DnB MrE's DnB diary

MrE

Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
Location
England
Hello beautiful people.

First post on here and i'm not gonna mess about. I want to learn how to make drum and bass. I've spent many many years on the other side of the speakers and loved every minute of it. However it recently occurred to me that my understanding of the fundamentals was sadly lacking. A situation I intend to remedy. Let me state that i'm not looking to become a supa star dj :) I am doing this purely for my own enjoyment and to learn a new skill.

I am using ableton 9 and various plug ins. Here is my idea.

I'll make something and post it up here for C+C, all those of you that are willing to join me in my endeavor will take it rip it to pieces play with it, help me improve it and post your efforts back up in this thread. I'll then take that and add to it and rinse and repeat until we've made my first track. This is purely a learning exercise and a chance for me to get to know and interact with some of you. If anything good should come of it (highly unlikely I would imagine) then please feel free to do whatever you will with it.

Does this sound like something that any of you would be interested in? any takers?

If so i'll get to work on my first 4 bar drum loop and we'll take it from there. I'll be starting off proper basic and building up as I go.

It's a commonly held opinion that practice makes perfect. It's an opinion I disagree with. If you're practicing how to do something wrong you just end up being really good at being bad. PERFECT practice makes perfect I think and that is where you guys come in. Hopefully you'll help me to practice the right things.

Thanks for reading.
 
No offence meant, but I think that most people on this forum have better things to do than constantly teach you... there are paid courses for things like this, I think, if you're interested.

If you make a track, then put it up here you should get some advice, but don't expect more than a few sentences per track. There are too many people out there trying to do what you do for any kind of personal tutoring to go on.

This doesn't mean that you can't learn, but you have to find things out for yourself. Go and buy an issue of computer music magazine, that was my starting point. It's a bit pricey for a magazine at £6.25, but it's really useful and always comes with free software and samples.
Also check out the phat sam's sticky at the top of this forum.

There are plenty of youtube tutorials and if you do have specific questions that you can't figure out for yourself, you can ask here.

Having said all that, I'll crit everything you do by E-mail if you pay me £20 when you finish your first track. ;) (I've no idea how to use Ableton, so that could be interesting...)
 
Sounds cool, I'm willing to help :3 Love stuff like this. To clarify, I don't use Ableton (Logic & FL user here), but I could still give some general tips
 
No offence meant, but I think that most people on this forum have better things to do than constantly teach you... there are paid courses for things like this, I think, if you're interested.

If you make a track, then put it up here you should get some advice, but don't expect more than a few sentences per track. There are too many people out there trying to do what you do for any kind of personal tutoring to go on.

This doesn't mean that you can't learn, but you have to find things out for yourself. Go and buy an issue of computer music magazine, that was my starting point. It's a bit pricey for a magazine at £6.25, but it's really useful and always comes with free software and samples.
Also check out the phat sam's sticky at the top of this forum.

There are plenty of youtube tutorials and if you do have specific questions that you can't figure out for yourself, you can ask here.

Having said all that, I'll crit everything you do by E-mail if you pay me £20 when you finish your first track. ;) (I've no idea how to use Ableton, so that could be interesting...)

No offence taken. Just thought that many here would have had someone take them under their wing and help them out at some point and may actually enjoy passing that forward. Maybe a little naive I know. This wasn't supposed to be a chore but fun for anyone that got involved. I'm already well on with CM and you tube and have my eye on a few different courses (once ive gotten xmas out of the way) I'm not looking for an easy ride, i'm more than willing to put the effort in (and am already pouring hours and hours into this extremely addictive new hobby) however sometimes a little human interaction is worth a thousand articles ya know.

Also if your crit is worth £20 quid i'll pay it happily :)

- - - Updated - - -

Sounds cool, I'm willing to help :3 Love stuff like this. To clarify, I don't use Ableton (Logic & FL user here), but I could still give some general tips

Thanks buddy, thought this was gonna go down like a lead balloon for a minute there. I'll get cracking then.
 
Just so you know, I'm not exactly an industry professional lol. I'm sort of a noob (only been producing a year or so). I'm mainly just thinking I could give some critique as a listener and fellow beginner
 
I'm not looking for private lessons from Andy C mate haha. Just a platform for discussion and another way to learn. I appreciate you jumping in whatever level you're at so thank you.
 
Hello beautiful people.

First post on here and i'm not gonna mess about. I want to learn how to make drum and bass. I've spent many many years on the other side of the speakers and loved every minute of it. However it recently occurred to me that my understanding of the fundamentals was sadly lacking. A situation I intend to remedy. Let me state that i'm not looking to become a supa star dj :) I am doing this purely for my own enjoyment and to learn a new skill.

I am using ableton 9 and various plug ins. Here is my idea.

I'll make something and post it up here for C+C, all those of you that are willing to join me in my endeavor will take it rip it to pieces play with it, help me improve it and post your efforts back up in this thread. I'll then take that and add to it and rinse and repeat until we've made my first track. This is purely a learning exercise and a chance for me to get to know and interact with some of you. If anything good should come of it (highly unlikely I would imagine) then please feel free to do whatever you will with it.

