Riddim (A type of Dubstep) Production Techniques Help Thread

(original post)
Riddim is sucking me in, the more I listen to it the more I love it. So, I decided to try out being a Riddim Dubstep (or however your supposed to say it) producer! So for a new person trying out Riddim production, it would awesome if you guys would have some tips for this sub type of Dubstep. Also if you guys know any awesome sample packs for Riddim to start off with untill I gather my own sounds, that would be cool. Anyways I’m open to any tips, tricks, suggestions, criticism, literally any help.

If you have similar thoughts like what I posted above, you came to the right place! This thread is for those who want to learn how to make Riddim, a sub genre of Dubstep. Post any questions, ideas, and tips.

                     ---Self Made Riddim Downloads Section--- 

Description: Normal repetitive riddim

Description: Heavy Riddim

Description: Heavy basslines cut and rearranged from: Cymatics - Mothership, Cymatics - Hybrid Trap Synth Fills 1 & 2, VirtualRiot: Heavy Bass Design

                    ---Help Section---
Common Questions Answered
  • Common Questions Answered:

What is a Riddim beat?

A typical Riddim beat consists of a kick, hat (closed open or ride), and clap. (or snare or both)

Structured like so:

What Bpm is a Riddim track usually?

Anywhere from 120-160Bpm. But I have made one at 170Bpm so really the Bpm of the song depends on you.

What is a Riddim Bass?

A Riddim bass is usually a repetitive FM wobble bass or just plain wobble bass with or without modulated flangers and phasers.

What is a good synth I can use to make Riddim bass?

I recommend Serum, not because it’s mainstream, but because you can draw LFO shapes and practically assign them to anywhere by clicking and dragging the LFO to your desired knob. True it might suck up your CPU, expensive, but it’s awesome and includes about 10 built in effects that can be modulated free of will.

I don’t want to spend 190$ on a synth, what else can I use?

Well technically with enough effort you can make a pretty decent Riddim bass with the simplest synths. Check out vstplanet.com, they have an endless amount of free vst instruments and effects to download and try. But even the already installed 3X Oscillator in FL Studio can be used.

What melodic part of Riddim is there?

Up to you, there are no boundaries.

What is the difference between regular Dubstep and Riddim?

Really to be honest not much, Riddim has more emphasis on the repetitive bass wobbles that hardly ever changes and a simple beat. (usually LFO is on 1/4 speed) Check out the difference between Subfiltronik (Riddim producer) and say, Excision. (Brostep producer) (Although people like Virtual Riot and Barely Alive mix the two together. (Which I love))

Are there any vocals is Riddim?

Again, like the melodic question, up to you. Although there maybe an occasional “yeah” or “hey” or weird vocal on the hat as shown here:

Can you give me an example of a Riddim bass?

Check the downloads section, there you will find JiveNation’s Riddim Vol1. Inside has classic examples of Riddim bass, drums and some vocal loops. Or, if you don’t want to download anything, you can go to producerloops.com. (A source of great inspiration) They have countless Riddim sample packs and each have a demo song you can listen to, usually consisting of the buildup and drop. Also looperman.com has plenty of user made loops to listen to.

Hope this is helpful! If you have any questions please comment below and I if not someone else will answer them, and if they are legitimate questions I will put them up here for further easy viewing.

GuideV1.0

Riddim (ugh) doesn’t get a lot of love around here…
https://community.dsf.ninja/t/riddim-wave-etc-shitty-trendy-genres-to-talk-about/10077/395

Yeah I’ve seen that, but who cares. It’s about producing what you like, and for every person that varies.

Absolutely. Just a heads up that you might not get much in the way of useful posts :joy:

Turn off quantize when playing basslines

So I made a Riddim track recently as a joke (I don’t like it but I just wanted to see how it’s made)

Serum is probably the easiest VST to make Riddim bass, use a square wave and FM it from a second oscillator, use lfo to modulate volume, filter cutoff and FM amount. Add your choice of effects like distortion, delay, phaser, flanger, chorus etc and use a second lfo at half speed of the first one and use it to modulate your effects. Ideally if using delay or chorus you want super short decay times to give it that metallic sound

Drums, you just want kick - hat - kick/clap - hat

Add some trap samples and chiptune sounds then call it a day

I found out something interesting yesterday, that if you use Cymatics FM wavetables in volume 3 (one in particular: square to something, but it’s in there) modulate the volume all the way open and closing, use an allpass filter then modulate that around 2-5% at a low frequency (around 20hrtz), then finally you put at the end a comb or a flanger filter. Then you just mess around with the setting from there. Sounds pretty cool tbh.

EDIT: btw this is for Serum. And add LFO’s to the wt pos.

And a question, will old serum presets work with newer serums?

When I listen to the mix I hear a mix of grime and OG UK Dubstep (before america arrived).

I didn’t know guys were calling it Riddim… Skream would fit in there perfectly.

Yeah I saw a documentary with Mala talking about where even the term ‘dubstep’ came from and he said someone else described it as that so that’s what they said it was lol

At the end of the day the name of whatever is only as good as other people recognise it because that’s how you communicate with others to share similar stuff… the ‘drum and bass’ section of mixcloud is quite interesting in that perspective lmao

did you hear the second half too?

woom woom wooom woom

Pretty good description, but I think it should be: “vwoom vwoom vwoom vwomvwom”. (repeat over 32 bars)

On the whole Riddim topic: I agree that Riddim is a bit repetitive. (especially Subfiltroniks Riddim) But what I like to do is put different Riddim elements with regular Dubstep.

Btw, anybody heard of squiddim bass?

lol no, that’s the dumbest name I’ve ever heard

3 Likes

That’s what I thought… Herobust: Giant Squiddim Bass: Dubstep Samples | Splice

Wetstep.

I will have some of those chord/piano melodies tho to chop up :wink:

Edit.
Signed up for a free trial - DL as much as you want for a month. Royalty free.
Only certain packs though. But still. It’s free.

Edit.Edit.
It appears you have to instasll the Splice App to use any downloaded samples. Then you import them to your DAW from there. I assume once the free trial ends you won’t be able to access those samples.

Edit.Edit.Edit.
Yeah that’s how it works… Fuck that. Everyone will be using the same samples eventually.
I’m going back to ripping youtube videos and importing documentaries into Audacity.

1 BigUp

You can keep the samples once you download them. Virtual Riots pack is hot. (Virtual Riot: Heavy Bass Design: Tearout Dubstep Samples | Splice) Riddim Weapons Vol 2 has some good vocals. (Riddim Dubstep Weapons 2: Tearout Dubstep Samples | Splice) Tbh the reason why I signed up for Splice is because of Virtual Riots drums. :badteeth:

But I agree, probly a few weeks later (or even right now) everyone will be using the same samples. One of the flaws of samples :confused:

I don’t like needing to DL an app to access the sounds. I just wanna DL them to my samples folder.

2 Likes

Copy - Paste

Btw you sure do reply quick…

EDIT: sorry, i see what you mean. I agree installing an app for downloading is a bit unnecessary.

1 BigUp

I got quick fingers. Ask my girlfriend…

Copy Paste from the app?

2 Likes

Well on windows 10 (what I use) you just find the folder named “samples” and copy into your default sample folder.

1 BigUp