How To Make Fast & Easy DJ Re-Drums In Serato Studio

https://youtu.be/fhHPPsI10iA?rel=0

A re-drum edit takes a track and adds a drum track on top of it to give the song increased energy or take the track in a new direction. When starting to make your own personalised DJ edits, re-drum edits are the easiest edits to create that still allow you to add your own touch to the song.

(Check out all our other free Serato Studio tutorials at Getting Started With Serato Studio – Free Tutorials.)

Some re-drums reinforce to the drums that are already in the track. Other re-drums can take a track in a completely different direction by adding drums that are more in line with another genre. Re-drums allow for more creativity than the previous two DJ edits we’ve discussed and showcase more of your personality as a DJ compared to other edits.

If you are interested in making your own DJ edits that actually add new production elements to a song, a re-drum edit is the easiest way to start. While the last two types of edits we have discussed can be used to custom-tailor tracks to the way you DJ, a re-drum edit takes that to the next level by adding elements that were not originally included in the song.

The good news is that Serato Studio makes this process easy.

How to make your own redrum

Just like the previous DJ edits we looked at, start by selecting “new DJ edit” upon opening Serato Studio. Next, use the library section to select the song you’d like to create an edit of.

Once the song has been analysed and the song view shows up in the lower part of the Serato Studio window, click on the “Scenes” track to bring up the step sequencer. Once this view appears, extend the scene length to four bars by clicking on the “+” sign at the top middle of the step sequencer. A four-bar scene is a good starting point as most song structures utilise four to eight-bar sections.

Under the scene size, you will see a drop-down menu that lists different genres. Select the genre that closest resembles the genre song that you are trying to edit. Once the genre has been selected, click on the genre again and Serato Studio will automatically create a drum pattern that fits that genre, as a starting point.

If you do not like the pattern that is created, you can click on the genre again and it will create another genre-related drum pattern. Continue clicking the genre name until you come across a drum pattern you like.

Once you find a drum pattern you feel that fits, click on the “library view” button in the bottom left on the Serato Studio window. Then select the “Drums” tab in the library view to bring up all of the different kits and samples included with Serato Studio. Select “All Drum Kits…” to narrow down the samples to just the different drum kits in Serato Studio.

Click and drag different drum kits from the library view into the step sequencer until you find a kit that you feel sounds good with the edit you are creating. Once you’ve selected the kit and drum pattern that you feel works for the song, you can start laying the drums over the original song.

To do this, click on the tabs at the bottom of the step sequencer, Serato Studio automatically creates the first pattern and names it “Intro”. If you feel the pattern you’ve created will work well over the entire song, click and drag from the “Intro” tab onto the song section at the bottom of the Serato Studio window.

If you’d like to add different drum patterns for different sections of the song, click on the “+” on the next tab at the bottom of the step sequencer. Once a new sequence has been created follow the same steps by clicking on the genre until you find another sequence you feel fits the song.

If you feel that any of the pre-made sequences are not what you are looking for, you can create your own by clicking each of the boxes in the step sequencer and make a custom pattern. I suggest studying the pre-made patterns as they can be a guide to creating your own custom pattern for the specific genre.

Once you’ve created all of the different patterns you’d like to add and added them by dragging them into the song view for the song you are editing, the final step is the export your edit. You have the option of exporting as WAV or MP3. WAV will give you better sound quality but will take up more room while MP3 will create a file at a fraction of the file size but you will lose a bit of quality. I suggest exporting as MP3 as it makes it easier to share with DJs who may want to play the edit you’ve created.

Finally…

Re-drum edits are a great way to bridge creating simple DJ edits and slowly breaking into production. Serato Studio makes creating re-drums very easy with its ability to make genre-specific pre-made drum patterns. What’s even better is that it is easy to edit these pre-made patterns and make them your own.

Moving from short and intro edits into re-drum edits is a natural progression and allow DJs to show more creativity than just the two types of simple edits we discussed previously. So if you haven’t already given creating re-drum edits a try, why not use Serato Studio to make your first one?