How to write easy Dumbstep beats.

This article is just a copy/ paste of a thread I wrote up on newgrounds. Here's the link to the original thread so you can read the comments. You might be wondering where the 7/8 portion of the essay is. Truth be told, I got lazy and never bothered writing it.


At 1/18/11 08:14 AM, Quarl wrote:
Dumbstep

So dumb step is obviously not for everyone. I'm thinking of working my senior thesis around it though so I want to try and encourage people into making some. If you don't know what dumb step is at this point here's something Spikrodd wrote up a while ago. This is just a quick little tutorial on making syncopated beats. I'm trying to keep it really simple to encourage all kinds of producers to give it a shot. These tips don't even have to be applied to dumb step at all. You can apply these little rhythmic ideas to any genre for instant win. Let's start with what in my opinion is the easiest division to work with.

5/4

Making dumb step is surprisingly simple. Just make a dub step chorus and add an extra beat to the measure. This will give you a simple 5/4 rhythm instead of the typical 4/4. It's an easy division to work with but the difference can really add some funk to your beat. You can include the snare on the typical 3rd beat of a basic dub step rhythm too. A good simple structure to work with is a kick on the count of one, a snare on three and a hi hat on every quarter note. Spikrod used this exact structure in his last DumbStep track:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/385291 

After you have the bare bones of the beat you can start experimenting with adding drum notes here or there. In this 5/4 rhythm it's really easy to just sustain that 4th melodic note for an extra beat if you can't think of anything to place in that added space.

To help you write the rhythm you might want to consider how you might change it up in the following measure. You can keep it the same, or you can modify an element within it to help give the beat some character. If you're interested in keeping a dancier rhythm, keep the snare in the following measure symmetrical to the snare in the first.

9/4

Remember when I said you could write something in 4/4 and add a beat to the measure? You can do it to a count of 8/4 or 8/8 as well. Also, as I said before you can sustain that last melodic note if your having trouble. That's really all there is to 9/4.

7/4

Fish sticks.

WHHOOOOOO????

Who Is Behind DumbStep?

So, this group of young producers didn't just randomly decide to start making music one day. As I said in my last post we all have a number of different aliases on a website called newgrounds. I'll give a quick list of whose who with some links...

Devin Powers: Devin goes by the alias Reanu Keeves for his dumbstep experiments but his main account is SineRider. He has a number of albums digitally released. You can check them out here.

William Burns: You know his dumbstep alias SmithCommaJohn. Now get to know his main account Spikrodd.

Me: Laqur is my recently aqcuired Dumbstep acronym. My old name was Ruqal and my even older name was Quarl. I've since returned to Quarl but am considering Rlauq.

That's everyone that's contributed to the sound so far. I'll update when new people start making tracks. I'm expecting at least two...

Syncopation Catharsis

Hi, Cory MacNiven here posting a little bit of info about my sound work and what I do. A lot of it is music related so if you have any interest in playing with time signatures or Dubstep then read up a little bit. If not, stick around anyways and maybe you'll learn something. Before I talk at all about my work, let me cover the basics for understanding the ways in which music is divided using western standards.

Time Signatures

Time signatures are easy to understand. Most of what you listen to is probably either 4/4 or 8/8. The first number tells you how many beats are in a measure and the second one is the general tempo of the music. If the time signature is 4/4, then you can count four pulses (beats) before the measure repeats. Since 8/8 is twice the amount you can count 8 beats twice as fast. 16th notes are even faster, 32nd notes are twice that and 64th notes are what I like to use when I want to make IDM noises. A time signature of 7/4 simply means that you count to seven before repeating. 7/8 means you count the rhythm at twice the speed.

Dubstep/Dumbstep

A genre of electronic music that has entered the mainstream over the last few years is something called Dubstep. The element of the music that characterizes it the most is a heavy distorted synth lead or bass line. A common purveyor of the genre includes some some sort of filtering of this lead instrument with a wavy pattern. Connoisseurs of Dubstep call this sound "wub wub." The genres drum rhythms are characteristic of a 4/4 pulse and a snare on every count of three.

Some friends of mine and myself have taken it upon ourselves to free up the rhythms in Dubstep. We've grown somewhat bored of Dubstep in 4/4. We've started playing with rhythms such as but not limited to 7/4, 9/8, 5/4, 28/16 and so on. We call this perversion of sound Dumbstep and we pride ourselves in it's sheer stupidity. We've created aliases on Newgrounds.com so that we may offer this sound for free for any one who is interested.

Laqur

This is my alias for my Dumbstep music. The first thing you might notice on that page is that I'm a very pretty girl. Well the truth is I'm not. The Newgrounds audio community has a running inside joke about gender and popularity. Moving along, you can click on one of the CD icons to listen to one of my songs. On the player page you can click the floppy disk icon to download the music. I might recommend listening to Rise Again or Angry Jellyfish. Some people have been known to like It Came From Outer Space. 

SmithCommaJohn

He goes by the alias SmithCommaJohn but his real name is William Burns. He was the person who started pushing us all around to make Dumbstep. His sound has been growing a lot this last year and I'd say he's about good enough now to blow any pro out of the water. His recent Dubstep remix of Daft Punk's Derezzed is the perfect example of why I feel this way. The same rules apply for his pages. Click on a CD icon to listen to music and click on the orange/ black floppy disc to download the song.

ReanuKeeves

Probably my favorite alias out of the group ReanuKeeves keen sense of parody gives the genre a cuddly and likable aura. Devins been pretty consistent with his output and releases tracks regularly. We're currently working on a collaboration. The ball is in his court at the moment so I'm waiting to hear back from him but last I checked the mix was sounding quite sassy.

Quis-Quingle

We're still waiting on a song from JP Nuefeld but I've listened to something he was working on for the group and it was immensely clean. Since JP doesn't have any Dumbstep yet I'll just link to his main newgrounds account Rig. At this point I should probably mention that everyone brought up in this post has alternate newgrounds accounts. If you're interested in hearing what we sound like when we're not playing with Dumbstep post a comment saying so and I'll throw that into the next update.

Links

Want to start making Dumbstep or any other sort of electronic music for that matter? Read these...

New To Audio? 

This link is just an old help FAQ on newgrounds that points you in general directions for getting started with electronic music.

How to Write Easy Dumbstep Beats

I made a tutorial recently on how to write dumbstep rhythms. If you can't quite get your head around those time signatures this should help you. You might notice that my main Newgrounds account has a yellow icon. This means that I'm an Audio Moderator. I've been making music on Newgrounds for a long time and I'm well known by the regular community. I like to think I'm important but the truth is, everyone mentioned in this blog post is a Newgrounds Audio Moderator.

Dubstep

Still confused about the original Dubstep sound we're perverting? This wikipedia link will tell you most of what you need to know.

I'll exit this post with a quick little youtube video Devin threw together. I'll be uploading my Dumbstep to Youtube eventually but for now there's this: