Inhaltsverzeichnis für 12/2025 in Beat English

The comparison may be flawed, but in our eyes, hi-hats are like cups and tea lights: They‘re incredibly unspectacular, but you can‘t do without them, and in the best case scenario, they create a good atmosphere. They carry the groove of a track, are needed for every style of music, and even have a major influence on the stereo width of the overall mix. That‘s why we‘re dedicating a whopping 18 essential pages to them, starting with general tips for browsing and trying things out, and then delving deeper and deeper into the subject matter. Required reading for anyone who wants to get away from robotic staccato beats. And there‘s an exclusive online tool for Beat readers that lets you easily build beats in your browser and export even more…

Groove control Who says you have to laboriously click together hi-hat grooves in your DAW? Our Hi-Hat MIDI Generator creates lively rhythms with just a click of a mouse. With the dice functions, you can instantly create fresh hi-hat and percussion patterns that always make sense and are in time. Fresh inspiration The Groove section of the Hi-Hat MIDI Generator gives you full control over rhythmic parameters such as swing, syncopate, and offbeat, creating complex yet always musical patterns. Dynamics & feel What separates good hi-hat patterns from great ones? Dynamics. Accents and ghost notes bring the groove to life: They provide excitement, movement, and that subtle „push“ that makes you tap along. New variations are just a knob turn away. Pattern sequencer Seven drum tracks, from closed hi-hat to…

1 Basics I love shakers, tambourines, and cabasas! That‘s why I usually program the patterns myself, and it‘s pretty simple: I create a 16th-note sequence with all notes at half velocity. I then raise all notes at the beginning of the bar to 90 and all off notes to 127. This gives us a typical basic shaker pattern. 2 Secondary sound However, the shaker and tambourine always consist of a forward and a reverse sound. If that‘s not available for the sound I‘m using, or if I‘m using a hi-hat sample anyway, a similar sound will do, or I can duplicate the existing one and play it backward. But first, let‘s talk about the shaker pattern… 3 Stereo width From this, I grab every second note (the one with half velocity) and move…

Let‘s go straight to the point: An absolute low budget solution for recording acoustic instruments would be to simply use the computer, smartphone or tablet and press „Record“ in a corresponding app. This saves you a lot of effort and costs, because the internally built-in microphones and converters do all the work. It’s a fact that certain parts of large productions are actually created in this way. Lo-Fi is a popular “spice” for many producers, the contrast can make the song really exciting. So can we skip the rest of this special? No, because our goal is to record high quality percussive signals and to be able to process multiple tracks separately. Audio interface with enough preamps If you don‘t have one yet, you first need a suitable audio interface.…

» For us, the album is the format in which we prefer to bundle ideas. «(Stephen Dewaele) Beat / „All Systems Are Lying is your first album in seven years – if you count „Essential“ from 2018 as the last studio album. Why did it take so long? David / There was the pandemic, which slowed us down like everyone else. After that, it took quite a while to get back into the rhythm. At the same time, we‘re constantly busy with other projects – whether remixes, productions, soundtracks, or DJ sets. It‘s easy to lose sight of the fact that we‘re also a band. A year passes, then two, you tour, write a few songs in between – and suddenly someone tells you the last album was seven years…

1 Load rain sample First, find an atmospheric rain sample, such as from Freesound [1], and drag it onto an audio track in Cubase. The first step is to use the Equalizer to add Resonances to the sound so that it can be played tonally. Open Frequency and use a Lowcut Filter in Band 1 to filter out the low frequencies below 100 Hz. 2 Create resonances Now it‘s time to tune: Set bands 2–5 in Frequency to C2, C3, C4, and C5, and turn Q and Gain all the way up. This creates clear resonances that give the rain a tonal structure. Reduce the output gain if the signal is overdriven. So that we can use the sound as an instrument, we‘ll record it with Render in Place. 3…

