Sound design: reconstructing a classic D&B drumloop, Tramen (Breakbeat Of The Month ep. #15)
This video tutorial will show you how to create the a classic layered drumloop, Tramen, from the right parts.
(If you're breakbeat-minded, you'll find 14 other episodes of this series HERE)
if you've been into drum and bass for a while, you know what a "Tramen" is: it's the drumloop that was created by Dom & Roland (a DNB veteran) and popularised by DJ Trace through its sampled use in his songs such as Sniper and Mutant Revisited.
It's been sampled countless of times since, and it's arguably one of the mightiest sounding drumloops engineered purely for DNB (the Boymerang break might be a close second).
I've tried to create it a few times, never getting close enough.
It comes down to having the exact right elements, which do make a massive difference in how it sounds.
I have the info now, and I've got it close enough, as you can hear in the preview.
I don't even want to make it exactly like it, because that'd almost defeat the point and sound like I'd sampled a DNB track, which I'd never do.
After learning this one, you can roll your own Tramen.
Should I call mine Famen - or Tranu?
Tune in, and let's go through its components, and you can get crafting.
Comments (14)
I've been looking for that first break source for almost a decade man, respect. I've only heard it originate from No U-Turn / Alex Reece / Pete Parsons but could never find the real original source lol
Now you know 👊🏻😎
I was happy to see you mention the "Boymerang break". "Balance of the Force" is such an incredible DnB album, and opened my mind to the possibilities of drum sounds.
Yeah it’s a sick one! Shame that Boymerang’s career was so short lived. I once heard a rumor that he was about to enter a club with Fabio & Grooverider and he had told them he has to go back to pick up something and he was never seen since…ha!
What d you think, can the sound of original be a bit different cuz of it was kind of distorted with analog gears (like Roland I assume, as he is Don and Roland :-))
Yeah the old hardware gear probably played a part for sure
Dom seems to take it very personal to people making Tutorials of his tunes. He also trashed the hell out of Stranjah for recreating Can't Punish me on his YouTube lol
Yeah I tagged him on my IG stories twice when I was working on this and sadly heard nothing positive back, and his comments didn’t lift me up if I’m being honest. I was struggling to tell if he was joking or not (if you don’t know someone and they’re trashing you, it’s hard to say if they’re kidding). Me, I’ve meant it all as a compliment - obviously. I only want to underline positive things in this life.
I started building an intelligent DnB roller from scratch after watching your last video, and it's cool to see another use of Tighten Up! I appreciate the reminder about using Envolution to get the sustain up while rounding the transients. I took the resonances out like you showed, but it was still bugging me. I took out everything except the lighter ride hits, which I think defeats the purpose of using the break to add energy to my drums. I'll give it another go with Envolution. I think it is the darker days, or maybe because of Spooky Season, but I've also felt like making darker DnB lately.
Good to hear you've been at it, Jess! All about the dark season…I can rarely make dnb in the summer - I prob could if I did liquid, but when you do that melancholic dark stuff because you're a Finn, gotta wait for autumn, ha!
Couldn't be timed better, I have been wrestling with building a drum loop entirely from scratch this week even if it sounds way shitter than this lol. On the subject of technological handicaps, I guess you decided splitting breaks out with spectralayers was going too far? One thing I would find interesting is a little more of your thoughts about the trade off between caring about how the finished product sounds versus how it's made
Oh if you mean splitting breaks out of Tramen, I wouldnt do that, and that would defeat the point of actually building it myself like I did here. Not that it'd be possible anyways. And I didn't want the layers per se: I wanted to learn the layers to use them to build the final product. The whole point here was to build it from scratch. A lot of people sample the original, which I simply cannot do. I dont embrace a lot of dogma, but I simply can't sample the same genre, ever, and to me, DNB has always been about engineering.
nearly there! just kick has to much transients on highs on yours but otherwise sounds same
Thank you! Yeah probably; kinda stopped trying to make 100% the same; might as well sample the original in that case, ha. Could take it anywhere from here. E.g., Dom replaced the whole kick in his remake and made it huge.