How can I get my drum and bass hihats and snares to sound correct?

Question

I'm interested in doing some d'n'b stuff (specifically with Reason) using the redrum module or Kong.

As I understand, the basic "rule" of d'n'b drums are the bass drum goes on 1 and 11 and the snare goes on 5 and 13. The sound I want to achieve is that "chugga-chugga" hihat sound before the second snare (like in Chase n Status' "Take Me Away").

The numbers refer to the steps in the drum machine.

No matter what I do, I can't get it to sound like that. The hihats sound very separate and don't really merge into another.

How can I get this effect?

(Apologies for lack of technicality, I'm only a hobbyist :))

Answer 1

That characteristic drum and bass sound often comes from a sampled drum break that's been sped up. To imitate that you'll need to go beyond a 1/16th note grid.

I believe Redrum allows you increase the resolution to 64 steps per beat -- that may be enough to get you started. Try squeezing a full-measure funk pattern just in between the 11 and the 13.

But to really get the sound you're after, you might try to create a funky triplet-laden snare/cymbal/hat pattern in a separate track, then resample it and drop it into your track sped up 4x or 8x with a little filtering.

Or dig crates if that's more your style (e.g., listen for interesting breaks in old records.)

Answer 2

0123 4567 89AB CDEF
---- ---- ---- ----
B           B      
     S         S   
HHHH HHHH HHHH HHHH

This is the most basic DnB rhythm.

Divide your measure up into 16th notes. Each group of 4 above is one beat.

Start with the kick, notated with B. Make your bass on the downbeat, and the up of the 3rd beat. Add your snare right on beats 3 and 4. Put your closed hi-hat on every 16th note.

Now, what you typically hear in DnB is the 16th notes swung a bit. This is a function of your sequencer, and you can easily do this in Reason. Swinging the 16ths just a bit dirties it up a bit, and makes that one tasty groove.

This gets you started. You can tweak from there, and yes, please rip some breaks and throw them in as appropriate.

Edit: To clarify what my numbers above mean to you... 0 would be 1 on your sequencer, 8 would be 9, A is 11, and F is 16. I just notated it in HEX for simplicity... sorry if that made it less simple.

Answer 3

disclaimer: I'm not a trained musician.
Dewb is right I think:

The HiHat I hear coming in @ 20 sec in that track seems way faster than 1/16 notes.

• Enter 32 steps in Redrum.
• Paint all 32 steps with a short HiHat sample,
• turn up the BMP
• move the Kick & Snare to the correct positions
  (you can display steps 17-32 using the flip switch)

Answer 4

record some beat with real samples (like hat sample, acoustic kick and snare) of your liking at a lower tempo (usually 120 or 140 sounds good tome) then bounce it to audio and speed up the sample to your song's tempo. You'll have you're natural feel. Also you can chop up the audio to create awsome breaks. finally try shuffling more than one hat on your original sample it will give some alive feel to it (like a closed half open and open hat)