Please help. I'm a bit of a noob....

[D'n'bSFC]

Hey

I've just got FL 9 and I really want to start making some d'n'b and dubstep tunes. However I mostly want to make some good quality d'n'b songs. I've only recently started listening to d'n'b and dubstep due to people at my college forcing me to listen to it.... anyway now i'm starting to want to create some songs of my own. I use cubase at college but i already have Fruity Loops 9 on my computer so that's what I'll be using if anyone does want to help.

Atm i am finding it difficult to get the structure of my songs right. They either seem to trail off and lose the feel of the song or i keep on getting stuck into boxes of notes for the bass/synth. and I can't get very good harmonies with the various plug ins i'm using. Also i only have a dubstep kit which is any good and i haven't downloaded any plug ins for bass and what not, so if anyone could point me in the direction of some decent samples it would help a lot.

Finally, as i said i find cubase easier but i want to start working with FL. I KNOW i will have trouble with drops... instrumental breaks and so on. But most of all i would love to know if i could get some decent acepellas or what sub-genre would go well with d'n'b.

Hope someone could help me out here. Thankss

 

[miszt]

I'd recomend you stick with what you know, Cubase, its far more powerful anyway, and you can get student licences pretty cheap. If you have already bought and paid for FL, then fair enough, you can still get an awsome sound from it, search YouTube for tutorials, theres a thread on here aswell (see the DAW specific threads) dedicated to FruityLoops q?s

Its takes a while to get a decent production going, stick at it, work hard and practice lots, you'll get there in the end. Listen to lots of drum and bass, work out what you like, deconstruct the tracks and see what makes them tick, the structure, the way things build, how the precussion works, basslines shift and warp, etc

heres some Amen breaks to get you going that sum1 posted on here b4
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5455618/amenz.zip

....the Amen break is the foundation of drum and bass, as for Bass Samples, not really worth the effort at the moment, first you need to understand how Bass works in dnb, get FruityLoops analog synth out (TS404? I'm not sure, not a FL user), set it up with 2 Saw Wave OSc's, set Sustain to full, and detune one of the osc's by about 0.6semitones, this will give you a basic Phased Reece bass sound which you can build on with Distortion/chorus/filters/etc....getting it sounding good wont be a quick process of course, eq and compression alone are a major topic to learn, dubstep basslines are even more complicated.

Adding vocals to a track, succesfully, is quite an advanced process, i'd recomend you work on getting a half decent bassline working with precussion first, add sum synths, FX, etc, learn to EQ and compress properly, learn SideChaining, after that, then you will probly be ready to start playing with acapellas

getting a good sound has little to do with what synths you use, its all about how you use them, and that takes time to learn

hve fun

 

[D'n'bSFC]

Thanks mate. I#ve been listening to alot of chase & status atm so i am trying to decompose there songs. One of the things im hearing in difference between tracks of mine and other people is there kit sounds a lot less prominent and it seems to just blend in, whereas mine stands out far too much. I'm not sure what i could do. I tried to add reverb but on FL i find it difficult to get it going. And okay i shall leave the vocals for a while. But if anyone does know where to find some acepella samples it would be great for future reference. Thanks again.

 

[miszt]

all about EQ, compression, understanding stereo spacing and learning to mixdown, reverb isnt going to help, its rarely used in DnB for precussion, not to say that it cant be used, but its much harder to control and get things big and punchy

google 'accapellas4all', possibly the best source of vocals, you may find yourself frustrated more quickly tho if you try to fly before you can run

 

[Mr Fletch]

Hi mate, I use FL 8 so if I can help you in any way I'd be happy to. If you wanna hear any of my tracks just click the link in my sig.

