Electro Pop Drums: Super Neat Beat Cheat Sheet Video Lecture | Reason Tutorials: The Ultimate Guide - Video & Sound Editing

to start talking about electro-pop drums
let's first talk about drum machines you
might think you know about all of
reasons drum machines but did you know
that reason also comes with a secret
drum machine
this hidden drum machine has an
integrated waveform editor intuitive
sample layering beats slicing and
juggling capability and it automatically
wires each individual drum to a separate
mix channel for pro mix techniques I'm
talking about my favorite drum machine
in reason and it's not in the rack it's
in the sequencer but actually it is the
sequencer normally we do things like
drag samples onto kong pads and then
draw MIDI notes into the sequencer to
trigger those samples but what if we cut
out the middleman and drug those same
samples into the sequencer and arranged
them like MIDI notes not only is it more
visually clearer there's some distinct
advantages I'll be going through in this
tutorial now this certainly doesn't mean
that reasons drum machines are all
obsolete but follow along with me today
on an alternate way you might not have
considered working we'll start with our
kick drum even at this initial stage I
want to be mindful of the final mix when
I'm selecting my sounds pop song mixes
are incredibly dense in the mid
frequencies between synths guitars
melody hooks and vocals so the best way
for our drums to not get lost is to use
impactful sounds that fill in the lows
and the highs around the song I'm going
to build my drum loop by switching the
blocks view because it will let me build
a four measure loop and easily repeat it
throughout my song my favorite kick
drums in the factory sound Bank for
electro pop are the signature samples
from Shahrukh's I'll go to the bass
drums folder in our Kong patches sounds
and samples and for the sake of zeroing
in I'll type sha into the search bar to
filter this folder down to only sure
oozes contributions I love his do for
bass drum because it has a good attack
good low-end and it's heavily compressed
for maximum impact so I'll drag that
into the sequencer on the first beat of
the loop if we want that low-end to be
even lower we can simply transpose our
audio in the sequencer that's already
hitting hard but to get even more impact
and low-end out of our kick I'm going to
layer a few samples together let's add
another layer by simply dragging sure
oozes hard kick into the sequencer to
add another audio track if you're
following along at home
turn down the mixer
main fader because otherwise stacking
loud sounds like this will sound
distorted working directly in the
sequencer means I'm able to directly
manipulate samples for example I can
adjust the volume between my kick drum
layers or to shorten the decay of a drum
I can just shorten its clip length and
apply little fade we've covered the low
end now let's add one more layer to help
our kick drum cut in our mix will drag
ensure oozes be the full sample which
has lots of transient attack remember
back when we thought doofer was heavy
hitting if I saw you it now it sounds
anemic by comparison and that's sort of
over the top sonic assault is what pop
mixes need let's make sure our snap grid
is on and set to one quarter note and
let's duplicate our kick to every beat
of the first measure now snare drums
let's back out of the bass drums folder
and open the snare drums folder we're
looking again for totally in-your-face
compressed sounds I happen to know of
one such sound called big clap by the
Salazar brothers so we'll drag that to
beat too and just like we did with our
kick drum layers
let's mint this sample with a little
classic 909 style clap we'll go to the
claps folder and drag in the bomb squads
99 clap on top one of the things I love
about this sequencer approach to beat
making is that we can actually design
sounds which precede the beat let me
show you what I mean you see a clap is
the sound of two human hands clumsily
crashing into each other it's not
precise or neat so to bring this human
element to our beat let's grab a sample
that has a more realistic clap like
bling and let's drag that over top of
our big clap sample I know you're
thinking that we won't hear both samples
if they occupy the same space on the
same track but next let's turn off snap
and drag our bling sample back before
the beat just a little bit you'll notice
as we do this that it drops behind our
big clap sample if we now duplicate our
claps to the fourth beat can you hear it
here it is off
and now on it may not sound like much
but I'm telling you it makes a huge
difference in how our claps cut through
the mix and actually make people want to
clap along another advantage of working
in the sequencer is that we can color
code our drum sections kicks are orange
and now claps are blue and now that we
have our claps in place let's actually
turn down the kicks that occur
underneath the claps so that we get less
of a Club style four-on-the-floor sound
and more of a boom clap boom clap vibe a
lasso all the kicks under the claps and
adjust the clip handle to turn them down
even turn down the low end kicks still
reinforce our backbeat but if you
weren't listening for them it sounds
more like they're not there at all oh
but they're there if we mute them you
miss them don't you
I'll back out of the claps folder in the
browser and go to the cymbals instead
let's first get a very high end sizzle
sound like the ride sample slim courtesy
of EDM masters Adam Bayer and Kerry Lake
a bush you can see that our sample dies
out before we reach the next beat yet
again thanks to working directly in the
sequencer I can hold down the option key
and time stretch my sample to play
throughout the beat let's also turn it
down pretty substantially so it's just a
background sizzle and not a feature and
then copy it to every beat sounds good
now high hats I'll set my snap value to
1/16 and drag in a hi-hat sample with
lots of top end like the Salazar
brothers check I'll position it directly
on the upbeat now let's drag in one of
their other samples box and place it on
the spot just after the upbeat and we'll
duplicate those two clips to every beat
it's cool but all of these high hats
have kind of killed our backbeat vibe
it's almost back to feeling like a club
beat so what I'll do is select the
second and fourth clips of our sixteenth
note hi-hat track and delete them
hey there's our pop beat again for the
purposes of visual organization let's
make our top-end elements their own
color we're nearly there but not only do
we need to think about fighting for
space in the mixes frequency spectrum
but we should also consider the stereo
spectrum as well one way to help our
hi-hat up beats not get buried by melody
lines vocals or anything that's
occupying the center spot in our mix is
to proactively position them in the far
ends of our stereo spectrum in the mixer
I'll Pan the channel with my upbeat high
hats hard left now we need a right side
sound to go with our left side check
let's drag another Salizar brother
sample machine into the sequencer by the
height of the waveform alone we can
already see that this sample is quieter
than our check sample so let's push the
volume then pan this new channel hard
right in the mixer duplicate it and set
our track color to match our other high
hats we've completed one full measure
now let's make our beat four bars long
by last swing all the clips setting our
snap value to bar and option dragging to
duplicate until we have four measures on
the last time through the beat I'll
delete these high hats and in their
place I'll drag in trays you from the
red drum samples folder for a little
turnaround and that's our beat but I bet
you're wondering how it sounds in a full
pop song well not one to disappoint
let's switch back to song view and drag
our block into the song I've made
because we made mindful decisions about
low frequencies high frequencies and
stereo panning we still have space in
the mid frequencies if we were to for
example bring in a melody line
working in the sequencer like this means
that every sound has its own mix channel
if you want to employ Pro mixing
techniques like parallel processing on a
particular drum you just can I could go
on about other advantages like fader
grouping channel dynamics the ease of
bouncing stems and so on but hopefully
you can already see why the sequencer
Plus blocks is my favorite drum machine
in reason and hopefully you've gotten
inspired to make some of your own pop
music it's feel-good music that will
actually sharpen your skills you show me
a good pop music producer and I'll show
you a good all-around producer good luck
and I'll see you back here with another
tutorial
you