Reason tutorial - Drum & Bass
"Traveller" - An epic Drum & Bass track for the club, which also sounds nice at home. The final mixed and mastered version is available on my Because We Can album.
Simon V - Traveller
Download Propellerheads Reason file
Drums
I start listening through samples and collect usable sounds in a work directory.
Then I put the first drumkit in the NNXT Sampler together, for creating
the basic rhythms. A little play with Redrum is fun and you can
experiment faster. This is not the mixing phase, just balance the volume between individual elements.
Bass
Let's continue with the fundamentals of this track. Subtractor works
nicely for this task, its 2 filters create bass sounds with charm and
life. A little distortion from the Scream4 effect gives the sound its
character. To massage your belly propely in the club, I need to put in
a subbass, which plays below the distorted bassline.
Theme
After the drum rhythm and bass are playing along well, the work on the
main theme begins. For this task I jammed a little with the bass and
tried different melodies to set the tone for the whole piece. During the
sound search, my attention was caught by the Orkester Library and a few
of the Malström pad sounds. It usually helps to build an 8 bar loop
in order to test whether all elements work well together.
Only when you feel it's running, start with the arrangement. Otherwise you change
parts constantly and have to update them in the whole track afterwards.
Arrangement and Mixdown
Now the loop gets expanded into a whole track. Your attention should be
focused on the build-up and arrangement: What's the intro like, when
does the main theme come in and how to keep it interesting until the
end. A good way to test this is by using the Solo-function, so you
know what works solo and what only works with other sounds. For the
mixing (equalizing/effects), it's a good idea to start after a break or
better the next day, so you have fresh ears.
The most important part of music making is to have fun despite
all technical problems,
because it's the only element you really hear
when the track is finished.
Rock on,
Simon