producing instrumental grime

[jakerobert]

i think this is a direction i want to explore. looking for tips on getting a grimey feel and sound to my tracks as well as key differences between instrumental grime and straight up dubstep. thoughts?

[hasezwei]

imitate pulse x

or try and rip off this

best grime instrumental ever, prove me wrong!

[Crosby]

Listen to as much grime as you can, pick out key factors, then make your own take on it.
simple but the best thing to do i think

[antloss]

instrumental grime is so much tougher than what you would ever expect it to be. definitely listening to alot of it helps. theres usually huge packs of instrumentals floating about the forums, they're really good for hearing just how diverse a sound you can get with grime. theres alot of this 8-bit stuff going around at the moment which, although some good, alot is waste. i reckon to get some decent influences definitely be listening to nocturnal, maniac, and terror danjah for that modern sound, then you should also nod ya head back to some bits from candy, plastician, wiley, ironsoul, flukes, kid d and maybe some target. also, speaking of plastician, he did a rude RUDE mix back in the day 'rinsesessions'. it is literally one of the most ridiculous mixes ive ever heard still. also watch out for older mixes by rossi b n luca and for current shit look at elijah and skilliam.
anyway, sorry this is getting bate.

basically, grime is what you make it, its pretty vital you give the tune space to breathe and also keep it rolling too. even though you writing it instrumental, you gotta wonder how an mc might fit on top of it too. i reckon the composition of grime is alot more upfront than dub, cos you can definitely stick to that chorus - verse- chorus situation, there's no pressure for that '2nd drop' ya get me? find your melody and compliment it however you can.

hypes always good too that aggy vibe never gets old.

oh yeh while im at it: skepta, slew dem and macabre unit too.

[Geeza]

ive been listening to grime since 2002 and it has changed a hell of a lott.

depends on what your looking to make a 2002-2004 style beat ala eskimo, ice rink etc

or a more professional sounding beat such as a maniac esc track or a rude kid kinda beat.

my advice would be to hit up grimeforum and have a look in the studio section see what other people are doing now see which direction you wanna take your track etc

these days grime has a lot of orchestral samples in there if thats something your looking into but imo you cant beat a bit of early grime

to above poster this is the best grime instrumental ever made


closley followed by.......


and in third place


grime 2002-2004>>>>>>>>now

[jaydot]

I also want to make some grime one day.......I need to listen to more of it though.

[joekool]

been making a ton of this lately... actually began liking old grime beats quite a bit more than new dubstep. just seems more on point, and plus me and my friends like to freestyle, so it's nice to have a big bag of these wicked instrumentals around..

best part is, even my friends who don't know much about music software seem to able to get something decent together (decent enough to flow over that is), so its a ton of fun for them as opposed to tryin to make dubstep which is (sometimes) a lot more complicated.. i like the social aspect of making music and chilling and smoking in the studio, so it's good times all around.

my advice: just do whatever. you can get away with quite a bit in grime, imo, more than in dubstep these days. good shit...

[jakerobert]

so what really separates dubstep from instrumental grime? still confused on this one

[legend4ry]

This is probably my favourite grime instrumental.


And what basically seperates grime from dubstep majorly, is structure.. Grime structures towards MCs, sometimes is just 2 16bars looped one after the other or has a hook or something...

Dubstep seems to "go" somewhere and progress, grime instrumentals are usually just 2-4 really solid 8/16/32 bar loops..

Thats speaking VERYYYYY broad, mind you..


For producing grime, I would say keep it simple, keep it loopy but interesting, much like dubstep. Remember even instrumental grime needs structure and space for an MC, as you're releasing/making instrumental grime, most people are going to want to spit there bars on it as welll as listen to it.

I would say, start with the structure I said above... make 4 solid 8 bar loops and structure them and add/take away where you feel its needed..Grime is a lot like hiphop, it can be REALLY simple but everything has to be "just" right.

