Swung hats

Hat.wav is a clean, natural-sounding closed hat that will pop through the mix without sounding obnoxious. Sequence it on eighth-notes, and along with the kick and snare it gives us our basic dubstep beat. Let’s see what things sound like with a little swing, using a simple trick that allows us to control the volume and timing of the swung hits.

Duplicate the hat track, turn off Snapping and move the MIDI clip so that it starts about a quarter of the way through the second sixteenth note. Now turn the level of the track down to -16dB to give us just a little taste of those swung sixteenths.

Another advantage of creating your own separate swung sixteenths track is that you can easily bring it in and out of the arrangement to switch up the feel of the drum part easily. You’ll also find a cut-up 140BPM top loop in the Tutorial Files folder, Top.wav, which can be added to build up the beat too.