As for acapellas, there's a site called www.acapellas4u.co.uk its free to sign up and you are allowed 30 downloads a month. Alternatively, grab audacity (it's free) and record your own samples from youtube or other such sites

 

[Sweaty Teddy]

Take one step at a time, although I don't really like much of the new chase and status material but their production is top notch and they have been doing it for years to aim for that quality straight away will only put you off producing because the your first few tunes are likely to be shit. I've been messing about with producing for a few years now and have only just started to be happy with the quality of my productions and there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The best thing for you to do is listen to plenty of different drum and bass artists, have a look round the general forum as there's way more to drum and bass then chase and status, sub focus and pendulum.

You also want to start building up a decent collection of samples, these two threads can get you started:

http://dnbforum.com/showthread.php?2088-The-Breaks-X-Change-Thread

http://dnbforum.com/showthread.php?21265-The-DNBForum-SampleSwap-thread

 

[richie_stix]

for me, one of the fundamental turning points was learning to use compression properly! i used to use it as an artistic tool, since i didnt really understand it... once i learned its proper application my tracks entered a new level!

also, it will take tiiiime before you get your 'sound' sorted

 

[D'n'bSFC]

Hi mate, I use FL 8 so if I can help you in any way I'd be happy to. If you wanna hear any of my tracks just click the link in my sig.

As for acapellas, there's a site called www.acapellas4u.co.uk its free to sign up and you are allowed 30 downloads a month. Alternatively, grab audacity (it's free) and record your own samples from youtube or other such sites

Hi mate, i listened to your songs really good stuff. Also seeing as you use FL do you know how to fade a track in/ out without editing the volume via sytrus or wasp etc..? Cheers.

Take one step at a time, although I don't really like much of the new chase and status material but their production is top notch and they have been doing it for years to aim for that quality straight away will only put you off producing because the your first few tunes are likely to be shit. I've been messing about with producing for a few years now and have only just started to be happy with the quality of my productions and there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The best thing for you to do is listen to plenty of different drum and bass artists, have a look round the general forum as there's way more to drum and bass then chase and status, sub focus and pendulum.

You also want to start building up a decent collection of samples, these two threads can get you started:

http://dnbforum.com/showthread.php?2088-The-Breaks-X-Change-Thread

http://dnbforum.com/showthread.php?21265-The-DNBForum-SampleSwap-thread

Hiya, yeah i undertsand that it will take me a long long time to get anywhere near there level however i'm finding it difficult to simplify the layers of music. It's clear to see that there's bass, drums, etc but i don't know where to go after that. Piano, Guitar, Synth? I always get lost at this point. And thanks for the links. Just what i've been looking for

for me, one of the fundamental turning points was learning to use compression properly! i used to use it as an artistic tool, since i didnt really understand it... once i learned its proper application my tracks entered a new level!

also, it will take tiiiime before you get your 'sound' sorted

Errrm it sounds good advice but i'm not sure what compression is/what it's used for. On my guitar it makes everything more distorted, and you have to play very tight to make it work. Does it make things simply louder? Cheers for reply

 

[Mr Fletch]

In answer to your question mate, just assign the track you want to fade in or out to a mixer channel, then automate the volume of that channel

 

[Phat_Sam]

for me, one of the fundamental turning points was learning to use compression properly! i used to use it as an artistic tool, since i didnt really understand it... once i learned its proper application my tracks entered a new level!

also, it will take tiiiime before you get your 'sound' sorted

Precisely this^

If you learn the science behind the production then it makes everything so much easier. Learn about selective EQing, compression, side chaining and (probably most importantly) the mixdown.

Getting to know the mixdown is a REALLY good starting point. If you know how to mix down a dnb track then it becomes so much easier. It takes time but eventually, you'll begin to know how to deal with certain instruments. e.g. You'll know how to use a kick that hits a certain freq range and how it can be compressed/EQed/altered to fit in with the track. The same with bass, pianos, organs, hi hat, strings etc...

Also, it takes time to get good (not like I'm the oracle or anything, just personal experience) don't be put off by the fact your tunes suck at first. Mine were all bags of shite up until about a week ago! But now I know what I'm doing much better than I did back then, I'm actually going back to some of my old tunes and revamping the ideas from them.

Happy Producing