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Cableguys Snapback Bringing drum sounds to life usually involves a lot of tinkering with samples, layering, and effects. With Snapback, Cableguys and BT now offer a tool that aims to radically simplify this process. Instead of laboriously stacking Kicks, Snares, and Claps, you simply load the plug-in as an Insert on the respective drum track, and each hit automatically gets a precisely triggered layer. What‘s special about Snapback is that it can not only enhance your drums with transient layering, but also incorporate samples such as vinyl noise and Foley effects before the actual hit, which can give Claps or Snares significantly more life and stereo width. The plug-in is easy to use and practical. The waveform display shows exactly how the original and layer interact, while Detail View makes…

Afterlife: Standing At The Foot Of The Mountain Steve Miller has created a pleasantly sophisticated album between ambient, jazz, and minimal here. That the British artist was previously known primarily for Ibiza sounds and Café del Mar contributions is irrelevant this time. „Standing At The Foot Of The Mountain” is darker, more existential music, often heavily stripped down and thus possessing an immense atmosphere. The tracks occasionally touch on avant-garde and neoclassical, are experimental, profound, and reflective. Whether with synthesizer, piano, double bass, xylophone, or field recordings – the producer, who is active since the mid-90s, essentially paints with sounds here and thus genuinely opens the door to the afterlife a little. Genre: Ambient | Label: Subatomic UK Hybrid Leisureland: Flower Bullet Hidetoshi Koizumi alias Hybrid Leisureland had an interesting…

1 Sound selection The character of your song is crucial when choosing a hi-hat one-shot. Consider the genre you‘re producing and the mood and atmosphere you want to convey. An aggressive trap beat benefits from a powerful hi-hat with plenty of compression, while subtle, soft hi-hats are more suitable for R&B. 2 Determine the BPM Next, select the appropriate tempo for your loop. Trap usually ranges between 120 and 160 BPM, but can also work at 90 BPM if the hihats are programmed in double time (180 BPM). Boom Bap, on the other hand, is often slower and typically ranges between 80 and 100 BPM. It‘s best to research your genre yourself. 3 Laying the foundation Once the sound and tempo are established, you can start building your hi-hat loop. For modern…

6.000 listeners are already on board! You too? Beat / The label info describes the new album as a “rock album without guitars.” Would you agree with that? Emme Moises / We live in such interesting times that there are always surprises. I find it difficult to keep up with all the new tools and experimental technologies. It feels like the creative world is turning into an endless pool of experiments. And I want to try everything! Beat / How important is it to you to use specific instruments? Emme Moises / Sometimes I want a certain sound or composition and then look for the right tool. For my ambient EP “wewerelost,” I worked a lot with the Nord synthesizer that my friend Simone brought to the studio for jamming.…

1 Setup Before cleanly using Emphasis, the mix must be prepared. Make sure your mix has at least 6 dB headroom because the plugin can do a lot, but it doesn‘t fix already distorted signals. Place Emphasis at the end of your Mastering chain. Also add a Metering Plugin, to keep an eye on loudness, peaks, and dynamics. 2 Level matching First activate true peak limiting, to avoid distortions. Then switch on Level Matching: This automatically adjusts the output volume to match the input level. This way, you only hear what the limiter really changes sonically without being misled by more loudness. This keeps the focus on the sound, not the level. 3 Gain Now, closely to slowly increase the Input Gain. Listen how Emphasis compresses the mix. Stop just…

1 Bass Foundation To ensure a track has full impact in the club, it needs a stable sub-bass. Load an Operator with a Sine Wave and set Voices to 1. For a warm sound that seamlessly blends with the Kick, activate the Pitch section and select Pitch Env 73 %. Activate Glide as well with Time set to 90 ms. 2 Design Mid-Layer For the Amp Envelope, choose the following times: Attack 5 ms, Decay 100 ms, Sustain –8 dB, and for Release 80 ms. To ensure the sub doesn‘t sound too plain, create a second layer with the Wavetable synth. Choose a Square Wave. To avoid interfering with the sub, apply an EQ with a Highpass Filter at 100 Hz and a Lowpass at 3.5 kHz afterwards. 3 Call-and-Response…

