If you want a Mac, make sure it has: 1. 8 GHz, with an Intel Processor 2-4 GB of RAM OSX 10. 5 or later If you want a PC, make sure it has: 2GHz Pentium or Celeron processor 2-4 GB of RAM Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 a sound card with ASIO driver support
1. 8 GHz, with an Intel Processor 2-4 GB of RAM OSX 10. 5 or later
2GHz Pentium or Celeron processor 2-4 GB of RAM Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 a sound card with ASIO driver support
Fruity Loops Renoise Ableton Live Cakewalk Sonar GarageBand
Having a basic USB mic on hand to record vocals or raps is a good idea and good way to create new sounds to use. If you’re at all interested in incorporating original found sounds or acoustic elements and manipulating them in your dubstep music, a solid microphone is a good idea. It won’t take long messing around with the on-screen keyboard in GarageBand before you’re ready to use a real MIDI keyboard. The Axiom 25 is a popular model that allows you to pitch bend, and it taps directly into Ableton’s system. It’s a solid addition to any dubstep setup.
Most of these packages are only $200-300, making them fairly affordable and a good way to determine if producing dubstep is right for you and something you might want to invest more time and money into.
Check out the Box of Dub compilation and other mixes with various artists like Five Years of Hyperdub, Soundboy Punishments, and other collections of artists making challenging and high-quality dubstep. Listen closely and try to pick apart the sounds. Figure out what it is that stands out, what it is you like about certain songs and what you dislike about others. Listen to Burial, Scuba, and Scream.
Whatever software package you choose to download and install, take the tour of the software or check out guide videos on YouTube to learn everything you can about it. Hook up with experienced dubstep producers who are willing to show you the ropes and teach you about the software and how to use it.
Consider getting an external hard drive on which to keep your samples. Organize them into practical categories like “acoustic drums” “spoken word” and “synth sounds” or by textural descriptions to keep things interesting. Maybe label your categories “spacey” or “gnarly” to start combining interesting textures with your samples when you make music. Go old school and start crate-digging for used vinyl and convert your analog samples to digital. Seek out old songs that you’ve always loved and sample the hook from them.
Beat tracks are made by organizing some combination of kick, snare, and hi-hat sounds into a base rhythm from which you’ll build. Choose a kick sample and boost the bass and punch, or layer 3 different kick samples together to get that distinctive Dubstep kick sound. Dubstep tempos generally hover around 140 bpm. You don’t have to stick to that, but dubstep songs don’t generally fall below 120 or 130.
Wobbles usually take a little tweaking and synth understanding to get right, but most synths come with pre-made “patches” which you can browse though and choose from.
Double track your wobbles into the top end and the clean subs at the bottom. When you start distorting and running the top end through a whole bunch of effects to dirty it up, it muds up the bottom end if it’s not separated. Take your bass patch, copy the entire track with the synth on it, and then on the copy, use only one oscillator and change it to a sine wave. Then high pass the top end using an equalizer (at around 70 Hz) and low pass the sub (at around 78 Hz). Get some variations in your bass sounds by bouncing your samples to audio, tweaking the synth a little bit, and bouncing it back. Do it a few times, and you’ve got a library of bass wobbles that all follow the same bassline. You can further expand on this idea by running them all through different effects chains.
Choose a snare sample or layer 3 together to get a big and deep sound. Also search out any other percussion sounds you’d like in the beat. The typical bass, snare, cymbals, toms, and cowbell will suffice, or you can create a completely unique beat by choosing less obvious samples. Try a gun shot, a stadium foot stomp, a clap, a car sound. Dubstep percussion has a lot of presence to it so feel free to mess with reverb and effects on the samples. Now program that beat!
Hum it out before you start recording. Figure out the notes using your piano, keyboard, guitar, or any other instrument you’d like to write music on and record the idea. While dubstep doesn’t layer sounds to the extent of some other genres, it may be a good idea to add extra layers over your melody. Even if they mimic other patterns very closely, you will be able to add layers as you get closer to the drop, creating excitement.
Build up to the drop and play tricks on people by dropping it in an unexpected place or by adding an extra beat here or an extra wobble there. One of the cool things about dubstep is keeping the beat kind of loose and unexpected. It stays on beat but never lands in the same place every time, keeping the beat evolving and exciting.
