u/oatandsoyboy

For all the fellow broken beat producers out there, would love to hear about how you’re approaching your productions.

Having spent several years not giving music the time it deserves, I’m doing my best to get writing again, and hopefully warranting my MA in Sound Production in the process.

For me, I’m mostly drums first, often writing a live groove in addictive drums 2 before shaping and layering each component. I’ve been a huge fan of the MJ Cole trick in which you drop the intended bpm by 50 when programming certain elements. For me, that means I do a lot of the programming between 60-80 bpm; with most my tracks sitting between 110-130 bpm.

For a long time, I was taking a lot of the rex files from rhythm lab and reprogramming those on the maschine; which was a workflow heavily inspired by Mark de Clive-Lowe. And I miss that approach.

I’ve also quite liked writing 32 bar sections of music before I even touch the drums. Focusing on chords, ear candy, bass and little cuts/vocal bits. These tend to result in slightly looser drums to make sure the beat sits around the instrumentation nicely.

Would love to hear more about what others do; how they approach drums, or their production routine/order etc.

A recent discovery, but absolutely loving what IZCO has been putting out!!!

Getting back in to production after several years away, having lots of fun with building beats around Addictive Drums to create live feeling in the drum department, and then layering with sampled hits.

Just wondering if people have any standout tracks over recent years that bring a more live instrumentation feel to the broken beat sound?

The Kyoto Jazz Massive stuff has been on heavy rotation for me, and I have been really appreciating all the K15 works (and his aliases).