First D&B production advice....

Performance & Techniques Music Production
1

First D&B production advice…

I’ve been playing with this track for a couple of hours this evening. It’s my first venture into Drum & Bass and not really considered it before and not typically a fan of it, but the melody just seemed to fit that tempo best.

It’s mostly just laid out as a bit of an idea track at the moment with a lot of work to do on the intro/buildup bit but would like people’s thoughts on the direction the drop bit is heading, in terms of production, bass, punch, kick, snare etc. I’ve tried to carve out the frequency spaces that I think fit and sound good, but being a D&B noob I may not be going in the right direction :slight_smile:

I have mainly focused on the sound from 1:10 onwards and that is the bit I want comments on and everything before that is unmixed and laid out idea fillers and I know it sounds muddy etc or this reason :slight_smile:

PS - i already know the snare build up bit is out of sync/tempo as it is just a sample from a library for an idea before i work on the snare buildup etc myself :slight_smile:

https://soundcloud.com/martinvasa/new-dnb-idea-track

2

Not a huge fan of D&B but I do like the melody… I would add some different noises to different bars though, it sounds sort of plain.

good work though

3

Were you listening to a lot of Pendulum when you wrote this?

I think the note lengths for your riff work better from your build up, sounds a bit too fast after the drop, for this kind of tearing lead line a bit more sustain in the notes tends to work better.

You could do with some more prominent hi hats to drive the rhythm along too. Watch this for great insight from one of the best:

Keep your arrangement nice and short too, better to leave listeners wanting more than feeling bored:
32 bar intro, 64 bar roll out, 32 bar break down, repeat 64 bar roll out (maybe with some small differences), 16 or 32 bar outdo, done!

D&B tracks have all got a lot shorter over the past 10 years!

As for where to take your tune, that should come from you really, but a common structure that works well is to have your main idea / riff for the first 32 bars after the drop, then a stripped back, more rolling section for the 32 bars before the breakdown. You could maybe swap your tearing lead line for a chord progression from a different synth, some nice strings or truancy super saws perhaps? Maybe introduce some bongos or some vocal chops?

You could do with a more prominent mid bass too, maybe copy your sub line up an octave and use a filtered saw or square with some overdrive / distortion.

Unless you’re doing some sort of “Goldie - Inner City Life” then just stick to the formula. It’s been refined well over the years, and it works?

I find that Sub Focus and Wilkinson are particularly good song writers with great structure to their tunes, good transitions and different sections too. Take a listen to their tracks if you need a bit of guidance.

Both these tunes tear dance floors apart, and are in a similar style to yours:

Good luck, keep us posted with your results!

4

Fab post and huge thanks. Listened to the tracks and dug deeper into their catalogues and found some inspiration for direction and structure!

And no, I wasn’t actually listening to Pendulum when I wrote it but now see the resemblance. Surely not a bad thing to make that reference on my first D&B idea/attempt though :slight_smile: