How To Make Dubstep | Free Tips | GARNISH
My name is Larry and I am a lecturer on the Logic course and the Electronic Music Production courses where we teach you how to make Dubstep at Garnish School of Sound. I am also the music man behind London AV bass merchants Rebel Sonix.
“Great wealth of Knowledge and expertise passed on from teachers who are actively working in dance music. A great course that has empowered me to enhance my music and finish quality dance tracks.”Hayden Noel
I’m going to give you a brief description of how to make Dubstep, touching on key elements on a genre which has become the biggest musical phenomenon of recent years. In this article, I am going to outline some basic techniques for Dubstep music production. This is a simple guideline so you must inject your own originality!! So generally I like to start off with a vibe or an idea. It might be a remix in which case the nature of the track will already be decided to a great extent. Otherwise I always like to start with an inspiration – a sample or a vocal; something to ensure my track has an identity. Once I have decided the direction I am going to take, the next step for me is the beats. Dubstep generally clocks in at 140bpm although depending on the style it can range from about 125-140. I always start with the kick and snare and to program these I use Logic’s Ultrabeat in sequencer mode. I find this a fun and intuitive way of programming beats. I use Ultrabeat in full view mode and i will program a kick snare pattern first. You can of course replace Ultrabeat for whetever is your preferred beat maker in your DAW. With regards to the sounds, generally we are looking to get phat, punchy sounds in the first place. I tend to replace the built in Ultrabeat sounds with sounds taken from my own sample library that I have accumulated over the years. DO NOT use average sounds and think that you can EQ and compress them to sound amazing. Other producers are going to be using amazing sound and gently tweaking them to sound more amazing. Which do you think will sound better?? I can’t stress this enough – a track is like a house, build it on solid foundations!! For the kick if you have a subby bass part which in Dubstep, invariably you will, then the kick will be sitting just above the sub in the frequency range. Generally 100Hz is a good ballpark figure for where your kick should be sitting. You must get into the habit of using the analysers that should come with your DAW. Trust your ears but also trust the analysers!! They can also help compensate for an imperfect monitoring environment. As for the snare, you should be looking at around 250Hz to give it that punch on a club sound system. Sometimes giving a little EQ boost in these areas can be an acceptable way of ensuring they hit the right areas! Programing wise Dubstep is half time so generally the snare will be hitting on the third beat of the bar. You can be more flexible with the kicks, percussion and hats.
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