Garage/2 Step beats - Textured Drum Beats

[canez]

Hi,

I'm guessing this is a question raised frequently, but I'm completely new to producing. Have been mixing for a while now though.

I've learnt the VERY basics of Ableton but would like to know how to get my drum beats sounding textured. Examples being, the obvious, Burial, Cyantific - Empty Streets, Submerse etc. They're really soft beats. I don't know a lot of terminology used in producing, so please bare with me ha.

I've been using the compressor and been adding swing etc to the beats, but they're still not sounding as textured as I'd hope them to be. Cyantific - Empty Streets is a really good example of what I'm trying to explain haha.

I'm using Ableton Live 8.

Hope someone can help.

Thank you!

Alice.

[oddstep]

Just checked out the cyantific track. Nice.
Textured is a pretty abstract way of thinking through production, cool but abstract. Burial and cyantific are probably using samples from breaks and 2 step records... chopping them up, repitching and re eqing them. (Partially because of the stuff the producers of those tracks have done and partially done to room sound). All these things give beats a richer texture. I'd guess that some of the groove comes from some of the samples being being more than a single hit in length... so theres some of the feel of the original drumming. Theres also layering going on, with multiple fragments of breaks running at once... with eq cuts being used to create enough space in the mix. Using different reverbs/fx on different layers/drum sounds would help as well, I reckon.

[canez]

Yeah, it's such a nice track I can't seem to think of another way of describing those beats. But yeah I'm definitely gonna try layering some stuff, also gonna look for some old garage beats and chop them up. Thanks for all that! You've also been a lot of help on a few other questions I've seen on the forum ha, so thank you for that too!

[oddstep]

[necho]

sample breaks off vinyl. slice them up, but keep the crackle and dirt... the bits inbetween the drum hits. layer, layer, layer.

when you sequence the samples, turn off quantize/snapping to the grid. move the samples (or MIDI notes if you've sliced to a drum rack) around "freehand" until the sequence sounds right. its much easier to create this kind of beat if you're not locked to a grid.

[wascal]

Yeah, it's such a nice track I can't seem to think of another way of describing those beats. But yeah I'm definitely gonna try layering some stuff, also gonna look for some old garage beats and chop them up. Thanks for all that! You've also been a lot of help on a few other questions I've seen on the forum ha, so thank you for that too!

For the garagey stuff I've put out on l2s / ttkk / tigerbeat6 the drums have mainly been a mix of sampled and chopped old crackly garage / funk breaks layered with single hit drum machine sounds and heavily eq'ed to emphasize the main frequencies. A lot of the secret imo is getting the right balance between short decays on the electronic drums and longer release on the samples. Compressing the samples and elec sounds then eqing yet again on a bus helps but ymmv. All that along with a hefty amount of swing (usually around 65 on abelton 7)

[necho]

I actually do things backwards (compared to most people). I make ALL my drums, bass, atmos and FX using Zebra, bounce them (well- all the drums/bass anyway) and sketch out a rough sequence. Then, as the sequence evolves, I layer textures on the pure synth sounds.

The end results don't sound synthesized, but starting with pure synthesis keeps me focused on the musical ideas and helps me keep my frequencies in check. Layering textures is like adding colour and soul to the pure sounds.

If I start by messing around with samples, I get distracted and just end up fiddling for ages. Makes more sense to me that the mix evolves as the sequence evolves.