Music
Looking to put your own distinctive spin on a d'n'b banger? Check out some simple advice and help from superstars Toddla T and Massappeals.
The remix is an essential part of dance music culture, opening up original music to new audiences and breathing new life into old classics.
Filmed live at Red Bull Studios in London, DJ, producer and remixer Toddla T invited producer Massappeals, UK grime MC Kamakaze and vocalist Morgan Monroe to rework their track Last Night in a live broadcast session (see the video below). Using the video as a jumping off point, below we break down 10 essential steps for putting together a drum ’n’ bass remix.
1. Pick a genre. [00:05:22]
Thinking about the kind of music you want to make will give you some stylistic parameters to work with, and help to get things going in the early stages of the process. But whichever genre you choose, by no means do you have to stick to it. As we’ll see in the video, despite voters choosing jungle, the track soon took on a deeper, more liquid d’n’b vibe. Rules are there to be broken, after all.
2. Pick a tempo. [00:08:26]
Electronic dance music genres tend to operate within relatively constrained tempo ranges. House music, for example, usually operates around 115-130 BPM, while drum ’n’ bass hovers somewhere between 160 and 180 BPM. Jungle was birthed in the period between hardcore and drum ’n’ bass – something that is reflected in its tempo range. For this remix, Toddla opts for 160 BPM, a common tempo for the genre in the '90s.
3. Pick your parts. [00:10:40]
Work your way through the stems from the original, soloing each one in turn and making a note of any that grab your attention. Delete anything that doesn’t give you a vibe. If you’re not sure about a particular part, throw it into a 'maybe' folder. Most DAWs allow you to group tracks together, so use one of these groups as a storage folder at the bottom of the project, allowing you to easily reach back in for parts later on in the process.
4. Start at the bottom. [00:11:06]
Drum ’n’ bass, as the name suggests, is all about these two elements. So either start with drums and build the bassline around it, or, as Massappeals does here, work the other way round – replaying the original bass notes to fit the new tempo and creating a new part from scratch, built around the classic Reese bass sound.
5. Start adding your own touches. [00:19:36]
It’s important to inject your own personality into any remix, so think of a way to twist up the original melody elements or write your own. Putting a sample from the original into a sampler and playing around allows you create something new while still retaining the original’s vibe.
6. Check your mix in mono [00:35:10]
Toddla imparts some useful wisdom regarding stereo effects. When using choruses, phasers, reverbs and delays, it’s important to check the entire mix in mono to ensure that there are no weird phasing issues. These can happen when sounds on the left and right sides of the stereo field cancel each other out (known as phase-cancellation).
7. Expand the loop [00:41:30]
Getting trapped listening to the same eight, 16 or 32 bar loop over and over again without knowing where to go next is a common issue for even the most seasoned producer, so getting out of this stage as quickly as possible is highly recommended. Luckily remixes are a little easier than most projects for this. Try to think about how the chosen parts from the original track could be used in different areas of the remix. We’re not quite at the full arrangement stage yet, but building up a few key sections will help to join the dots later on.
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8. Program the drums [00:51:51]
Unless the original contains some very distinctive or ‘signature’ sounding percussion, it’s always best to use your own. Chuck in whole loops to quickly build a vibe or cut out individual hits and write your own patterns using MIDI. Massappeals does a mixture of the two for their remix, loading a classic drum break into a sampler to trigger a single snare hit while also chopping, rearranging and layering up whole loops to create something unique.
9. Process your sounds [1:00:28]
It’s rare that you’ll throw in a sound or sample and leave it completely as it is. Even something as simple as a low-cut EQ to remove unwanted bass frequencies can make a big difference to the sound of the finished track. Toddla’s tip here is to group all of Massappeals’ drums together (besides the kick) and give them a bit of a 'ragging.' The idea is to push the sounds into the red through distortion, compression, saturation and limiting, gelling them together and giving them a rougher, more aggressive tone. Which technique you choose depends on the source material and the result you’re after, but mixing up a few is often a good way to go.
10. Arrangement [01:24:36]
Arguably the hardest part of any production is the arrangement, but looking into the conventions of the genre can give you some pointers. Drag one of your favourite drum ’n’ bass tracks into the project and make notes on how it’s structured. Note that the sections are made up of multiples of four, with most being 16 or 32 bars in length. Build your arrangement according to this structure and think about how a DJ would play it. Remember that the majority of electronic dance music is created with DJs in mind, and simple arrangements are often the most effective.
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