Liquid Drum n' Bass: Super Neat Beat Cheat Sheet Video Lecture | Reason Tutorials: The Ultimate Guide - Video & Sound Editing

drum and bass came about in the UK
during the 90s a dark time when internet
service there was still charged by the
minute and nobody yet knew the word
zigazig ah using primitive samplers drum
and bass pioneers found that laid-back
simple drum breaks like this sounded
even cooler when you pitch them up on
the sampler and they sounded even cooler
when you juggle the rhythm around in the
20 years since drum and bass has
splintered off into many subgenres but
one modern and popular style is liquid
drum and bass liquid drum and bass fuses
drum and basses essence with the tonal
qualities of ambient and even commercial
EDM production styles but one thing that
has remained throughout drum and basses
many subgenres is the tempo let's set
our tempo today to 175 the construction
of the actual beat is really simple so
let's get that going first using red
drum yes red drum and not Reed rum if
you've seen the shining you'll get it as
usual let's right-click and reset our
device to clear it out we'll go to our
Kong sounds and samples folder bass
drums and barge is a favourite of mine
for making punchy electronic sounding
kicks let's shorten the sample length
for an even tighter sound and lower the
pitch by now in this series you've
probably realized that I'm a fan of
layering drum samples so let's add a
grow to channel 2 and lower its pitch
we'll also shorten its length because we
don't want a big trap style 808 boom
layering drums in Redrum lets us dip our
toes into reasons Otherworld the back of
the rack reasons rack allows for
amazingly advanced signal routing and
there's different signal types you can
patch between devices but today we'll
focus on red drums Gate jacks let's
patch a gate out from the first channel
to the gate in of the second now when we
trigger the first sample it sends a gate
signal to trigger
second sample automatically effectively
linking them this means that we only
have to program the main kick channel on
the step sequencer to have both drums
sound the classic kick pattern for most
drum and bass genres has kick drums on
steps 1 and 11 we can also create a
variation on pattern 2 that has kicks on
steps 3 and 11 we're going to do the
exact same process for our snare but a
little faster now because you've got the
concepts down we'll select a sample for
our snare drum in Kong's sounds and
samples snare drums culture this time
we'll pitch our snare up in keeping with
that original drum and bass pitched
sampler sound and let's select a second
snare layer crispin max its level and
boost its pitch as well just like our
kick drums we'll join these two samples
by running a patch cable from cultures
gate out to Crispin's gate in and
program our snares by selecting culture
the pattern for our snare is simple
snares on 5 and 13 but we need to
remember to do those for our pattern 2
variation as well now let's dive into
the mixer sadly too often in music
production the mixer is overlooked it's
easy to think of the mixer like this
just a big row of faders in fact that's
often how mixers are treated in other
programs some kind of Excel spreadsheet
where you add effects and then balance
levels at the bottom but pro mixing
consoles and recording studios are so
much more than that reasons mixer
includes 2 important sections that are
meticulously modeled after the legendary
SSL 9000 k the dynamic section and the
EQ section Pro mix engineers scope to
their mixes by relying heavily on these
sections to use the mixer to its fullest
like I would a studio console I want to
treat each drum individually that means
we need to create 4 empty mix channels
and run audio cables from each Redrum
channel to each mix channel I'll label
each channel and I can even disconnect
the main outs from Redrum and delete
this unused mix channel since all our
drums are now wired in
let's solo the main kick sound and start
by using the channel gate many people
only think of using gates to cut out
microphone bleed in acoustic recordings
or to remove guitar home but samples can
be tightened up using gates as well
let's turn on our gate and set
everything to extremes maximum range
maximum threshold and the fastest
release will dial back our threshold
until our gate is opening up for each
kick you can hear that our release is
too fast but on the opposite extreme you
hear all that high-end decay we don't
need that so let's dial back the release
until we hear that go away next up is
the low and high-pass filters the basic
consideration is this if there's any
frequencies in this channel that you
don't absolutely need in your mix cut
them out our kick doesn't need all that
high-end so let's activate our low pass
filter to cut it last up is the classic
EQ section you might already be familiar
with let's turn it on and sculpt a
little more of our kick i want to scoop
out a little more of the high and boost
the low our second kick channel doesn't
need a gate but it would benefit from
the same low-pass EQ and we should sit
it underneath our main kick more once we
have our two channels working in
relation to each other I select them
both and press command G on a Mac or
ctrl G on Windows to create a group
channel which I'll label kicks right now
my kicks are punchy but I want them
