▶ I made a Drum’N’Bass song

In my advanced Music Tech course, I like to make the projects along with the students so we can have a collaborative learning experience. Every time I re-do a project with these kids I end up learning something new and it’s fun to share it with them – students can really tell when you’re genuinely excited about something new, and this type of teacher energy is to me much more authentic than giving the same canned inspirational speech each go around.

Anyway, the main things we explored were sampling breaks and creating the Reese bass instrument.

I called it “Peanut Butter Cup” due to the abuse of the Reese bass sound. I’d love to hear some feedback on how to make it better:

Here’s what my tracks and clips looked like in session view:

In outline form, here’s what’s going on:

1. Drum Group
   1. “2 Audio” – these are sampled funk breaks
   2. “02 Funky D” – a “sliced to MIDI” version of the funky drummer, for playing on the Launchpad
   3. “Drum Rack” – some stronger/layered snare and bass on a drum rack.
2. Synths Group
   1. “Reese Bass” – an Operator instrument imitating the classic detuned saw waves of “Terrorist” by Master Reese.
   2. “133989_2” – A Simpler containing an air raid siren from freesound.org
   3. “VES2 Synt” – A Simpler containing a canned sample from some CD I had
3. SFX Group
   1. Various canned uplifters, impacts and a Jamaican guy because it’s DnB

Author: Will Kuhn

I teach music technology to high schoolers. I do some other stuff too. @willkuhn on Twitter. View all posts by Will Kuhn