1 Alias vs. Copy For those who are new to this topic: What exactly is the difference between copies and Alias Clips? Simply put, each copy of a clip stands on its own. If I change notes or automation in one clip, it remains unchanged in the other. With alias clips, any change made to the Master Clip is immediately transferred to all linked clips. 2 Melody Maker Our enemy, the 8-bar loop that we can‘t escape from, can be excellently defeated with Alias Clips. When you expand the 8 bars to maybe 3-4 minutes and song parts by deleting and adding instruments, you can change the main melody or groove in the entire track at any time using Alias Clips. 3 MIDI, Audio, Automation 3Not only can audio and…

Ikkimel - Who’s That (Prod by Robbensohn): Lead w/U-he Hive 2 1 Ikkimel and SXTN Confident, aggressive, outspoken—the Berlin rapper duo SXTN caused a stir in the mid-2010s. Berlin-based Ikkimel continues in a similar vein. Escalation through the night, giving the middle finger to haters and abusive guys, and a loud self-confidence that, like Juju and Nura, strikes a chord with the spirit of the times. 2 Robbensohn Whether it‘s with Whitey En Vogue, Sechseuroneunzig, or Ikkimel, producer Robbensohn aka Robert Heiber, has achieved a great deal extremely quickly over the past five years. Musically, his work often draws on the electronic music of the Nineties, ranging from House to Happy Hardcore and Techno. And this mix is extremely popular in German Hip Hop. 3 Three Notes It doesn‘t take much…

Limiter, distortion, waveshaper, and generator – all this is supposed to be in this stompbox. The Russian company has the pedal manufactured in Georgia. In the local language, the name probably means something like „transmission error.“ This suggests it could sound quirky. The signal flow goes from the Input (mono) to an Optical Compressor that cannot be further adjusted, then to the Distortion, then to the Unijunction Wavefolder, finally into the EQ section, and then to the mono output. First Look: Simple controls on the front A glance at the surface doesn‘t reveal where the many features are supposed to be. Level, tone, and gain controls are familiar. Spoil and spread are more exciting and are responsible for the unijunction waveshaper. Spoil determines the point at which the wave is…

14.11.2025 - 15.11.2025 Music Expo 25 San Francisco, US 28.11.2025 - 7.12.2025 Black Friday & Cyber Monday Week 20.01.2026 - 24.01.2026 NAMM Show Anaheim, US 03.02.2026 - 06.02.2026 ISE 2026 Barcelona, ES 24.03.2026 - 26.03.2026 Prolight + Sound Frankfurt, DE 07.05.2026 - 09.05.2026 Superbooth Berlin, DE 13.05.2026 - 17.05.2026 Berlin Dance Music Berlin, DE 04.06.2026 - 07.06.2026 HIGH END Vienna 2026 Wien, AT 18.06.2026 - 20.06.2026 Sonar Festival 2026 Barcelona, ES…

The common thread: Beat magazine 12/2025 For many years, Beat has been inspiring its readers not only with practical and musical topics, but above all with the tight integration of editorial content. From the very beginning, Beat has been about creating, about the structured building of ideas and the common thread – in the magazine as well as in the tracks. This navigator shows you the highlights of this issue and allows you to see the big picture. Masterclass: Hi-Hats & Top-End The perfect drums and hi-hats for your next beats and songs! In our masterclass, you‘ll learn how to shape hi-hats, use stereo width creatively, and create signature grooves with micro-rhythmic details. Discover how to use compression, transients, and EQs to conjure up crackling textures, punchy snares, and rolling…

1 Enliven static hi-hats WOW2 is ideal for livening up straightforward hi-hat loops like our audio file „909-Hi-Hats.“ Load WOW2 as an insert effect and start with the Init preset. Select the filter type Band Pass Diode MS, set the cutoff to 10 o‘clock, and the resonance to around 1 o‘clock. Now use the step sequencer to modulate the cutoff value. 2 Want a lo-fi sound? Choose a tempo of 1/16 and draw in any sequence to create a rhythmic filter movement. The Digitize distortion model gives the hi-hat loop a dirtier character. Increase the intensity as desired. The result is a grainy sample rate reduction that complements the filter modulation beautifully. 3 Filtering hi-hats from beats Got a cool drum loop, but only want to use the hi-hats and high percussion?…

