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Programming chillout beats
Jake Island guides you through a selection of classic downtempo drum programming tips
The two defining features of chillout and downtempo drums (defined for the purposes of this tutorial as drums in the 75-95bpms kind of area, but applicable to other tempos too if the style sits well) is compression (lots of it) and reverb (ditto). Getting both of these right – and picking the right original sounds for your drums – will give you a good start in creating original downtempo beats.Choosing your sounds
As with all things dance, choosing the right sounds to populate your drum loop is key. Chillout as a genre covers so much ground that your source sounds could come from a variety of sources and cover a whole range of sound bases; from soft jazz-brushed hits through old big-band/swing one-shots, to more conventional housey drums sounds – albeit ones with softer attack envelopes.Because much of the bass work is done by the bassline in chillout, rather than the kick drum, it is often good to lean towards a less heavy kick drum, with a soft bite and the majority of the sound filling the 150-400Hz frequency range. Bright snappy snares work as well as longer, darker ones, and for the hats, anything that sounds natural will sit well. Generally, the more ‘human’ sounding your original drum samples the better – so unless you're after a specifically electronic sound avoid classic drum machine-originated samples and stick with the live stuff.
When choosing your drum sounds don’t be too keen to edit out dirt, reverbs or other nuances. We are aiming for an end loop that sounds battered and lo-fi, so keeping reverb tails on samples, as well as vinyl crackles and pops should be encouraged.
When preparing your sounds, it is important to find samples that work together. Choosing a kick, a snare and a hat from the same kit (and recording) is one way to do this; another is to just listen – find a kick you like, set it to loop, and then work through snare samples until you find one that ‘works’ in context – the envelopes and tones of the snare sample ‘sitting’ well with the kick. It’s a hugely subjective part of the process this – so rely on your gut instincts.
It’s also worth remembering that drums are tuned instruments – in the same way that cellos and flutes are – so to find a complementary set of samples you may need to tweak the tuning of individual samples by pitching them up or down. Deciding the pitch relationship between kick and snare will be a matter of experimentation, but if you feel you’re getting close to finding the right drum sound for your loop, then you can usually get it just right by altering its tuning a little.
Aside from your standard kick, snare and hat, you might want to import some ride cymbals (with their long decay and often gentle transients, they can work wonders in the chillout palette), some shakers (vary between short and gentle and longer, rougher ones) and odd pieces of percussion. Import in short fx phrases too; triggered at the right time glitches and lo-fi fx can double with snares or sit ‘in the gaps’ to breathe life into your loop.
You might also want to import some vinyl noise (sample some for yourself from an old record if you can). Layering your programmed drum loop with real vinyl crackles and hiss can help transform it into lo-fi heaven. Time the pops and crackles so that contribute to the groove of your beat - rather than clutter it. You can also use a side-chain linked to the kick or snare to help the vinyl 'breathe out' during in the periods between the louder kick and snare hits.
Programming chill
There are as many different styles of chillout drum programming as there are subgenres of chillout, but some key suggestions will take you a long way.
Kick and snare
Start by getting your kick and snare sounding right using a very basic kick/snare sequence (kick on 1 and 3; snare on 2 and 4). Tune your snare until it works well with the kick. Don’t do much processing at this stage – although some compression on either or both of the sounds to help bulk them up may me useful (don’t worry too much about settings for now though – just go with a factory ‘kick’ or ‘snare’ setting).Lots of genres make use of a different snare sound on the fourth, so try doubling the fourth with a second sample – giving some variation to the loops.
Also experiment with layering. Few dance classics use single hits for their drums – most use a combination of snares and kicks to give added body and punch.
Import a live break
Because chillout so often features a lazy, live kind of sound, the use of a live break (from your own recordings, from a sample CD, or wherever) will help deliver your top quality loop. For Sample Magic's Sunset Sessions, the majority of drumloops mixed programmed beats with session drums that were recorded separately. A good drummer will bring elements of swing and character that it’s almost impossible to mimic, so audition a selection of breaks and loops to find one that works well with the basic loop you’ve programmed. When you feel you’re getting close, import the audio and timestretch / retune as necessary. Compress using a “full kit” compression setting and remove bass frequencies below around 110 (higher if your kick drum sits higher), so that it doesn’t interfere with the kick you’ve already selected. Depending on how in time the loop is, you may also want to get down and dirty with your audio editor, cutting the loop until it works with your basic programmed beat.Hats
You should now have a basic beat overlaid with a live break. Now you’ll want to start adding some top end hats.Sound-wise, you’ll want to find a sample that works well with your emerging loop. Anything from tight, crisp strikes, through long, dirty open hats to jazzy bells and rides may fit the bill. Certainly you’ll want to import a few – most drum loops will use at least two different hats; many will use more.
Hats in chillout drum programming can be great fun; they can be detuned massively – up to and sometimes over an octave down for real grimey lo-fi appeal. Doubling a low sound with a higher pitched one (with accompanying high frequency content) can give you a mix of downtempo dirt and refreshing upper-frequency air.
If you re-tune your hats down a lot you will need to get out your EQ and remove some of the low end content – you won't normally want your hats getting in the way of your snare.
