Indholdsfortegnelse for 01/2020 i Beat eBook German

They are the basis for every track, sometimes in the foreground, often just a means to an end, but always essential: Grooves are the supporting basis of vocals and melodies and are the center of attention, especially in electronic music. But what is really important when making your own beats? What are the options and how can the best results be achieved? In the beginning there is the kick Of course this is not a law, but a logical detail, because the bass drum sets the rhythm. Whether it‘s four-four time, twelve-four time or breakbeats in all variations, the kick always sets the basic rhythm, which all other sounds then follow. For these, in turn, one has to consider how a real drummer would play them. Could he trigger different…

1 Groove is not only beat When tinkering with the groove, not only the beat is required, all other elements are also affected. Especially the bassline as a foundation plays a major role here. Make sure that all tracks have the same groove. Different quantizations in a track quickly create a washed-out overall mix. 2 Where to get the groove from? All common DAWs offer functions for groove, shuffle, swing or quantization. In Ableton Live you can find a lot of material in the Grooves folder in the User Library. In Cubase you choose the quantization with the Q key, in Logic Groove Templates are the desired option, in Reason the ReGroove Mixer is the method of choice. FL Studio, Studio One, Reaper and all other DAWs also have a…

1 Set the table In our case, simply slapping a table with your hand is enough. A usable, woody snare can usually be made from clapping. However, this becomes more interesting if there are objects on the table that vibrate briefly. For example plates, bottles, glasses or cutlery. Especially the latter add a metallic note that suits a snare well. 2 Recording We recorded a couple of sounds like this with an iPhone, which you can find under “Tischklopfer” in the magazine downloads. The first of the two recordings we load into a sampler on the note C1. If you use your own recordings and they are noisy, it does not matter in this case, because the sounds are only played briefly anyway. Therefore, we do not edit our recording…

Kick drum 1 Probably the most frequently used EQ setting for kick drums: the bass range of the kick drum is raised a little, the muddy 300 Hz mids are lowered and the attack of the kick drum is boosted a little. Snare 2 In this setting the belly is lowered at 150 Hz. If this range is too loud, the balance to the attack is no longer right. We therefore boost the presence and attack with an additional highshelf filter. Hi-hat 3 Everything is cut off again below 300 Hz. At 5.5 kHz, sharp high mids are reduced in a narrow band. The high frequencies are boosted slightly at 16 kHz to make the hi-hat a bit brighter and more present. Kick drum 2 The classic „smiley face“ can…

1 Patience! There is almost no better technique for creating authentic drum and percussion patterns than playing them in by hand. This is anything but trivial, but can be learned with a little diligence and consistency. The biggest challenges are accurate timing and coordination of the fingers and hands. Timing is easy to learn, it just requires patience. And important: just let it go. 2 Drum to metronome Place both index fingers on the edge of your table, start the playback of the sequencer with the metronome only and simply drum with both fingers to the clock for 15 minutes. If possible, longer and do it every day. Then increase the exercises: drum a very simple pattern with your left finger, for example tap the table twice, and then repeat…

INTRO & RECORDING 1 Sound sources You probably won‘t have to look far for percussions in your sample library. Pretty much every drum sampler offers at least a handful of suitable kits, otherwise you can find a lot of free packs on the net. Just in case, we have a collection ready for you in the magazine downloads. The choice of sounds is ultimately not insignificant for the character of your tracks. 2 Choice With a set of Chinese zills you create a different atmosphere than with a cymbal or bongos. Besides the choice of sound, the main question is how to create the patterns. We recommend playing in via keyboard, pad controller or MIDI drum set, then the grooves will be more dynamic than when setting notes with the…

1 Simple pattern We use the d16 Nepheton as the beat foundation, but you can just as easily use another 808 plug-in or kit. The pattern couldn‘t be more typical: at 150 bpm the close hat alternates between ⅛ and 1/16 patterns, snare and clap are on every third quarter per bar and the kick also plays an all-too-familiar pattern. 2 Samples! Therefore you will find the pattern as a MIDI file in the project data. But what defines the beat? Quite simple: The fat drums and a powerful sub-bass. While most trap songs stick to a pure 808 instrumentation, Masked Wolf relies on alternatives for kick and bass. That‘s why we replace the 808 kick with a sample. 3 Kick too sharp? The choice is up to your taste,…

1 Build a beat First, let‘s create a simple beat. The beat should consist of a kick drum, snare and hi-hat. We program the beat in such a way that the snare comes on the 2 and 4, the hi-hats play a 16th groove with small fills and the kick drum pumps casually in between. As soon as our head starts to nod, we know that the groove is right. 2 Fine-tune the beat We set the volume of the individual tracks correctly, EQ out any disturbing impact noise and route all tracks to our first group track. This gives us better control over the overall volume of the beat and allows us to better adjust the volume ratios between the beat and drum loops in a later step. 3…

1 Recording Our minimalist LoFi drum kit consists of two plastic bowls and various kitchen utensils made of metal and wood. We use an iPad as well as the iRig Mic HD microphone and the iRig Recorder app from IK Multimedia [1] for recording. Great: The recording app is also available for iOS and Android in a free version with basic recording functions. 2 Editing For your own recordings, you can of course also use the integrated microphone of your smartphone, tablet or laptop. When recording the everyday objects, make sure that the individual hits decay completely. Then edit the sample material in the audio editor of your choice (e.g. the free audio editor Audacity [2]) or your favorite DAW. 3 Feed the sampler Load the ready-to-play material of your…