punchy and to do this I'm going to use a
pro technique called parallel
compression parallel compression can be
a little tricky to understand so let's
first consider an analogy it's no secret
that photographers retouch and enhance
photographs using Photoshop for example
to make blue eyes really pop photo
editors often create additional layers
in Photoshop with extreme enhancements
like oversaturated colors and then they
blend the transparency of these extreme
layers back down resulting in more
subtle enhancements to the original this
concept of blending extremes in with an
original exists in mixing two and it's
called parallel processing let's
right-click our kicks group channel and
choose create parallel Channel now we
have a duplicate of our channel that we
can process in extreme ways let's mute
the original and compress the bejesus
out of our kicks on our parallel Channel
I'll turn on the compressor crank the
ratio shorten the release and dial in
the threshold so that it's reacting a
lot on the attack of releasing for that
sub decay on its own this is not a
tasteful sound but let's turn this
channel down unmute our original kicks
group and let's blend our punchy
compress signal in with our kick can you
hear what a difference that makes we
still have our kick sound with the added
punch and oof of our parallel Channel
just like in our Photoshop example
either element on its own isn't quite
right but together we get something
great we can do the same thing with our
snares and just like we did while
layering let's move through this process
a little quicker since you now
understand the concept we'll solo the
first snare layer activate its gate and
tighten it up using the same process we
used for our kick let's activate the
main EQ and add a little high mid to now
let's select our two snares and press
command or control G to group them and
we'll right click create a parallel
channel of our snares group and solo the
parallel channel for some extreme
processing we'll turn on the compressor
shorten the release maximize the ratio
and dial our threshold to taste or in
this case lack of taste let's turn that
channel down and blend our compressed
attack in with our main snare sound
now those are some punchy drums and it's
a million miles away from where we
started but there's still a major
element of drum and bass drums missing
here it's those fluttering high hats
that give Drum & Bass its signature
top-end the technique involves layering
top and percussion loops like high hats
and shakers and then pitching those
loops unnaturally high let's start with
basic shakers found in the dr. rex
percussion loops folder and let's pitch
that loop up higher we'll add two other
loops the Bayer Lake Bush collection of
Rex files is a great place to find
top-end loops like hat play to pitched
up also and D tune pitched up the same
amount wow that sounds pretty bad right
yeah don't worry I hear it too
we'll fix it the cool part in these
loops is the fluttering high frequencies
the lane parts are well everything else
but believe it or not this auditory is
spaghetti that we've got going on right
now can be cleaned up with the high and
low-pass filters in our mixer one by one
let's focus the sounds to just the parts
we need shakers are very high frequency
but it's actually the lower frequencies
that I want to give me the rhythm of the
shake without all that sizzle so we'll
use the low-pass filter for hat play
we'll use both high and low pass filters
to focus the sound on a narrow band of
high mid frequencies our D tune loop
needs the most drastic change I only
want the most high-end frequencies so
I'll activate the high pass filter and
crank it to the top of its range giving
me just the fluttering sounds above four
kilohertz I can then make individual
level adjustments for each element of my
percussion and then group all three
channels to get one percussion group
fader to balance against my kick and
snare
let's work our beat in with the music
I've made
let's select each sequence of track and
create a pattern lane for all four
devices at once will enter blocks mode
and draw our patterns in for each device
the block only needs to be two measures
long now let's draw our block into our
main sequence Drum & Bass likes to start
and stop the basic pattern frequently to
punctuate the music we can start and
stop our beat by simply slicing up our
block after an eight bar instrumental
intro we'll bring in the drums on the
ninth bar and we'll cut them out again
to punctuate the last two bars of our
musical phrase instead of bringing our
drums in right on bar nine let's adjust
our block back one beat and instead of
ending right on bar 15
let's overhang the bar by one eighth
note if we listen with our intro
you'll hear the effect
do you remember that
Redrum pattern - variation we made for
the kick and snare using the
three-dimensional aspect of blocks
anywhere we want that pattern variation
we can now simply draw in pattern a -
over top of our red drum track pattern -
has only up beats on the kick so that's
liquid drum and bass but I'm sure you
realize we've covered a whole lot more
in this tutorial these tricks for punchy
drums are equally applicable to deep
house trap electro pop trip-hop
drum and bass or any musical style you
can dream up so start dreaming and good
luck