Trap beats and great pop melodies

1 Trap beat

The rhythmic foundation of Alison Wonderland‘s hits „Easy“ is a somewhat bumpy beat at 135 BPM. Here, a massive bass drum meets a crisp TR-808 snare as well as rattling hi-hats. To reprogram the beat, we use the preset „Celph Entitled v2“ of the UJAM Beatmaker Dope. So that it sounds even gaudier, we turn Maximize all the way up.

2 Kick & snare

The kick plays on the eighth counts 1 and 7 in bar 1 and 4 and 8 in bar 2, and the snare always plays on the third quarter count. But how does the distinctive bumpy groove come about? For one thing, we delay the snare hits slightly, while bringing selected kicks forward a bit. Experimentation is the name of the game here to get a cool groove.

3 Hi-Hat fills

The 1/32 notes of the hi-hat, which can beheard on the second quarter count, and the 1/32 fills of the snare are also very distinctive. With AKAI‘s MPC or NI machine, such fills can be easily generated with note repeat. In the following bars the pattern is always varied a little. In the chorus of the song, a clap sound also plays a continuous eighth note pattern.

4 Bass

DaIn order not to let it sound too static, we set an approximate quantization (6 ticks). We also place a subtle shaker on the last eighth note in the bar. A bass sound provides the harmonic basis of „Easy“. We reprogram this with u-he Tyrell N6 . Turn the shape control of Oscillator 2 all the way to the left.

5 Bass: oscillators

Also, increase the levels of Osc 1 and Osc 2 in the mixer as shown. If you turn up the fine control of oscillator 2 slightly, the sound gets the desired beats. We move the vibrato control on the far left to 6.00. For more sound filling,
set the voice parameter at the top right to 2 and increase detune at the top left to 4.00.

6 Bassline + pad

The filter and envelope parameters must be adjusted as shown. The bass gets an even livelier sound and more depth by using Tyrell‘s Unison effect as well as a reverb effect. The bass plays the notes F2, C2, A # 1, A # 1, C2 as shown. Now you can load a simple pad sound that contributes the chords F major, C major, B major and C major.

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