how you make your beats

Hi narkoba ! I have more or less the same problem with the beats.... I use the Vsti called "battery", its much better then the one of ableton but still not very easy to get the right flow..also it takes realy much time to make something with this one, also its maybe just a question of experience, donno...

I'm also looking after some ideas, so...

Grtzzz

Well, it's all a matter of tweaking, trying and not giving up... I've made beats with fruity loops, reason,rubber duck ( lol ) and recently I use hardware for that ( boss dr 660 / korg electribe / ...) In the beginning, when I only used computer, I made many different loops in reason or fruity,adding numbers of fx and stuff... Then I imported them in Nuendo ( I used to use that ) and started to build my track... To get the groove going the first thing I did was add some reverb ( not much ) ,but you can allways change the decay value of the beats...

If u check my tracks, these are computer only :

• Under Siege
• Pariah
• Spiritual Downfall
• When our freedom dies

To make your beats sound more puchy , try this :

create the beat ( or just pick one ) use compression check the main frequency in the kick ( with frequency analysis ) ,mostly 'round 80hz cut that frequency ( or lower it ) out of your bassline

The main secret is placement of sounds, this means every sound should have it's own place in the frequency range... I didn't know that when I made my first tracks, but now I try to respect that , and I can hear a significant improvement in my sound.

This is especially important with beat and bass, cut the main freq off the beat out the bass and vice versa ( cut or lower )

For the rest, try try try...and try again, use some reverb ( gently ) on the beats before you compress them...

Just a few thoughts 8)

hi there,

i don't think there is a better way to do a beat. it all depend on your groove and your feelings but i use Dr.rex from reason to sequence because it's the easiest way for me to variate my drums, and create a track in ableton for the fx and masterise the Dr.rex track by rewire. Also use a vst called micro tonic (very powerfull) and another from tweakbench called minerva because it's all granular and free...Tweakbench

like Distreality said, the secret is the placement of the sounds, keep in minds

greetings

yeah, the secret is in the placement of the sound, the sounds you use ( not the same freq for two sounds ) and most important imho : try, try, try and never stop it :)

personnaly i use the redrum of reason to do my ritmiks, i think it's the easiest...

I usualy begin with fruity loops, i also put just a bit of reverb on some sound, like the snares, then export->cubase, i use fx->export->slice what i like and i recompose a new beat>fx->slice...etc etc etc... to make a good kick or snares i superpose different sound.

you can begin with a sampled ryhtmique the result come so far from the one used.

I also put different rythmic on different piste to cut just some part of them

i think reason redrum or a 808 clone (like fruity) is the easiest to program... you don't have to load the presetz but u can load any sample...

i also like battery but indeed it's less fun to program... instead i try to use it with a keyboard or drumpadz to record the notez so that the drumz soundz less 'programmed'

disreality is right about frequencies... to me it's the hardest part and it often happens that using lots of sound in reason pushes away some drumsounds... to decrease this, i usely split reason inputs thru the cubase mixer...

it takes more time and cablez but hardware still seems to give me a better 'drive'

reverb, delay and chorus work fine on a snare, but be careful with it on a kick...

dunno if this could be handy but i like to put reverbs on beats and tweak them constantly using automation ( in reason ) or what i also often do is creating different beats with different drumkits and try to merge them and change the structure of my hihats and that kinds of stuff but i'm not really a beat expert so i hope this could be useful ;)

My little trick is to use a PHATT compression... Do at first a 4/4 loop with plenty ( about 20, yeah ) different hats, snares and clicks. Make each one do a different pattern that would make it if it were solo.

Once you have a crowded 4 beats loop, you need to sidechain compress on a single 4/4 kick with a BIG ratio, little attack and long release ( not too long, just to have it released when then next kick comes ).

That will make the sound pump and you will get all the groove from that compression.

To sidechain-compress with reason, you could use the sidechain in of the mclass compressor, with a SEND on your redrum kick channel, passing thru an EQ to higher its bass level ( don't mind if it's saturating, nobody but the compressor will hear it ) and then input that signal on the sidechain in.

To pseudo-sidechain-compress with fruity loops, use a peak controller with a rather high base value and a negative beat value, that will make the controller lower the controls on the kick. Then attach your desired channels on that controller's peak value, and voila !

I'd be glad to explain it better if someone didn't understood :)

Example : Jordan Waeles - Remember me

lots of interesting ideas to catch !!! I will try this out very soon, also I used to try things out with a compressor and it worked pretty well, but I'm sure I can still make it a lot better, so I will remember one thing about those replies: "try try try" :)

alright, thanks for the usefull comments.

and how do you guys program hihats? or rides? just playing with the velocity? or with different samples to get the feel right?

i use different samples and play with the velocity. in the drum module of ableton there is also an auto function, which changes the sound of the sample. which is quite nice to get da groooove :)

any more tricks on hihats and stuff?

it's true that you need the eq your track so the frequencies don't overlap. this way you create more space in the mix for the other 'instruments' to breath