Producing liquid drum and bass

westy70

westy70

Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2016
Location
West midlands
Hi people this is one of my first posts on the forum.

long time dnb head here, im a novice producer, I know the basics of dnb production but want to get into producing liquid drum and bass, sorry if this has been asked a thousand times before but looking for some advice? thanks in advance for any advice given will be much apreciated,

My DAW of choice is fl studio.

hopefully ive posted in the right place and much love to all my junglists....
 
I dont make much liquid so not sure what to help with. What style are you going for, deeper stuff? Can you play chords? If youve got any tunes youve already made (any style) then link them im sure it will be easier to help you then
 
Thanks for the reply dude, looking to produce deeper stuff with a mellow feel, Just starting to learn chords writing my music theory up into a book from the loopmasters website on understanding chords and chord progressions. Also just got myself a m audio midi keyboard and in the process of building a little studio. Struggling to get that liquid feel in my production and was just wondering if theres any ways i can improve on my technique aside from learning my chords. really trying to absorb as much i can, i understand its a lengthy process learning to make sounds that your actually actually happy with...I can follow tutorial after tutorial on youtube but it doesn't quite get me making my own liquid sounds from scratch...Sorry if i seem abit slow with this, its a real dream that i want to follow....EDIT: will try and get some of my current material up on here later need to sort my soundcloud out....thanks in advance :)
 
Yeah the m audio will make things easier. I can give you some ideas but as i said, I dont delve into it much
1. Dont be afraid to put distortion/multiband distortion on bass as that really gives a nice warmth which is key with this style, obviousy cut out the freq you dont want, when i make bass like that i may cut about at 200-300 depends on what higher freqs are on the bass to begin with
2. basic side chaining to bass can give better movement, its when you think that movement is needed, sometimes ill sidechain the bass but not the sub. also sidechain your break/cymbals/percussion to the kick is a nice way to get things moving, again, try it out you might not think that it calls for it
3. clap/sidestick type percussion is normally better in this style for snare, well i hear it mostly. also i find a great way to beef up these style of snares is to use percussion that doesnt have much tone its more of a bog standard hit, just so it adds to the clap
4. sometimes the chord or musical elements are not playing a obvious seqeunce or melody its used more as an fx. try reverse a nice jaz chord with fxs on it or play a sustained chord with fx, then bounce it and reverse like the tail of it, or the part that you can cut a bar out of. its all about composition and placement.

This are just ideas that i sometimes use, thats pretty much all my learning capabilities are especially with this style. Just keep listening to the music you are inspired by and analyse, the better you get the more you can relate to the production of tunes and realise that the techniques are sometimes quite simple, but effective.
Another quick tip on the bass is too make quite a dirty bass in whatever synth you use, add saturation and multi distortion and stuff, then cut all the high off, that 9/10 gets me sick subs and warm bass', and try putting an envelope in the synth on the pitch, instant attack and a quick delay will get you that stab at the start that may come in useful, great for 808 imitation or when you wanna use a bass as percussive element. hope this helps
 
liquid is good fun, i like producing it myself too. I'll let LSB do the tutoring though:
hopefully youve heard of LSB, that particular track is absolutely incredible.
Aside from all those little tricks, sample old records, listen to old shit, go check out http://www.whosampled.com/ and search for your fave liquid artists.
I've found routing spotify through my desk into my daw a good way to sample with out the need for decks.
practice and iterate :)
 
been sat taking this in all day and taking notes. many thanks! and to you howitzer i love lsb, also love netsky, alphabet pony, bcee, etc :) very nifty video to help me get the feel...very grateful for all the help people extremely useful and good forum!
 
westy70 said:
Thats awesome dude, had a little bounce to that, good bit of inspiration right there, genuinely right up my street.... how long have you been writing may i ask?
Click to expand...

much appreciated man! Well just up to 6 years now, early this year did i start getting labels accept tunes ive i worked on ive got a few releases lined up and more to come, its taken me a while to get here and ive still got a lot to learn but its paying off and it keeps getting better!
 
I think with liquid you need a better understanding of theory than with a lot of other subgenres because it's so influenced by jazz, soul etc. If you learn the sort of standard jazz chord progressions like 251 etc and how to play more harmonically rich chords like sevenths, ninths, diminished, half-diminished and stuff like that you'll be in good stead. There's plenty of articles out there online on how to play jazz
 
Hello, Westy.
I would recommend you to try out some sampling too. That way you could make some decent stuff even if you don't really know chords, scales etc. You will be amazed how much you can do with one sample which is sliced up, reversed, stretched, pitched up or down, effected with delay, reverb, eq, chorus etc... Add Low-passed reece bass and drums by your choice. Someone mentioned reversed pianos, same goes to guitars and vocals. Sometimes I like to add a lot of reverb to the sample so its washed out and Im left with the atmosphere. Try to play around with the high freq, try to cut them off and listen how the whole feel of the song has changed you will be amazed how things can change and sound deeper if you do it smart.

Actually you dont need to sample actual tunes just dig around the web and get some free sample packs or buy paid ones and try to flip those sounds. (But dont look up for drum and bass related ones only, search for some RnB or POP ones).

Bring some live sounds from field recordings.