[Wrigzilla]

This is probably my favorite grime instrumental


I'd apply the same sort of principals of producing hip hop instrumentals, number one being keep it simple. If your head is not nodding with just the basic drum groove you've got it wrong. Another thing, as has been said before, is make it MC friendly ie keep that groove steady, so don't be moving them snares around unnecessarily (excluding ghost snares of course) and if you are going to move them about keep it in a consistent pattern (like snare on 3, snare on 3, snare on 3, snare on 4). I do a bit of MCing so I'm fully qualified to you you we're simple people

I think the trick to grime is in structure (keeping it steady but interesting) and choice of sound/timbre (you don't hear many noisia reeses in grime).

Also big up jakerobert, it's been time since I've made any grime, you've reminded me that I need to get back on it.

[disco.infiltrator]

You probably already listen to Dizzee but his beats on Boy in Da Corner are insane. Next level. I Luv U just sounds wild when you actually listen to it.

[mistayif]

i luv u is a SICK beat, i remember hearing it for the first time about 7/8 years back and i was like

also the most simplest grime beats are sometimes the sickest, just check musical mob - pulse x, alias - the warriors, wiley - ice rink etc just beats from the eski era

[hasezwei]

i luv u is a SICK beat, i remember hearing it for the first time about 7/8 years back and i was like

also the most simplest grime beats are sometimes the sickest, just check musical mob - pulse x, alias, the warriors, wiley - ice rink etc just beats from the eski era

why is everyone loving pulse x so much? yesyes, history i know. but dude it sounds shit! exactly 50% of it sounds like you recorded the other half with an mp3 player held to speakers blasting at 120dB.
and in the end it's just 2 loops, one of them is shit the other one is standard. groundbreaking as it might've been back in the day, why would you consider it "sick" nowadays?

i guess i don't get it because i didn't experience it myself or sth...

[mistayif]

its just one of those beats. like this year when sx dropped the woo. if u look at it in terms of production quality, it is shit, its just some preset sounds with an 808 and some claps but it has turned out to be one of the biggest grime beats of the year, almost every big grime mc has vocalled it.

also with pulse x, i can guarantee it will get a bigger reaction that most newer instrumentals in most grime raves

[Geeza]

also with pulse x, i can guarantee it will get a bigger reaction that most newer instrumentals in most grime raves

this ^^^^^

ive started to notice in grime recently that the producers are making beats that can stand up alone without mc's sorta going in a dubstep direction.

Just take a listen to many many dot rotten instrmentals (he released 50 for free as a download maybe on grimetapes.com or summat)

back in the day it was mostly kick clapclap clap clap structure but now more and more beats are going for the half time kick and snare.

for the life of me though i cant make a decent grime beat dubstep i get it completley with so many angles to look at but grime changes every other week what was the in thing yesterday may be swag today like woo riddem was massive for a month now every1 hates it probably cos it was rinsed badly!!!

my advice listen to these producers:
dot rotten
wiley
nocturnal
silencer
rude kid
bless beats
dva
maniac
rapid
dirty dangerous
jme
skepta
spookey
waifer
just have a listen how there structured and what not and the answers will come!!! hope that sorta helps

[mistayif]

spooky - spartan is a MADNESS, killing dances all over the country and its a very simple beat with the classic 8 bar switch structure a la pulse x etc

look out for oil gang 002 featuring myself, spooky, darq e freaker and splurt. coming soon on vinyl and digi

[mashmash]

grimes dead bruh








but seriously, just don't imitate all of the boring producers nowadays out there using a simple hip-hop beat coupled with some strings.

as people have said, i find early grime much more interesting,

[Dropkick_Kid]

No one mentioned Davinche?

[mistayif]

davinche and nocturnal are my two favourite producers

nocturnal's remix of scorcher way down the road is

wen it drops it in dance, i'm like then its

[Shekul]

This is probably my favourite grime instrumental.

I haven't heard that in agessssssssssssss. Still a tune.