Does this sound like something that any of you would be interested in? any takers?

If so i'll get to work on my first 4 bar drum loop and we'll take it from there. I'll be starting off proper basic and building up as I go.

It's a commonly held opinion that practice makes perfect. It's an opinion I disagree with. If you're practicing how to do something wrong you just end up being really good at being bad. PERFECT practice makes perfect I think and that is where you guys come in. Hopefully you'll help me to practice the right things.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to the forum MrE. :)

I sincerely applaud your enthusiasm with regards to coming over to the other side of the speakers (aka the Dark Side).

As smoothassilk put it, many of us here simply don't have the time for a collob-ucation (yes, I just made up that word lol). That said, there are tons of amazing tutorials, tips, etc. to be found within this forum as well as posts that contain links to helpful videos and other content to aid in your thirst for knowledge. To add, there are also some extremely well known artists/labels who frequent this board and provide some great incite as well (ex. BluMarTen) so there is no shortage of of useful info on this board. In other the words: the forum search engine is your friend. Get to know it well, perhaps buy it a steak dinner and take it back to your place for some late night cocktails, etc.

I would also check out the previously mentioned Computer Music magazine, Masterclass Production videos via YouTube and look into the website MacProVideo.com. I've shilled the shit out of this website since I've been a member of this forum. Yes, it requires a paid membership, but the value of the content from the lessons is truly priceless as there is a course for everything you can possibly imagine–Ableton, Logic, Native Instruments, MIDI, iOS apps, FL Studio, composing/arranging songs, etc. To add, the "instructors" of each course know their shit, and some instructors are well known producers such as the legendary Olav Basoski.

Again, if you can find someone to collab with and give you some pointers, go for it. However, one of the best parts of the journey into the endless class that is Music Production 101 is learning & discovering things on your own. You'll eventually start connecting the dots and having lots of euphoric "a-ha" moments as well as moments where you want to slam your laptop into a brick wall and shout obscenities at the top of your lungs due to sheer frustration.

Godspeed on your journey into the infinite abyss that is music production.
 
I'm pretty much a beginner myself, and I know how hard it can be when you got ideas in your head but you just don't know how to make it work in the software. I would be happy to provide feedback, free of charge. :)

Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk 2
 
1st off don't be paying that dude £20 for some feedback. It's never gonna be worth it. Music is an art, your art will never please everyone, and so one person's feedback on it will never be gospel truth. I used to run a feedback blog a while back that got a lot of interest (some of the guys on here will probably be able to vouch for that) But I done it for free, purely because I thought people deserved some more in depth detailed feedback on their tracks instead of one or two words that don't mean jack! Opinion is never worth paying for!

This site is top notch when it comes to learning stuff, I learnt most of my techniques from this site throughout the years of my being part of the community, and as a result I'm willing to offer any tips or advice I can give. Don't be shy to ask something, even if you think it may sound stupid. Always use the search function 1st as chances are the things you want to ask, have been asked a million times before, but if they havnt, ask away and someone around here will be able to help you.
 
Thanks Fletch I really appreciate that mate. I've been happy with the progress i've been making but seem to have hit a wall that I can't get over. I'm happy programming beats now and think I have a good enough understanding of whats going on there to keep on practicing until i'm not terrible at them anymore, but I am struggling with the basslines (how many millions of time have you heard that? haha) I'ts difficult to be specific about where i'm struggling, i've made some killer sounds but I am struggling to mesh them with the drums. Are there any basic guidelines on how the bass should interact with the drums? Like should I avoid placing a bass note on top of a kick drum?

I'm working with the most basic drum pattern (kick on the first and sixth eighth notes, snares on 3 and 7)

I just need an example of a basic bassline pattern that works with this I think so I can actually start learning

That's why I was hoping that if I posted up the drum loop i've put together someone who uses ableton would be able to throw a quick bass loop on top of it and pass it back so I can really dissect it and look at whats going on.

I am brand spanking new to all of this so if i'm breaking any kind of etiquette or asking stupid questions then I apologize in advance

I will get where I want to be eventually one way or another!!!!
 
Ive been here for about a year now and learned a TON!!!. . . . .Welcome to the rabbit hole of production. You'll no longer listen to music like a normal person hahaha. Once you learn a great deal, you'll realize that you're only scratching the surface. Some people break at that point. I wish you the best.

With that being said, theres a few solid producers on this site that you'll learn to listen to more so than others, ( a couple already commented on this thread). we're all at different stages in our endeavors. So take crits with a grain of salt and make music that feels good.
You'll find yourself worrying about gain structure, depth, width, phasing and a million other tedious things during the process but don't forget the most important thing. . . . your making music. So I'd say its best to not worry about making any masterpieces for a while, just learn the DAW. play with loops for a while till you know your way around Ableton to some extent.

