Howto: write beats

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studio32

Howto: write beats

Post by studio32 »

By chris mccormick

Because I've been making electronic music for a while now, a couple of friends who are giving it a shot were asking me about my techniques for writing drum beats from scratch. I thought I'd write down my experiences here; hopefully they'll be useful for someone else too. This is just my personal take on how to write beats, and I probably get lots of stuff technically incorrect! So use it as a starting point if you're new to writing beats if you like. I should start by saying that I totally abhor 4-on-the-floor house beats. I find them uninteresting. So I'll be focussing mainly on the spectrum between hip hop through dubstep and garage to drum and bass.
If you did want to write four-on-the-floor beats I can summarise it as follows: "boom-tick-boom-tick", repeat, play around with the swing distance between boom and tick. ;) Oooooh dis.

http://mccormick.cx/news/entries/how-to ... beats.news

EDIT 21/04/08:
Here you can find midi files of the how to, .lilypond files and a pdf file!
http://philippe.hezaine.free.fr/spip.php?article28
Last edited by studio32 on Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
metasymbol
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Post by metasymbol »

LOL, I had the same link in my paste, when I joined this forum today ;)
www.jacklab.org - linux for musicians
studio32

Post by studio32 »

metasymbol wrote:LOL, I had the same link in my paste, when I joined this forum today ;)
Everything I find myself usefull or is given as a tip from others, I'll post it in this 'database'... so you have to be quick next time ;)

some reactions on the LAU mailinglist are maybe good as well:

Code: Select all

> > <http://mccormick.cx/news/entries/how-to-write-beats.news>

Interesting that you like to notate in half-time. But wouldn't that make
your Hip Hop run at 45 BPM, if one takes it exactly as you write it?

I think the examples would be easier to read with vertical grid lines.


What helps me writing beats is knowing about "heavy" and "light" beats,
pulse, swing, ghost notes ...

In 4/4, 1 and 3 are heavy (downbeat), 2 and 4 are light (backbeat).
In 3/4 only 1 is heavy.

So if you want something that "stomps", you accentuate the backbeats.
If you want something light-footed, accentuate 2 and 4 and perhaps play 
around one of the backbeats (notes before and after, not right on it).

Hits on the beats are "stable". Hits right between the beats (offbeats),
meaning each second 1/8 note in 4/4, are less stable. Hits on positions
available only with an even finer grid are even less stable. These often
ask to be countered with other notes, to stay in balance (it's like
stumbling and having to do another step to not fall down on your face)

The pulse is your basic grid resolution (not necessarily counting flams
and rolls). Usually 1/8 or 1/16 notes. An interesting way to build a
beat is to start with filling a bar (or several) with 1/16 notes. Edit
the velocity, for example 127, 60, 110, 90 for each quarter. Then
experiment with erasing single notes and finally move notes to different
instruments.

Ghost notes are hits with low velocity that can happen in the gaps. They
should have such a low level, that they won't catch your attention
directly. It's rather something you will only notice if it suddenly
disappears.

Code: Select all

Hallo Chris,
Chris McCormick hat gesagt: // Chris McCormick wrote:

> > I wrote this for a couple of my friends and thought it might come in
> > useful for someone else:
> > <http://mccormick.cx/news/entries/how-to-write-beats.news>

Very, very cool! As a little sunday afternoon fun project I made the
patterns into a Pd patch, see attached, feel free to put it anywhere
you like. Samples from freesound are not included, but if you unpack
this: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/packsViewSingle.php?id=120 into the
"samples" subdir, everything will load immediatly. s-beatschool.pd is
the main patch.

Ciao
[/code]
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schivmeister
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Post by schivmeister »

Extract off of one of my compositions; good leg excercise :mrgreen:

Image
studio32

Post by studio32 »

schivmeister wrote:Extract off of one of my compositions; good leg excercise :mrgreen:
Nice nice, I want to learn to write drum scores too:

http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?p=669#669
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