bpm. And drag the note pitch onto the speed of lfo 1 (see pic).
this will wobble the wave at a slower pitch on low subby notes but speeds up the wobble in relation to how high the pitch goes. This re creates the speed up of the sampler on the first iconic Reece bass.
Fog Bass - this bass is one of/ if not the biggest staple for creating dark bass music in 2024. This bass is simple to synthesise and can often be over looked. The main characteristics are formed when the harmony between the two oscillators (osc 2 is 2-4 oct higher) meets the drive of the distortion, creating harmonics. These harmonics can be stretched and filtered into all sorts of impressive sound designs and are commonly used by artists like Alix perez.
Fuzz bass / Noise bass
This bass is another classic and similar to the fog in the way we synthesise it (it’s essentially one sine wave and white noise plus distortion. We will go into more detail later on this bass is used in dubstep and dnb.
808 this classic bass is still going strong and has dominated many genres. Pitch glide with an envelope to create a kick drum style attack and glide are some of the characteristics of this bass, often a filtered square.
These are a few examples of what your hearing in the dance floor , also different techniques will bleed into different classic basses fusing the sounds and creating you guessed it , even more cool bass! The possibilities are endless! But we must hone in be disciplined and master the basics fundamentals of each bass.
Remember fundamentals are not rules!
Y’all set of rule breakers can relax. But no excuses. We must practise through repetition and analysis. Think reps at the gym to strengthen the muscle. We want hench bass, so the more reps the better. Plus the competitive element that once existed through rap, scratch and breakdance battle in the prime hip hop years, still exists. Whether we admit it or not, we all want to be the best and the great this is- we can!
So let’s get on it.
Let’s change the game.
If your completely new to production your probably feeling quite overwhelmed but please know that your best bet is to jump in the deep end I will break it down into baby steps - please don’t fall victim to be coming another pre set tweaker!
making fire dubstep or dnb heavily relys on good synthesis,if your not minted financially, you can grab a copy of serum through splice on pay monthly, or ask you dodgy mate either way once youve got a copy if abelton , xfer serum and this book , your well on your way to becoming an elite bass producer.