i have all my dnb tracks bpms set at half, to 87, i know it should be about 170-180… is this why i have trouble gridding some of the tracks? some of them end up taking ages to get the grids in the right place and i sometimes end up giving up on tracks all together, which is no good!
and on a side note, does anyone know that dnb remix of ludacrises “Boom Bitch” song? who the heck is it by?
tracks at those speeds, fast and slow, at just a pain in the ass to grid. Usually I’ll tap it out, but sometimes it just gets lost. I’d try to tap it out at half time and just eyeball the grid lines.
Its all about the dnb over here and i can say i certainly agree, DNB can be a pain in the butt to grid, if i cant get it strait away ill tap the tempo out by hand.
I don’t think you will have any more problems griding your songs in half time than you would on the correct tempo, so just stick with it. Its a pain in the butt when you start out but after some practice you will get it down to a fine art.
Depending on your genre of DNB your listening too you will find the kicks are usually quantized, having very little to no swing at all. So you wont find the need to allways put your grids on the snares like in other genres, this can help if you cant see the snares sticking out.
Once you have gridded the songs make sure the drop points(usually theres 2 drops in a typical dnb song) are lined up on the grid, if they don’t look right the song is most likely not gridded properly and you will need to do some more adjustments.
If that fails count out the beats from the drop to the end of the drop then line up the grid and adjust from there. A good test it to throw it over the top of another dnb track that you know is gridded properly and make sure the snares are playing in sync with one another.
Most importantly, be persistent you will get there in the end - hope this helps
UK DnB (Metalheadz and Lifted specifically) seems to grid a helluva lot easier than American (Human, Evol Intent, Violence). Either way, i’ve found it easier to just beat match old skool style and use beatmasher on mids during the rinse to keep the build going. All in all, i try to steer clear of software when doing dnb and pretty much just do it on vinyl. Not that it’s too difficult for me to go controller, but IMHO DnB requires alot more finesse and play to get the sounds I want than a VCI or even time code can offer me.
ah ok ive neva used the tap function before ill have to give that a try.
im finding more and more swing in the newer music im getting like Nero UK that guy uses strange timing for his kicks but usually im all about the dark stuff.
thanks for all yr help guys. heaps of good advice!