Beat analysis

[brekehan]

I recently came across a pretty good video discussing beats as they relate to genre.
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/01/b ... in-session

I wanted to try some of these ideas. For example making a hip hop beat and doubling the tempo. I've only done trance at this point and am getting kind of bored with the 4/4 thing.

Is there a place that breaks down the basic beats discussed?

I don't even know how to make a basic hp hop beat or R&B, or two step, but I'd like to look at the structure of these in their most basic form.

[thomni]

Syncopation/swing is huge in hip hop, but hip hop is a huge genre in itself, so see how it sounds to you first.

Composition for Computer Musicians (a book) has a decent bit of info on drum patterns.

Or you can do some YouTube listening research. Just listen to Wu Tang Enter the 36 Chambers, Dr Dre 2001, or some other classics, and compare them to some of the newer songs you might see on the Billboard Hot 100 Rap/RnB now.

Or just

Kick
X--x--x--x-x---- or
X-------X-x-----
Snare
----X-------X---
Hat
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- or
x---x---x---x---

Comparing that to what you've probably done with trance, it's not so dissimilar. 4/4 kick patterns are even used occasionally. General tempo is 70-100 give or take about 10BPM

Tight grooves will get you far

[Loki Fuego]

Is there a place that breaks down the basic beats discussed?

This will help: http://quadrophone.com/98-2/drums/midi- ... s-for-edm/

And this will help if you want more: http://www.attackmagazine.com/technique/beat-dissected/

[dredd i knight]

you'll enjoy http://www.attackmagazine.com/technique ... y-hip-hop/
check out some of the others as well, to get some inspiration for the genres you want to play with...

[brekehan]

Excellent articles. Reading them over now.

One thing I often hear a couple different tones in the snare drum...a ringing to it almost like tom/snare together in Drum and Bass. Listen to the snare in the famous Amen break at 0:47, for what I mean, or in the Funky Drummer at 1:10 in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrBQ2ebzEZ8


I wonder it is the way the snare drum is hit in sampled acoustic drums and they always use sampled breaks, or if the effect is achievable using one shots of different snares, or if one could achieve it solely by modulating pitch on velocity. I want drums that sound like those breaks, but I want control of them. If I try to chop up a break the cymbals ringing always screw up a slice, speeding up tempo or down tempo make artifacts, etc.

[dredd i knight]

You're falling down the rabbit hole!
to achieve the sound of dnb especially given the 2 classics that you pointed out means sampling the original breaks, layering them gating them, chopping them etc.
playing amen at 45 for instance and then layering some fatter beats over it is one way to get there.

A lot of the cm music producer series that you can cop on youtube, show many dnb artists' differing methods for getting their beats together, but the overwhelming majority (if not all) use sampled breaks in some capacity.

Here's Chase and Status with their clean punchy breaky sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiMOyuw ... CZx27OZnPS


Others in this playlist will be interesting for you too.

[kbaccki]

I wonder it is the way the snare drum is hit in sampled acoustic drums and they always use sampled breaks, or if the effect is achievable using one shots of different snares, or if one could achieve it solely by modulating pitch on velocity. I want drums that sound like those breaks, but I want control of them. If I try to chop up a break the cymbals ringing always screw up a slice, speeding up tempo or down tempo make artifacts, etc.

It sounds like you're interested in more acoustically derived sounds. All of those examples are acoustic kits. The way they were originally produced (lots of ambiance, roomy, tight and dry, whatever) combined with some simple DAW FX (lo fi, vinyl, whatever) are what mostly contribute to the overall vibe. The beats themselves are simple, uncomplicated, as they should be.

For deriving that type of sound, and given that you want ultimate control over each drum, hit, and even control over articulation or nuance, I think you're bettr off starting with multi-sampled kits, and building the sound "forward" from there. Trying to reverse engineer somebody else's recording, chop, slice, filter, blah blah blah, would certainly work, but you really need some in depth knowledge of slicing/chopping/processing. If you lay down a bed of raw acoustic drums, figure out how to mangle that with simple FX (verb, saturation, eq, whatever), then you can spice up that bed after the fact with additional sounds, one shots, loops, etc. If you're struggling with your foundational elements from step 1, then maybe you're just wasting a lot of creative time? Dunno...

There are a number of free decent to really good quality multisampled kits out there...

http://www.orangetreesamples.com/downlo ... unkKit.rar. ( kontakt, but somebody made a SFZ mapping).

http://www.pettinhouse.com/html/download.html (some electro/fx freebie kits, as well as a couple of nice acoustic kits)

... come to mind.

Figure out how to effect those, find some one shots on the web for claps, synth kicks/snares, percussion, whatever... Lots of one shots out in the wild to choose from.

Those freebies are kontakt, SF2, SFZ, whatever... But you have direct access to the samples themselves so can map them into whatever sampler you're using. From there you have infinite control over every sound of the kit... No more filtering cymbals, finding loop points, etc.

Now all you have to worry about are the beats themselves... I'll post a follow up with some simple examples... Remember, simple is good. Simple is what you hear on your YouTube clippy.

[neptunes_ruby]

Awesome video.

[JCJR]

I know nothing of sampled loops in modern music, but re the question about the sound like a tom layered with a snare, in an acoustic kit-- I'm not a drummer but drummers tend to think a lot about their drums, spend a lot of money on them, constantly adjust and tune them, etc.

In some eras and genres were mooses of snare drums, about as deep as a rack tom, except set up like a snare. Perhaps that is what you are hearing. Some are very deep pitched but loud as a shotgun on stage, with authoritative crack on the top end. If the drummer brings one of those to the gig, there's no practical way to play it quiet, and you better put in your earplugs before the set begins!

But they do have nice tone for the appropriate music. Alternately, just fire a shotgun in time to the music.

Addendum: In the hands of an expert, a good snare of any size can be adjusted to sound like many entirely different drums. The downside being that it can take awhile to readjust for the different tones.

So big snares can be tuned high, or little snares tuned low. One of my favorite sounds is a tiny shallow piccolo snare tuned very low. Either live or recorded, such a tiny thing can sound real solid and present.