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Depone wrote:Very subtle layering and swing... Dont underestimate the power of velocity to get some artificial swing too.

I literally have 4 midi tracks full of percussion, hats and rides. Layer them well, and they will sound like just one kit... Have a listen to my track gangsta shit on my soundcloud, I used like 5 layers, but it sounds like 1.

i don't believe you. They sounded perfect but i was not expecting 5 layers wow

one of Depone's tracks came on my Pandora station yesterday, I turned it up too loud and blew the left channel of my hifi's you mofo.... oh well but the drums were very good. forgot the track name

also say when your mixing your drums. Should the percussion be low for "brostep" and the kick and snare be more prominent?

im going to make some loops but can some one critique me if im getting the general idea?

Yeah well.. there's no set format man. Obviously an insane kick and snare needs to be there, and its not as easy as people make out.
Most brostep is pretty cookie cuter, but some i believe is actually wickid to listen to. Like a guilty pleasure.
Im not a 'deep' head either unless its made by quality producers like TKR or Vandera, cant think why people are going nuts for some DMZ stuff that sounds, to me a bit cookie cutter its self.
I for one, dont class my own tunes as 'brostep' . i'm just making what I enjoy.

I digress...

Make sure they sound good to you in context of the track.

-[2]DAY_- wrote:one of Depone's tracks came on my Pandora station yesterday, I turned it up too loud and blew the left channel of my hifi's you mofo.... oh well but the drums were very good. forgot the track name

Oh shit really!?! Thanks, I think, sorry about your Hifi.
Any clues to what it might have been?

Depone wrote:Yeah well.. there's no set format man. Obviously an insane kick and snare needs to be there, and its not as easy as people make out.
Most brostep is pretty cookie cuter, but some i believe is actually wickid to listen to. Like a guilty pleasure.
Im not a 'deep' head either unless its made by quality producers like TKR or Vandera, cant think why people are going nuts for some DMZ stuff that sounds, to me a bit cookie cutter its self.
I for one, dont class my own tunes as 'brostep' . i'm just making what I enjoy.

I digress...

Make sure they sound good to you in context of the track.

yea i understand where your coming from its just hi hats that get me messed up my kick and snare are always fine i get the concept of layering and such just not for hi hats

amphibian wrote:Also a shuffling hat style works pretty well, with some bars having no hats.

Noob question: What is shuffling?

HypnoticSpecter wrote:

amphibian wrote:Also a shuffling hat style works pretty well, with some bars having no hats.

Noob question: What is shuffling?

in this video do you notice the hi hats sounding like their almost tripping into the beat. That is called shuffling

Mannyyyyy wrote:well the title says it all after me going through a rage quit phase i decided to make some drums but i searched up hi hat patterns and i get stuff for ambient type of dubstep but not for brostep. what kind of patterns do people usually use in mostly these new dancefloor hits. Half of the time you can barely hear them but is their certain patterns you guys use for just brostep?

love you guys

Is this a joke? ill pretend its not.

Why dont you listen to your fav track and work out how to write hi hats

Mannyyyyy wrote:

Depone wrote:Very subtle layering and swing... Dont underestimate the power of velocity to get some artificial swing too.

I literally have 4 midi tracks full of percussion, hats and rides. Layer them well, and they will sound like just one kit... Have a listen to my track gangsta shit on my soundcloud, I used like 5 layers, but it sounds like 1.

i don't believe you. They sounded perfect but i was not expecting 5 layers wow

Just uploaded this yesterday (yes yes it still needs some tweaks, breakdown isn't clean enough mixdownd still slightly muddy yadda yadda) but it has 9 layers of percussion

Soundcloud

I have all the elements of my drums on different tracks so it's easier and more accurate to arrange and put effects on and EQ. The heavy hitting stuff like drums and snares have 2 layers each in this instance. However I have made tunes where the snare has 5-6 layers just by itself. I will take 2 kicks to start with (one that has plenty of bottom end and one that has alot of high end) layer them up and EQ them together. You wanna be cutting the high bit off the low snare and the low off the high snare. Once I have them sounding nice I will group them and EQ them as a whole so it sits right in the mix - rolling off around 60-80hz is a good idea for a kick. Same for the snare. I will typically layer a hard snare hit with a clap and put effects / compression on the clap so the power stays in the snare hit and the clap takes care of the reverby / snare effects / whatever you wanna do with it.

In dubstep I find where the beats are sparse you want your hats to "fill in the gaps" if you like. Try getting a closed and an open, putting the open just before your snare hit and the closed ones leading upto it. Vary it by bars. Or just stick with a closed hat and transpose it to add movement. There are a million ways to do it just experiement. Or as someone else said try listening to your favourite tracks and creating beats of your own that are similar.

Sparxy wrote:In dubstep I find where the beats are sparse you want your hats to "fill in the gaps" if you like. Try getting a closed and an open, putting the open just before your snare hit and the closed ones leading upto it. Vary it by bars. Or just stick with a closed hat and transpose it to add movement. There are a million ways to do it just experiement. Or as someone else said try listening to your favourite tracks and creating beats of your own that are similar.

Some good advice right there

Depone wrote:

-[2]DAY_- wrote:one of Depone's tracks came on my Pandora station yesterday, I turned it up too loud and blew the left channel of my hifi's you mofo.... oh well but the drums were very good. forgot the track name

Oh shit really!?! Thanks, I think, sorry about your Hifi.
Any clues to what it might have been?

Lol no worries man it was definitely my fault. I wish i'd remembered the track, but it was some really good tearout biznizz
Checked ur cloud to look for it and i didn't recognize any as the right one.

if u meant what do i think blew the channel, it was the bassline's mids.

good to see you on Pandora, keep doin ya thing making proper heavy stompas

hell yeah i understand now and also pitch and velocity help a ton now since i've been messing with it. thanks again for advice one quick question about the samples of the hi hats. i'm using a the vengeance electro pack for hats but does it go to personal preference for hi hat samples or do you guys recommend any samples. sorry for being really noobish but i think this was holding me back a lot with my drums

I prefer real hat samples. I got some nice bright ones from SoundScan. I also really like the tape smashed 909s available on DSF sample swap.
imo the best is playing your own real hats, my favorite are heavy, old, dark zildjians. A SM57 should be good to capture it or any dynamic

alright i forgot all about the sample swap. ill check their now thanks again guys

Syncopation!!!!

I like to use shakers too. Also, a good tip is putting a ghost kick or alt snare hit the 16th before your main snare. It gives a nice "step" if you will