
How to Make Drum and Bass: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
Tempo, drums, sub and mid bass, chords, arrangement and mixdown: every step of your first DnB track.
Free tutorials & guides
Free, step-by-step DnB tutorials with real DAW screenshots, from DNB Academy. FL Studio, Ableton, mixing and sound design, with more guides on the way.
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Tempo, drums, sub and mid bass, chords, arrangement and mixdown: every step of your first DnB track.

What a good DnB course teaches, courses vs mentorship compared, honest costs and a beginner roadmap.

Neuro and liquid starter packs, the 174 Marathon pack, Vital presets, mixing e-books and a 3-day DnB challenge.
Guides by topic

A sub and two single harmonics, long LFOs on the oscillator levels, an automated reverb and Trash 2 multiband drive.

A harmonic sine, a high-passed fifth layer, quiet pink noise, saturation, EQ movement and a drawn sidechain.

A phase-modulated sine, LFO-driven filters, a Disperser and foldback, plus pitch and rate automation.

Two sine patches with a pitch bend, low-passed Tube distortion, hand-picked harmonics and multiband saturation.

A saturated reese with EQ before distortion, a detuned-saw harmonics layer and a wide, soft-clipped group.

An FM sine with a sub, chorus, soft clip and a moving filter, plus a hand-drawn harmonics layer, in free Vital.

Chromatic chords, a -24 pitch bend, stacked saw layers with a sub, then EQ, multiband and reverb, with audio of each stage.

A distorted noise hit split into noise and sub, then an FM bass with hand-drawn harmonics, Overdrive and OTT.

Creeper with Bend warp, a sub and noise into tube distortion, a Band 24 filter on an LFO envelope, then EQ, saturator and OTT.

Molecular walks through layered drums and breaks, a sine FM bass, music elements, FX, the drum bus and the master chain.

Current Value builds a heavy call-and-response bass: FM from B, envelope LFOs, unison width, bass mono and multiband, with audio.

Pitch-bend and LFO-rate automation, a 24 dB filter, Saws for Days and resampling in the free Vital synth.

FM sines, a triggered LFO pluck, a macro on the LFO rate and Trash 2 on the low mids, with audio.

Four deep, fluttery basses rebuilt in Serum: filter LFOs, a fast flutter, FM and drawn LFO shapes.

A deep minimal stab, a resampled reverse tail and an FM wavetable filler bass, with audio.

A unison saw through Tube distortion and an LFO filter, plus a second distorted layer in Ableton.

A resampled sine-and-square pluck, second-harmonic boosts and a bass drawn in Serum's wavetable editor.

Water Razor FM on a sine, noise, a 24 dB filter and LFO movement in the free Vital synth, with audio.

Two sines, FM, filtered noise, a pitch envelope, a notch and distortion: the future DnB noise stab.

Telomic builds a deep liquid tune from an empty project: vocal, reese, drums, atmospheres, arrangement and FX.

DC Breaks rewind the drop, reprogram chords and write new melodies, plus a Sub Focus-style Serum lead.

Stuck on an 8-bar loop? Icicle lays it out as a drop, then Molecular builds the tension and the transition.

Telomic's full DnB vocal chain: grit, low cut, compression, dynamic EQ, filtered delay and reverb.

Jon Tho synthesises a neuro kick and Current Value builds a snare from a sine and noise, with audio.

Telomic builds a rolling, atmospheric liquid beat, then layers breaks so they gel instead of fighting.

Sub vs mid bass, then reese, neuro, stabs, foghorn, rollers, jump up and liquid, each linked to its tutorial.

Telomic's sine sub: matched glide, mono and low cut, harmonics for phones and sidechain.

Classic two-saw basses, deep FM basslines, formant wobbles and an Annix Boomerang-inspired bass.

A warm sine-plus-harmonic bass, LFO movement, high-passed chorus and a gliding second bass.

Synths, bus processing, EQ and free tools from our own tutorials, each linked to the lesson.

Gain staging, the drum bus, a mono sub that works on phones, stereo width and a mixdown checklist.

Minor keys, 7th and 9th chords, two progressions to copy, Telomic's pedal-note hack and lush stock pads.

Chop the Amen, modernise old breaks, Stranjah's classic jungle basses, pads and Octavate's arrangement.

What a reese is, a full Serum 2 build with multiband processing, plus Mefjus- and Kove-style reeses.

Six DnB beats on a 16-step grid: two-step, ghost snares, rollers, halftime, jungle and jump up, with audio.

Tempo, the two-step beat, sub and mid bass, chords, arrangement and mixdown, with audio and screenshots.

FM, sync, a Dirty 24dB filter on an LFO, distortion, chorus and OTT, in the free Vital synth.

Icicle builds a chordy neuro stab: filtered saw, LFO-driven filter and FM, a third layer, chorus and reverb.

Tempo, breakbeat drums, sub bass, a short history and how DnB differs from jungle and dubstep.

Liquid, neurofunk, jump up, rollers, minimal, jungle, halftime and more, with a production tip for each.

Why most DnB sits around 174 BPM, 8/16/32-bar phrasing and a standard DJ-friendly arrangement.

FM, LFO-driven level and drive, chorus and a pitch drop, in the free Vital synth.

Call and response, fills, variations and a turnaround for a full neuro drop.

Sine FM, a pitch-envelope transient, a moving band-pass and notch EQ, then OTT.

A synced FM layer over a sine sub, an LFO-swept filter and hard-clip distortion.

A drawn harmonic, unison saw, atmospheric noise, soft clip and a notch filter.

174 BPM drums, organ melody, BooBass mid bass and a 3x Osc sub, then a 4-phrase drop.

172 BPM drums, ducked bass shots, filter & reverb movement, a sub and a build-up.

Parallel compression, soft clipping, snare layering and sidechain, with real settings.
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