1 Load sounds… The setup is simple: Load four to six hi-hat sounds onto separate tracks and assign a separate delay to each one. Choose any preset for each track, making sure the delay time is no shorter than 1/8, set dry/wet to 50% everywhere, and turn up the feedback so the echoes can be heard for quite a while. 2 … place With that, we‘ve already got the basics, but it‘s worth not starting all the sounds at the same time and placing them multiple times on their track—always 1-2 bars apart and at a different timing (for example, not always on the 1st beat). Then group the tracks or route them to a bus track, depending on your DAW. 3 … record Start playback and record the group‘s output over 8-32…

Iset up my home studio so that I can access everything quickly and easily. To be honest, I didn‘t think about things like the distance between the near-field monitors or the arrangement of the MIDI keyboards. When I started producing my music, I didn‘t know anything about that. Sure, I thought to myself, “Music, what‘s that?” No, joking aside. I used to play music at small parties with a mixing console from time to time, so I had a little bit of a feel for rhythm. Since I‘m not a pro at studio construction or stuff like room acoustics and speaker spacing, and I‘m not an all-rounder when it comes to studio tech, I just do what I enjoy and get the gear I want. My musical passion leans toward…

1 Difference to Alchemy Why would you need Sample Alchemy when you already have Alchemy with its thousands of presets and different sound engines? Sample Alchemy makes it much easier to quickly process samples into granular clouds and spectral drones. You don‘t get lost in the complexity of Alchemy as easily, which is very valuable when producing music. 2 Presets galore If you want to get to know the sonic possibilities of Sample Alchemy, we recommend starting with the countless presets in Logic Pro. The fact that you can simply play and hold a note and lose yourself for minutes in granular pads and cinematic atmospheres speaks volumes about the creative potential of this sampler. 3 Unloop it! Whether it‘s recordings from the voice memo app, clips from nature documentaries,…

1 It‘s gate time A simple Trance Gate effect that just modulates the volume of a track or clip rhythmically wouldn‘t need to be in The Grid. A Project Modulator in Bitwig with Curves on the track volume, and you‘re done. But if you want to go deeper into frequency ranges and distortion with crossovers, then FX Grid is simply the perfect starting point. 2 DIY audio effect You need a track with audio material, such as a drum loop or synth pad, so you can hear what we‘re doing in FX Grid. Then, load FX Grid as an audio effect in the track and go to the eponymous grid interface to load the modules. The input and output are already conveniently wired, so you‘re ready to go! 3 Filtering…

1 Major or Minor One thing Bitwig, like almost any other DAW, cannot do even in Version 6: Automatically detect a key from a melody or chord progression. What is possible, however, is to set a key from the outset in the Bitwig transport bar. Major or minor—the 23 tonalities cover most of it, and I have set it to D minor. 2 In Key Once the key is set, the DAW offers a range of tools to remain harmonically in this key. In the piano roll, the seven note lines of the notes belonging to the chosen scale can be colormarked. And if you already have notes in the clip, Bitwig marks those that do not belong to the scale via Snap to Key. 3 I Can Spray Can…

1 Stabilize timing For a more natural sound, start by playing a drum beat live. To stabilize the rhythmic center without disrupting the flow, quantize individual drum sounds. Hold Quantize and select the desired grid value under Quantize to something like 1/16. Open the Clip menu and scroll through the notes using the Push encoder. 2 Adjust drums Press the Push Encoder once to select individual notes. Tap briefly on Quantize to place them precisely on the grid. To quantize all notes of an instrument, hold Quantize and tap the corresponding pad in the Drum Rack, like the kick. This way, all kicks are corrected without altering the rest of the timing. 3 Load grooves To give your beat a more lively swing feeling, add a Groove Template. Select a…