Recreate a beat (part 1)

Last time we got into the wonderful world of bass lines and worked to recreate our own version of the bass line for "Blow the Whistle".

Today, we're going to take our listening skills even further and remake both the drums and the melody from a song by Lupe Fiasco.

We're going to listen to listen to the actual song, but first let's review some important concepts.

• What is a bar?
• How do you know how to count the number of bars in a song?
  
• What drum sound can you listen for to help you count?

OK, so now let's check out Lupe's Song and listen critically to what's happening in the beat. Specifically, I want you to count out how often the drums are switching up and what is changing when they switch.

Alright, so now that we're familiar with it, let's recreate those drums...

Step 1:

1. Launch Reason and create a new session (File>New)
2. Right off the bat, let's give this a file name "(your name)_Dumb It Down.rns" and save it into our folders:
(File>Save As>My Documents>ADP Audio1 Chris Runde>Reason Stuff>Dumb It Down_your name)
3. Now let's set the tempo to 95 BPM.
4. Create a Redrum Drum Machine.
5. Now let's load some drum sounds into the machine. I want you to load individual drum sounds, not kits! In case you forgot, individual drum sounds can be found under:
Reason Factory Soundbank>Redrum Drum Kits>xclusive drums-sorted

Here are each of the four files I want you to load into the first four slots of your Redrum:

Slot 1 - BassDrums>Bd3_Riot.aif
Slot 2 - Bass Drums>Bd_Xtc7.wav
Slot 3 - SnareDrums>Sd2_HardKnox.wav
Slot 4 - HiHats>Hh_Xfile2.wav

6. Now that we've got our sounds loaded, we can begin to build our first drum loop. Let's start with the snare...

• Press the Select button at the bottom of Slot 3 (Sd2_HardKnox) and put the snare on squares 5 and 13.
• Next, hit Select on Slot 1 (Bd3_Riot) and put the bass on squares 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 12. Starting to sound like an actual beat, right? Now, for the final touch let's add some hi hat...
• Hit Select on Slot 4 (Hh_Xfile2) and in the sequencer, click on squares 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, and 16. Sounds fairly close to the real song, right? Sorta? Kinda?
  

7. OK, now we need to get the loop down into the sequencer window using Copy Pattern to Track. 

Now we're ready to make the second part of the beat, which is basically exactly the same as the first part of the beat, except that one drum switches up. So instead of recreating the whole thing from scratch, we're going to just copy our first pattern and change the bass drum

1. Click on Pattern 1 in the Redrum.
2. Go to Edit>Copy Pattern
3. Now click on Pattern 2 in the Redrum
4. Go to Edit>Paste Pattern
5. Click the Run button to listen to the pattern. 
6. Now click the Select button at the bottom of Slot 1 and make a note of all the notes that are lit up (1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12). Click on each of these and turn them off.
7. Now click Select on Slot 2.
8. Click on all the same notes that were previously lit up in Slot 1.
9. Hit Run to listen to the new beat.

Now let's get the new pattern down into the sequencer.

1. Set the loop points to mark off one bar: L on bar 3, R on bar 5.
2. Click on the Redrum track on the left of the Sequencer window.
3. Click on Pattern 2.
4. Go to Edit>Copy Pattern to Track.
5. Click on Enable Pattern Section to make sure you don't play back two copies of the beat.
6. Hit play and make sure it's playing back right.

So now you should have a full 4-bar loop. Move your Loop markers to loop the whole thing:

Put the L on Bar 1, and the R on Bar 5.

Hit play and listen to the sweetness of the beat.

SAVE.

In the next lesson, we will be moving on to the melody...