How to learn how to create beats...
 

So I'd love to learn how to create D&B beats - you know... the basics... I've played with some of the programs, but basically, I suck :grumpy: The pros make it sound easy.. but they had to learn from somewhere...

Anygood programs that actually include tutorials? Or any good web pages or forums to checkout?

Jason

The pros make it sound easy because they've been doing it for a long time. Most of them learned by just doing it ... some of them probably had theory training or drum lessons.

The key to anything is practice and patience. Don't expect to achieve perfection over night. Don't expect a piece of software to make you good. Keep in mind that with software there is yet another learning curve: how to actually use the software.

I'm not really familiar with any websites or tutorials on this subject but a Google search on "how to create drum and bass beats" brought up a ton of stuff.

I missed the ole' google search... thanks!

Wikipedia has a ton of info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_and_bass ... I haven't had a chance to read it all - but I'll keep my research going there.

Jason

If anyone's interested, there's a great write up here...

http://forum.breakbeat.co.uk/tm.asp?m=1967782950

Drum and Bass is like any other kind of music and any other kind of language. We learn it through imitation. When you learned to speak it was by trying to say the same things your Mother/Father were saying to you as a child. In music we learn to imitate the sounds and styles that we are drawn to and then through that process learn what makes the music work and develop our own vocabulary.

While there are indeed fundamental technique things if you are playing physical instruments the process basically has to start with intense and thorough listening down to "ok what's the bass drum doing" "What's the snare drum doing" etc etc.

Just takes practice and dedication.

Good luck

Cool tjh... Yeah... that makes sense. I guess my big struggle right now is the software learning curve adding complexity to the rest. I don't want to invest big money into software to explore... I'm downloading demo versions of everything I can before taking the plunge...

There's quite a few forums out there, lots of people out to learn from.

fruity loops is an easy one to start on, just so you get an idea of how the patterns corelate to the rhythms. a DnB break usually lasts 16 bars. start with trying to get the bass drum in the right place and then the snare and just build it up from that.

FM8 (with it's new arpeggiator feature) is awesome for DNB - they even have a few presets for DNB specifically.

It's a tiny download, were you so inclined.

in the end tho, the beats will have to come from your own musical imagination. you can have all the best software ever written but your stuff will be good only if you have that innate ability to make interesting rhythms.

sorry to be a downer, but it's just the way it is.

but do keep trying. you may have the talent and just not know it yet.

and remember, practice, practice, practice.

I disagree that possessing a natural gift for music is required for creating solid electronic music, though as with anything it doesn't hurt. Take Astral Projection: boring and unoriginal, but it sounds really good. The most popular music tends to be simple yet exceptionally well mixed.

Familiarity with sound is what practice yields. What's needed is the ability to recognize that which both pleases the ear and interests the mind. Acquiring the technical savvy necessary realizing such sounds (electronically or otherwise) is a laughable hurdle compared to the lifelong challenge of honing one's musical listening skills.

I believe anyone can become a proficient amateur audio engineer but not without passion. My advice is to invest in a decent pair of flat-response phones and really listen to the music you wish to imitate. Spend more time listening to music that already makes you dance than aimlessly fiddling with your own masterpiece-of-the-day. Listen for something specific and then find a way to replicate it with whichever tools you have. In your downtime, read a lot about acoustics, a little about music.

I can't even recall how I got to this thread. Oops, I'm a dork.