Amable / Guides / Drum and bass beat
How to make a drum and bass beat in Ableton Live 12
Drum and bass runs on the two-step: a kick on 1 and halfway through beat 3, a snare on 2 and 4, at 174 BPM. Here it is step by step in Live 12, then a jump up bass and a liquid version.
1. Set the tempo
Drum and bass sits around 170 to 176 BPM; jungle often runs a bit slower, about 160 to 170. Click the tempo field in Live's Control Bar, type 174 and press Enter.
2. Add a MIDI track with a drum kit
Insert a MIDI track (⌘ Shift T). In the browser, open Drums, pick a kit and drag it onto the track. A kit with a punchy kick and a bright, cracking snare suits the style.
3. Make a clip
In Session View, double-click an empty clip slot on the drum track. Live makes an empty MIDI clip and opens it; the pattern below is one bar. Set the grid to 1/16 with the grid chooser at the right of the Clip View header (⌘ 1 and ⌘ 2 narrow and widen it), so each beat has four steps and the bar has 16.
4. Program the two-step
Switch to Draw Mode (B) and click the notes in. Most Live kits follow the General MIDI layout (kick C1, snare D1, clap D#1, closed hat F#1, open hat A#1); check the pad names in yours.
- Kick on step 1 and step 11.
- Snare on beats 2 and 4: steps 5 and 13.
- Ghost snares, very soft, around the second kick: steps 8 and 10.
- Hi-hat (closed) or a ride on every eighth: the odd steps.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | ||||||||||||||||
| Snare | ||||||||||||||||
| Hi-hat |
Dimmer cells are notes played softer.
5. Ghost notes and shuffle
The ghost snares make it roll: keep them at about half velocity or lower, so you feel them more than hear them, and try one more just before the bar ends. Then shuffle the hats a little: drag a swing groove from the browser's Grooves onto the clip and keep its Timing low in the Groove Pool (⌘ ⌥ 6).
6. A jump up bass
Jump up bass is a call-and-response riff in the mid-range: a two-bar phrase where the first bar asks and the second answers. On Operator (Live Suite), turn on its pitch envelope so notes drop in pitch, then put Auto Filter after it with its LFO moving the frequency for the wobble. In any edition, Drift through Auto Filter's LFO gets you the wobble.
Under it, a clean sine sub on its own track plays the root with the kicks. Keep the sub in mono and separate from the riff, so the low end stays solid.
7. Make it liquid
Liquid keeps the same drums, softer, and puts jazzy 7th and 9th chords over a smooth sub. Try Am9 to Dm9, two bars each, on a pad or on Electric, Live's electric piano (in Standard and Suite).
Or ask Amable
Amable does these steps in your set when you ask in plain words:
set the tempo to 174, load a drum kit and make a drum and bass beat with ghost snares
add a jump up bass riff and a sine sub on its own track, in F minor
now make it liquid
It writes the pattern into a clip and fires it. Want to learn it instead? Ask it to walk you through it, and it guides you one step at a time, checking your set before the next.
Free trial, no card needed. Needs Ableton Live 12.