My top VST's are FM8, MASSIVE, Sylenth1, Omnisphere + native stuff from Ableton.

Effects:
EQ, Limiter, Filter - From Fabfilters
Reverb - Vallhala Room
Chorus/Phaser/Delay/Compressor/Saturator - Abletons native one

P.S. - And if you are stuck in 8bar loop, then try to bring your fav tune and replicate arrangement.

Be creative, be serious about your passion and enjoy this beautiful trip as music producer, mate.
 
I'd suggest maybe looking into applied acoustics systems their instruments are really cool and I'm starting to explore chromaphone and strings vs 2 too add it too some projects. I don't know why but whenever I think of making liquid I like to try get really ethereal sounding arp in there that could almost be repeated throughout the song with minor filter and fx automation
 
Warning: I'm about to piss off a lot of people with this post (but don't give a damn).
-- > Since when the essence of making music is about chord progression theory bullshit? Or about sub-genre codes or rules?

As much as I know about music (spent my whole life in music conservatory) and as much as I love liquid (hence my description), it really gets me on my f*cking nerves to see people - producers or not - blabbing about how things are done or should be done.
Here mate is the one and only advice you must have to begin with:
Make music from your heart.
Dont make music to imitate,
Nor to respect rules,
Nor from a specific technique,
Nor to please other people more than yourself.

You must know that the best tunes in any genre have been made by complete accident while trying NOT to respect rules or usual techniques.
If you want to find your sound, you just need your EAR.

Because it is your ear that will design your definition of 'beautiful', your definition of 'innovative', your definition of 'finished', of not 'good enough', of 'similar' to this or that (when trying to reproduce a specific sound design you heard).

What defines you as an artist is your taste for what you aspire to make.

And when I bitch about chord progression theory and producing tips, of course I'm not trying to be a nazi saying all of this is crap, but when giving advice to someone who's beginning, the only thing that should matter would be to keep this someone from getting LOST (like so many people).

Don't get lost in production skills learning or theory or sample tweeking, focus only on your EAR, your IDEAS.

I think when you begin you just need to MAKE music first and then make sound design, chord progression and samples fit the melody you have in mind, not the other way around.
Otherwise you will get lost.

Of course when you get (really really) skilled you'll be able to throw your skills at your DAW without any idea in mind and then your ear will spot some parts of what you have no idea you were doing at first to assemble it as a whole piece of music.

I think people are waaaaay too much forgetting about this progression path and trying too early to use skills they barely master on a complete lack of musical ideas. So they go learn chord progression or use sample theory crap to try and make it sound like actual music.
But c'mon fellas this is just bad. This defines bad musicians, those who didn't develop their EARS, and thought the fingers could do all by themselves. Maybe that's why we don't have that many good producers out there.

Hope it helps.
Sorry for the rage, but I'm very passionate about this.
Just don't be afraid of what your mind wants to create. Try try try try and one day this will finally sound how you wanted it to be or sometimes surprisingly even better.
;)
 
Last edited:
Hash'N'Tag said:
Warning: I'm about to piss off a lot of people with this post (but don't give damn).
-- > Since when the essence of making music is about chord progression theory bullshit? Or about sub-genre codes or rules?

As much as I know about music (spent my whole life in music conservatory) and as much as love liquid (hence my description), it really gets me on my f*cking nerves to see people - producers or not - blabbing about how things are done or should be done.
Here mate is the one and only advice you must have to begin with:
Make music from your heart.
Dont make music to imitate,
Nor to respect rules,
Nor from a specific technique,
Nor please other people more than yourself.

You must know than the best tunes in any genre have been made by complete accident while trying NOT to respect rules or usual technique.
If you want to find your sound, you just need you EAR.

Because it is your ear that will define your definition of beautiful, your definition of innovative, your definition of finished, of not good enough, of similar to this or that (when trying to reproduce a specific sound design you heard).

What defines you as an artist is your taste for what you aspire to make.

And when I bitch about chord progression theory and producing tips, of course I'm not a nazi saying all of this is crap, but when giving advices to someone beginning, the only thing that should matter it to keep this someone from getting LOST (like so many people).

Don't get lost in production skills learning or theory or sample tweeking, focus only on your EAR, your IDEAS.

I think when you begin you just need to MAKE music first and then make sound design, chord progression and sample fit the melody you have in mind, not the other way around.
Otherwise you will get lost.

Of course when you get (really really) skilled you'll be able to throw at you DAW without any idea in mind and then you ear will spot some part of what you have no idea what you were doing at first to assemble it as a whole piece of music.

I think people are waaaaay too much forgetting about this progression path and trying too early to use skills they barely master on a complete lack of musical ideas, a complete lack of melody. So they go learn chord progression of use sample to try and make it sound like actual music.
But c'mon fellas this is just bad. This defines bad musicians, those who didn't develop their EARS, and thought the fingers could do all by themselves. Maybe that's why we don't have that many good producers out there.

Hope it help.
Sorry for the rage, but I'm very passionate about this.
Just don't be afraid of what your mind wants to create. Try try try try and one day this will finally sound how you wanted it to be or sometimes surprisingly even better.
;)
Click to expand...
Wow lmfao
 
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