First off, hello to everyone @ KVR.
Although this is my first post i have read through many articles and forum topics on this site and come back to it often as it is a great source of helpful advice and interesting info on music production.
I have tried making a Dubstep track recently with very little success. Taking the usual route of listening to various tracks and trying to figure out where each drum sample fits in, did not work for me this time. If somebody could explain to me the very basics of Dubstep drum programming i would be very thankful.
Please explain it to me as you would to a 5 year old, even screenshots of your drum sequencer are welcome, i'm really stuck like i haven't been in a long time. If you don't have the time to do it yourself please direct me to another topic or any other website or ebook.
Thanking you in advance, as i'm sure an answer will turn up here sooner or later.
Please explain to me the basics of Dubstep.
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lightsabers of paradise lightsabers of paradise https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=145437
- KVRer
- 2 posts since 28 Mar, 2007
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- KVRAF
- 1811 posts since 18 Jan, 2005 from Lost in the blinding whiteness of the tundra
First point: there are no rules for the drum programming. There was a Kode 9 quote that I can't remember exactly but which basically said that if it's 140 bpm with a heavy sub then anything else is up to you. If you listen to someone like Kode or Shackleton they can do all sorts of random shit with the drums, but still have it feel like dubstep. To me this is what people should aspire to rather than learning a set way of producing 'the dubstep beat' so they can produce loads of tedious generic stuff.
Okay, rant over, there are a number of standard beat patterns that come up a lot. I'm afraid you're going to get bad text beatboxing rather than screenshots though.
1) Halfstep. This is the classic / stereotypical dubstep rhythm so it's good to try to do something fresh with it rather than just trying to sound like Loefah. Kick drum on 1, snare or clap on 3. Extra snares, hats, claps and kicks scattered around the bar, but the emphasis is on 1 and 3. A lot of dubstep rhythms are quite jerky and assymetric, so look at having a lot of hits (particularly kicks, I think) on odd 16th notes, and maybe have a lot more hits in one half of the bar than the other (hence all those oom tikka tikka tikka clap *pause* oom tikka tikka tikka clap cl-clap sort of rhythms).
2) 4 by 4 - the house / techno type rhythm: kick drum on each beat, everything else scattered around the place. Mala and Skream both use this a lot in different ways. I think that what distinguishes a 4 by 4 dubstep tune from a house or techno tune is mostly the vibe, but there's also less of a tendancy to emphasize the second and fourth beats by sticking a snare or a clap on them. There's also a bit of a thing for using offbeat kicks, I think - dum dum dum d-dumdum dum dum dum d-dumdum sort of thing.
3) 2-step - the garage rhythm. Kick on 1, snares on 2 and four, often a hihat on the quaver offbeats and extra kicks and hihats scattered around the place. All sorts of dubstep beats can benefit from being swung, but for 2-step beats it's pretty much mandatory.
4) there's a weird soca influenced 2-step rhythm that you get from time to time. It's roughly kick on 1, 2 and 4 and clap on 2.5 and 4.5. This is all over early dubstep like Horsepower Productions.
But it seems to be pretty hard to pin down what precisely constitutes a dubstep track - it's like there's some kind of feeling or atmosphere or vibe to the tunes that's very hard to pin down to any technical elements. To me as a producer and (I think) to a lot of listeners, part of the fun is trying to see what sort of audacious stuff you can stick in a track and still have it work in the vibe...
Okay, rant over, there are a number of standard beat patterns that come up a lot. I'm afraid you're going to get bad text beatboxing rather than screenshots though.
1) Halfstep. This is the classic / stereotypical dubstep rhythm so it's good to try to do something fresh with it rather than just trying to sound like Loefah. Kick drum on 1, snare or clap on 3. Extra snares, hats, claps and kicks scattered around the bar, but the emphasis is on 1 and 3. A lot of dubstep rhythms are quite jerky and assymetric, so look at having a lot of hits (particularly kicks, I think) on odd 16th notes, and maybe have a lot more hits in one half of the bar than the other (hence all those oom tikka tikka tikka clap *pause* oom tikka tikka tikka clap cl-clap sort of rhythms).
2) 4 by 4 - the house / techno type rhythm: kick drum on each beat, everything else scattered around the place. Mala and Skream both use this a lot in different ways. I think that what distinguishes a 4 by 4 dubstep tune from a house or techno tune is mostly the vibe, but there's also less of a tendancy to emphasize the second and fourth beats by sticking a snare or a clap on them. There's also a bit of a thing for using offbeat kicks, I think - dum dum dum d-dumdum dum dum dum d-dumdum sort of thing.
3) 2-step - the garage rhythm. Kick on 1, snares on 2 and four, often a hihat on the quaver offbeats and extra kicks and hihats scattered around the place. All sorts of dubstep beats can benefit from being swung, but for 2-step beats it's pretty much mandatory.
4) there's a weird soca influenced 2-step rhythm that you get from time to time. It's roughly kick on 1, 2 and 4 and clap on 2.5 and 4.5. This is all over early dubstep like Horsepower Productions.
But it seems to be pretty hard to pin down what precisely constitutes a dubstep track - it's like there's some kind of feeling or atmosphere or vibe to the tunes that's very hard to pin down to any technical elements. To me as a producer and (I think) to a lot of listeners, part of the fun is trying to see what sort of audacious stuff you can stick in a track and still have it work in the vibe...
It's a rave, Lewis!
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lightsabers of paradise lightsabers of paradise https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=145437
- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 2 posts since 28 Mar, 2007
A valid point, but i'm not trying to produce a generic Dubstep track, i just need a starting point. Thank you for the examples i will study them thoroughly.
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- KVRAF
- 1811 posts since 18 Jan, 2005 from Lost in the blinding whiteness of the tundra
Heh heh, sorry to be patronising - dubstep is always in danger of being swamped by generic angsty halfstep + wobble tunes, so I tend to stick that disclaimer on everything to do with it...
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- KVRAF
- 3617 posts since 26 Sep, 2003 from Bradford - The Armpit of Britain
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afreshcupofjoe afreshcupofjoe https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=94815
- KVRAF
- 1838 posts since 17 Jan, 2006 from Portland, OR
Wobble. 
Dubstep seems to be more about the vibe. It's still all over the place production-wise, so it's a lot harder than say trance, DNB, or techno where you can start with a basic formula and expand from there. The only cliches at this point seem to be wobbly basslines, broken beats, and dub-delay. Maybe it would help if you pointed to a couple of tracks, particular artists, or sounds that you're interested in so we know where to start? I've been dabbling in some dubstep here and there lately, but never really tried to make a track, so it would be a learning experience for me to try to recreate some of this stuff too.