Digital Underground > The Art of the Mix & ReMix > Breakbeats--an extensive tutorial joanne342 Head

of Security Posts: 21 (6/8/01 2:47:33 pm) Reply Breakbeats--an extensive tutorial -------------------------------------------------------------------------------(from modrev) Breakbeats--an extensive tutorial by flaming jo -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Lately my bandmate and I have fallen into a pattern of covering old-school punk rock (the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Flipper) in a style that is a combination of industrial and jungle/breakbeat music. This started when I discovered just how good the RX8 is for composing breakbeats, and then I took all the ideas I discov ered from this machine and transfered them into Rebirth's tr808, a tracker, and Fruityloops, and the output was a set of very good amen-style breakbeats that co uld be found in any Fatboy Slim song or any other professional breakbeat musicia n's work, only my starting material was nothing more than single-shot percussion samples. Composing breakbeats is a challenge many trackers are not about to tac kle, and very few have succeeded in my knowledge to make good, natural-sounding loops with all digital equipment. This article will expose some of the secrets I have discovered from experimentation, close listening, and reverse-engineering of other people's loops to learn this fine art. Sample Selection Careful selection of samples is the absolute most important basis for a good bre akbeat. The author of the article "Breakbeats Broken", which has recently been removed from its server, says to se lect the most natural, organic samples possible. This is a small fraction of the story and is most certainly not a rule to live by. Most professional breakbeats were programmed on a machine such as a tr-808, a completely synthetic instrument set. The 808 has a set of drum sounds which certainly does not sound techno, but also are not real drums by far. My ad vice is to pick sharp drums with wide frequency spectrums and not much reverberation or ringing tones, which makes the 808 an ideal pick. To synthesize your own drums, for the kick drum use a very sharp fall in both pitch and volume, wit h a small amount of high-pitched noise that stays steady for the length of the drum. Make all the envelopes as close to L-shaped as possible with the drum still audible. Use the same strategy for the snare, using mostly wide-band noise from about 200hz-10khz and very little falling sine wave, and let the noise ring out just a fraction longer in the snare. Hihat s need to be short and atonal, and one or the other needs to be considerably more quiet. Volume is a very important consi deration. If you are using a sample-based sequencer, such as a tracker, sampler, or fruityloops, do not normalize the samp les. Let them stay at their natural volumes. If things are too quiet, amplify ea ch drum by the same ratio. Variation in volume is crucial. If you must use real drum samples, be careful in the sounds coming out. Use filters or equalization t o keep tones full and as atonal as possible, avoid excessive reverb and resonanc

e. I strongly advise against organic kick drums. They are usually not deep enoug h, ring out too long, and make the loop muddy and indistinguishable. Real snares should have a great deal of the low end cut out and shortened with a volume env elope or a gate. Synthetic drums, but not tonal drums, are the best choice. Keep in mind that in addition to the kick, snare, and hihats, there should be a few auxilliary sounds, such as a tamborine, a shaker, a rimshot, or other quick, sma ll sounds. Pattern-step composition The overall look of a loop sample should have a kind of sawtooth pattern to it-peaks on the important beats and gradual working down to zero and a sudden shot back up to the next important beat. This is where the variation in drum volume comes in. Use the loudest drums on key beats, or the most drums at the same time . I normally use the snare, kick, and closed hihat on the emphasized beats, or the snare, kick, and open hihat with th e closed hihat a 16th note after. Or if the snare is fairly loud and I want a lighter-sounding beat, I leave the kick out on these beats and just use the snare and hihat. Every 16th beat should have at least one sample playing to make the rhythm sound full. For the unemphasized beats, use one or two small sounds, such as the tamborine and/or cl osed hihat. And use slightly louder sounds for the odd offbeats and the quietest sounds for even off beats. A simple example could look like this: k=kick, s=snare, o=open hihat, c=closed hihat, r=rimshot, h=shaker, and t=tambor ine. k-k-k-kk-kk-k------s-------s--co--c-oco-cococo r------r--r-----h-h--h--h--h--h t-t-t---t--t--t123456789ABCDEF0 Making It Sound Finished So you have a beat. It sounds intricate enough; all the sounds fit together pret ty well; it has a full frequency spectrum, but it still doesn't sound like a breakbeat. What on earth did you do wrong? Not hing. We're not done yet. If you haven't opened a tracker in the whole process of creating this loop, do so now, and open the loop as a sample, and set the tempo to match the tempo of the loop. Now, in two channels, track the loop an octave a bove its original pitch, on beat 0 in the first channel, and on beat 3 or 6 in the second channel, whichever sounds better . This should cause a nice doubling sound and some interesting over rhythms to put your loop over the top. Save as much of this loop as you want in a sample, and there, you have a good beat. If reverb is absolutely necessary, this is the only time it should be applied, but you shouldn't need it. Show your pet breakbeat off to all your friends and teach it some tricks, get it some toys and lots of breakbeat chow. And don't forget to lay papers out all over the floor un less you want to mop it a lot. Some Ideas to Make Original Breakbeats

-Try using samples like computer blips and household items clicking together or whatever else makes a nice sharp sound. -Try making breakbeats out of spoken words with some appropriate filtering, dist ortion, volume envelopes, etc. -Run a breakbeat through a vocoder and use your mouth as a filter. -Run a breakbeat through 8/1 compression and make a "Perfect Drug" break beat. -Chop your breakbeat into fourths or eights or sixteenths and rearrange it. -Run short pieces of a breakbeat through distortion, a weird filter, a volume ch ange, or something else to make new sounds within the loop. -Lay out 909 kicks and snares in quarter notes over a breakbeat. -Try to make a breakbeat with nothing but a 303 or a module which emulates one, such as rebirth or rubberduck, using resonance and step envelopes to make the hihat noises and fast pitch slides for the kicks and snares. -Track a breakbeat in two channels again, this time playing channel one every 8 or 16 beats, and channel two at beats 6, 10, 12, 18, 24, 26, 34, 48, 58, 59, 60, 62, 62, and 63. -Track a breakbeat in two channels, triggering at the same time with a short not e delay or a fine portamento in one channel. -Make a breakbeat that uses snares which last exactly 1/16 of the pattern and tr igger them backwards on steps 4 and 12. -The possibilities are endless--come up with some of your own and impress me. Ab ove all else, have fun and make some good music!