Playing with envelopes will breathe life into your programmed hi-hats. When a drummer is striking hats some strikes will be harder and have more bite, while others will be soft and ease their way in. To replicate this, either set your attack envelope to respond to note velocity levels (or modulation), or set up a series of the same hat sample across two or three sampler notes, each with different attack velocities so that you can trigger slightly different variations of the same sound using MIDI note data. It’s also worth altering the lengths (as well as velocities) of the notes played so that some hats are very short while hang around for longer.
Keep it human!
From the moment that you have your basic beat with the overlaid live groove, you should deliberately be keeping your programming as live as possible to maintain the imperfections of a live-sounding beat. The point is that unlike, say, trance, where quantise rules and you don’t want to deviate from your rigid groove template (usually a straight 16), chillout and downtempo drums get their life from their authenticity and their mix of programming alongside human elements. So switch off your quantise and play in your new MIDI lines (like the hi hats) using your keyboard. If you work using a matrix or drum editor, zoom in on your patterns and shift notes a little back or forward to maintain the human-feel (you'll need to switch off any 'snap to' settings). If you have some kind of MIDI humanizing feature (in Logic it is under the Transform window > Humanize) then fire it up – every little shift in velocity and note position will help give your loop life, and if you ever go too far you can always hit undo.Start processing
By now you should have a fairly full chillout drum loop, with a kick and snare that work well together, a subtle live groove and hats that work with the groove and fill the top end. Now for the fun stuff.As outlined earlier, reverb is key in chillout – and it can be used on individual drums, across buses and across the entire loop. For now, concentrate on your snare. In whatever kind of music you make, the choice of snare reverb can affect an entire mix, so you will want to spend some time getting this right. Your choice is huge – and will depend on the sound you’re after and what’s already happening in your drumloop.
Generally speaking the bigger the reverb, the further your snare will sound away, and – again, generally – big reverbs can sound great in chillout. The secret is making the sound work with the groove, so play around with pre-delays and alter the decay length so that they work in time with the beat. Experiment with any kinds of algorithms, although the ‘live-based’ ones – including classic old spring reverbs and the more effect-based ones – often work well.
You might also try the more basic of your reverb plug-ins, ditching your Waves ones for the very basic native reverb in your sequencer; the Silver Reverb in Logic makes great dirty sounding reverb tails because it is so basic. Reversing reverb tails in time with the beat in another tricky that can give your loop a breathing feel and push the groove forward (or hold it back, depending on the timing). To avoid cluttering your beat, edit the tail feedback frequencies and cut some low-end from the reverb return to cut out some muddiness and air that would otherwise interfere with the drums in the loop.
A more obvious, dubby effect is to use a delay on the snare. Set the delay so that it repeats at 16ths and turn down the high frequency return, so that when the snare is triggered you get an echoey return – instant downtempo dub. Alter the delay tempo so that it is at 32s; this gives an almost chorus feel which can work well at points.
Added character
The great thing about downtempo and chillout production is you can get more-than-usually creative with your drums. Introducing short, subtle (or not so subtle) snaps of effects within your loop can introduce further character. Raid FX folders from sample CDs – including more dancey ones – or play around with loops that you’ve created for other projects. Then import them and introduce small snippets that work in time with the groove, be they percussion hits, swoops, reverbed hits – whatever; a whole pallette of sounds might work with your loop.Next up experiment with plug-in FX – including more extreme ones like Ring Modulators and distortions. The idea is to introduce new rhythmical elements that contribute to the groove – often without being at all noticeable (as with many vocal effects, the rule is that if you can hear the sound – rather than feel it – then it’s already too loud.)
Live instrument loops can also help here – particularly if they have rhythmic content. A slap bass loop, with bottom end removed and filtered until it is unrecognisable for example, will add groove to your loop without also adding melodic elements – which you will want to avoid for now.
Another trick is to use short vocal snippets. Breaths, aahs and glutteral noises (the kinds of samples you’d usually edit out when creating a dance vocal) can work well when weaved into the drum loop mix, adding additional character and movement. Stereo delays that sync with the tempo are often effective on these.
A further trick is to add vinyl noise – either a sample or a recording you have done yourself. If you can get a pop to start just after the first kick, and then a second pop timed to add to the groove, you’ll be helping to push the beat along while also dirtying it up as well. Watch top end hiss – if there is too much then it might threaten the clarity of your hats; if it does reduce tit with a high cut EQ.
A final trick – that can give real depth to your loop – is to add some organic ‘ noise’ behind the drum loop. This noise should com from a sustained organic instrument sample – windchimes work particularly well - or a sounds effect like wave noise or cafe ambient noise. Cut your chosen sample into a one bar loop and loop it up so that it plays for the duration of the drum loop. Then shift the pitch of it until it sits well with the drums. Finally, add some chorus or detuning and delays, EQ to fit and pull it way back in the mix. This very subtle ambience will fill out your drum loop nicely.
Gelling the beat / post production
Using drum samples from different sources has the inherent potential problem of giving you a loop that doesn’t sound fully ‘together’. This problem can be worked at using a number of methods – including compression, EQ and various finalising plugins, but reverb plays an important part here too.