The most important things To pay attention to at this point are:
-Learn Ableton shortcuts.
-Focus on How to EQ each track or sound properly
-Dont Smash the levels to the ceiling.
-Less is more
-Dont collect a million vst's without first being able to use whats at your disposal.
-NI Massive is not the end all of bass synths Hahaha
 
Thanks Fletch I really appreciate that mate. I've been happy with the progress i've been making but seem to have hit a wall that I can't get over. I'm happy programming beats now and think I have a good enough understanding of whats going on there to keep on practicing until i'm not terrible at them anymore, but I am struggling with the basslines (how many millions of time have you heard that? haha) I'ts difficult to be specific about where i'm struggling, i've made some killer sounds but I am struggling to mesh them with the drums. Are there any basic guidelines on how the bass should interact with the drums? Like should I avoid placing a bass note on top of a kick drum?

I'm working with the most basic drum pattern (kick on the first and sixth eighth notes, snares on 3 and 7)

I just need an example of a basic bassline pattern that works with this I think so I can actually start learning

That's why I was hoping that if I posted up the drum loop i've put together someone who uses ableton would be able to throw a quick bass loop on top of it and pass it back so I can really dissect it and look at whats going on.

I am brand spanking new to all of this so if i'm breaking any kind of etiquette or asking stupid questions then I apologize in advance

I will get where I want to be eventually one way or another!!!!

I'm not sure if anyone's going to make a bass loop for you man, but you posting the drum loop would definitely help :rasta:
 
I'm not sure if anyone's going to make a bass loop for you man, but you posting the drum loop would definitely help :rasta:

Yup, i've read around a fair bit on here the past few days and realised now just how I sound!!!

New plan. Just gonna use this thread to track my progress and hope that every now and then I get a few useful pointers about where i'm going wrong.

At work right now but will post up the drums i've been working on when I get home later.
 
Right, I use Ableton (although I'm still using 8 right now), Send me a wav of your drum loop, and I'll throw a bassline over it for you. Let me know what synth's you are using as I may have to render the bass out as a wav file too if we don't use the same synth's.

What exactly are you trying to learn at this exact point? I mean bassline wise? Do you want to learn how to create the actual sounds? or is it more placement of notes you are after?
 
Right, I use Ableton (although I'm still using 8 right now), Send me a wav of your drum loop, and I'll throw a bassline over it for you. Let me know what synth's you are using as I may have to render the bass out as a wav file too if we don't use the same synth's.

What exactly are you trying to learn at this exact point? I mean bassline wise? Do you want to learn how to create the actual sounds? or is it more placement of notes you are after?

Legend.

It's placements of notes I think i'm struggling with, There seems to be enough info around regarding making sounds and i'm confident that if I keep reading and watching that'll i'll gradually improve. There seems to be very little info however regarding how to actually arrange bass, and i'm just looking for a starting point. Ok just got in from work now will have drums up shortly.

Also thanks to everyone that has offered support and encouragement thus far. You've all been where I am now so I know you know how much it means.

EDIT: Ok so what do I need to do to upload wav files in here? I'm using the search function now to try and suss it, but so far having no joy. will keep trying to work it out until I do or someone enlightens me here.

Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Just upload it to a fileshare site or something like dropbox (if you have it?)

The reason there isn't really much on placement of notes is because that is something that the artist has to decide. No one can really tell you where to place notes to make it work, if that were the case, there would be a limited amount of basslines ever used, and tracks would constantly be repeating each others basslines. This is where freedom of expression comes into play and the artist chooses where to place the notes. What i'll do is write a couple of different basslines over your drums once you send them to give you an idea of what can be done, but you really gotta just dive in and not think too much about it, just mess around and eventually you'll come up with something you like the sound of.
 
Just upload it to a fileshare site or something like dropbox (if you have it?)

The reason there isn't really much on placement of notes is because that is something that the artist has to decide. No one can really tell you where to place notes to make it work, if that were the case, there would be a limited amount of basslines ever used, and tracks would constantly be repeating each others basslines. This is where freedom of expression comes into play and the artist chooses where to place the notes. What i'll do is write a couple of different basslines over your drums once you send them to give you an idea of what can be done, but you really gotta just dive in and not think too much about it, just mess around and eventually you'll come up with something you like the sound of.

Yeah I get what you're saying, thanks for your continued patience.

Anyway i've come a fair way in a coupla weeks. I've gone from being totally useless to just plain terrible. Here is my first attempt at something that loosely resembles a drum and bass drum pattern.


http://www.mediafire.com/listen/q4o41o23cqy1qjs

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5wxg5o5pz2n76ek

Cheers mate.
 
that's an ALS file (ableton) upload a wav file (audio) of your drums for me to work with fella ;)

Basically export the drum pattern out of ableton to audio then send me that audio
 
I put both the .als and a wav file up mate? I think?

The first link is the wav. I have no idea how to send it to you?

I tried the attachment thingy and it said no dice.

I did export the drums out of ableton though as a wav. Then uploaded that wav to media fire, and then pasted the link up above. What do I need to do next?
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom