How to Make Drum & Bass: Breaks, Basses and Rollers

Drum & bass grew from UK jungle and rave in the early 1990s, and it’s still one of the most inventive dance genres on the planet. Here’s how to get started.

1. Tempo and groove

• Around 170–175 BPM (174 is the modern standard).
• The core pattern is a two-step: kick on beat 1, snare on 2 and 4 (in half-time feel), with a second kick syncopated before the second snare.
• Layer breakbeats under your programmed drums for movement and swing.

2. Breaks

Chopping breaks is the soul of jungle. The Amen break is the most famous, but there are hundreds. Slice them to MIDI (most DAWs can do this automatically), re-sequence the hits, pitch and time-stretch them. Only use breaks from legally licensed sample packs if you plan to release commercially.

3. Bass styles

• Sub bass: clean sine wave holding the low end. Keep it mono.
• Reese: two detuned saws, filtered and moving – the classic dark D&B growl.
• Neuro: heavily processed, resampled mid-bass using FM, distortion and multiband processing. Process the mid layer, keep the sub separate.
• Liquid: warmer, rounder basses supporting lush chords.

4. Subgenres to explore

Liquid, neurofunk, jump-up, jungle, minimal/halftime, dancefloor and techy rollers – each with its own sound palette. Check UKF (in our news ticker) for what’s current.

5. Mix tips

• Make your snare crack around 200 Hz (body) and 2–5 kHz (snap).
• Sidechain the bass to kick and snare for clarity.
• Bus-compress drums and use parallel distortion for energy.
• Check on a club-style system or good headphones; D&B lives in the sub.

6. Arrangement

Typical DJ-friendly structure: 32-bar intro with drums → build → drop → breakdown → second drop (often switched up) → outro. The “switch-up” second drop is a big D&B tradition – surprise the crowd.

Jungle breaks or clean modern rollers? What’s your favourite D&B subgenre? Comment below.

Sources

• https://ukf.com/
• https://www.attackmagazine.com/technique/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_and_bass
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break
• https://vital.audio/