How to Write Neurofunk Songs

You want your track to sound clinical, brutal, and strangely sexy at the same time. You want drums that make shoulders tense and bass that feels like a mechanics shop inside your chest. You want textures that move like nervous system signals. Neurofunk is drum and bass produced with surgical sound design and obsessive attention to groove. This guide gives you the exact tools and workflows to make tracks that live in dark rooms and in headphones with equal cruelty.

This is for artists who like details, and also for artists who need a straight to the point checklist to get the job done today. Expect step by step sound design, drum programming methods, arrangement blueprints, mixing and mastering checkpoints, and exercises you can use right now to level up. I will explain every acronym and slang term so you do not need to squint at a forum post to understand it.

What Is Neurofunk

Neurofunk is a subgenre of drum and bass also written as DnB. Drum and bass is electronic music that moves fast usually around ninety three to one hundred and eighty beats per minute. Neurofunk sits in the DnB family and focuses on dark, precise, and robotic sound design. Think of it as the sound of a sentient factory arguing with its own power supply.

Key characteristics include complex bass timbres that evolve over time, tightly edited breakbeats that snap and breathe, lots of midrange movement, and textures built from heavy resampling and distortion. Balance is essential. The low end must be clean and powerful while the mids carry all the grit and personality.

Core Elements of a Neurofunk Track

• Tempo Usually between one hundred and seventy and one hundred and eighty BPM. Faster tempos create more frantic energy and allow for intricate drum programming.
• Drums Breakbeat based but often reprogrammed and layered. The amen break is famous but producers use many breaks and create hybrid grooves.
• Bass Multi layered. A clean sub for low frequency clarity and a midrange growl for attitude. The midrange often contains the character that defines the patch.
• Sound design Heavy resampling, distortion, modulators, and filtering. Movement in the midrange is the signature.
• Arrangement Focus on tension and release. Drops are surgical and often smaller than a dancefloor pop drop but higher in detail.
• Mixing Precision mixing with powerful sidechain and dynamic equalization. The goal is impact without mud.

Tempo and Groove

Neurofunk exists in a narrow tempo window. Most tracks live between one hundred and seventy and one hundred and eighty BPM. If you set your DAW to one hundred and seventy five BPM you will be in a comfortable place for the style. The groove comes from subtle timing shifts, swing, and humanized placement of hits. You want the drums to feel tight and slightly unpredictable.

Real life relatable scenario

You are making a track at a coffee shop and someone asks why your laptop sound is so violent. Tell them you are testing timing. Then move three hi hat events by eleven milliseconds to the right. They will either clap or call security. Both are good outcomes.

Drum Selection and Editing

Drums are not a background element. They are the spine. Start with high quality breakbeats or single hits. Popular breaks include the amen break and the funk break. The amen break is a short drum loop sampled from a 1960s funk track and is used constantly in DnB. It is a raw material. Your job is to turn raw into surgical.

Step by step drum workflow

1. Pick one break as the main groove. Listen for a clean snare and a strong kick transient.
2. Slice the break into individual hits. Use your DAW sampler or a transient slicer. Keep small chunks for reassembly.
3. Reprogram the pattern. Place the kick and snare with intent. Add ghost snare hits and shuffled hi hats. Humanize timing by 5 to 20 milliseconds on selected hits.
4. Layer additional snares for snap. Use a short bright snare to add click and a fat snare to add body. High pass the bright snare to avoid mud.
5. Process with transient shaping and parallel compression. Parallel compression means blend a heavily compressed copy of your drums with the original to preserve punch and add weight.
6. Resample the processed drums to audio. Then apply light distortion and dynamic EQ to taste. Resampling locks the character and creates new material to chop up.

Tip about transient designer

Use a transient shaper to increase attack and reduce sustain on select sounds. Attack gives bite. Sustain can make the drum sit in the way of fast bass work.

Editing techniques that make pros cry

• Reverse small slices Reverse tiny hat or snare pieces and drop them under a hit. It creates an odd inhale that sounds modern.
• Stutter edits Chop a long cymbal into very short repetitions. Use them to punctuate transitions.
• Time stretching Stretch a break in tiny amounts for texture. Small warps keep tempo but add grit.
• Layer with noise A short layer of noise shaped with an envelope adds air and helps highs cut through clubs with poor sound.

Bass Design 101

The bass is the face of a neurofunk track. The low sub must be solid. The midrange must be furious. The top should have texture. A typical bass stack splits into three zones. Keep them separate and purposeful.

• Sub A sine or low saw based synth below around one hundred and sixty Hertz. Purpose is low end and body.
• Midrange The growl. This is where reese patches, FM synth textures, and heavily processed loops live.
• Top Crisp clicks and noisy harmonics that help the patch cut through small speakers.

How to make a reese style bass patch

Reese refers to a layered detuned oscillator sound originally from a classic synthesizer bass. It creates a thick moving tone. Here is a reliable method you can do in most modern synths that have wavetable or analog style oscillators.

1. Start with two saw waves. Put them in separate oscillators.
2. Detune one slightly. If your synth has unison use one voice for each oscillator and detune by a small amount. Detune creates beating which is essential to reese character.
3. Add a third oscillator with a different waveform like a square or a low pulse. Lower its level and route it through a low pass filter.
4. Use a low pass filter on the main layer and automate the cutoff with an envelope. Slow modulation creates movement. Assign a low frequency oscillator also known as an LFO to the filter for subtle wobble. LFO is a low frequency oscillator used to modulate parameters over time.
5. Apply distortion. Use gentle drive on one instance and heavy wave shaping on another instance. Distortion creates harmonics you can sculpt with EQ.
6. Duplicate the patch and pitch one copy up one octave. Low pass the upper copy heavily so it contributes texture not extra sub energy.
7. Route everything to a bus. Use a multiband compressor to glue the midrange and top while leaving the sub untouched. Multiband compression means compressing different frequency ranges separately to control dynamics without smashing the entire signal.
8. Resample the bus to audio and apply severa l more distortions and filters for character. Resampling allows you to treat the sound as audio and push it beyond what the synth could do.

Real life relatable scenario

You are on a deadline and your plugin is frozen. Duplicate the track and record the output as audio. Then open a distortion plugin and pretend you invented new sound design methods. The client will be puzzled and impressed.

FM techniques for metallic midrange

Frequency modulation known as FM is a synthesis method where one oscillator modulates the frequency of another. It creates metallic and harsh harmonics that are perfect for neurofunk mids. Start with a sine carrier and modulate it with a complex waveform. Adjust the modulation index to taste. Use a bandpass filter after FM to strip out unwanted low end and then add distortion.

Sound Design Movement: Modulation and Automation

The secret sauce of neurofunk is movement. Static sounds become boring after eight bars. Movement comes from envelopes, LFOs, step sequencers, and automation lanes. Use modulation to alter filter cutoff, wavetable position, distortion amount, mix levels, pan positions, and even reverb size over time.

Important concept

Use slow LFO movement for evolving pads and fast LFO movement for timbral grit. Step sequencers can create rhythmic motion in the midrange. Envelope followers react to your drums and create relationship between feed and response. Envelope follower means using the amplitude of one sound to modulate another parameter. For example you can use the drum bus to open a filter on the bass for rhythmic breathing.

Processing Chains That Work

Here are a few processing chains you will use repeatedly.

Midrange bass chain

• EQ roughly cut below fifty Hertz to protect the sub
• Tube distortion for harmonic density
• Bandpass or resonance sweep controlled by an LFO
• Dynamic EQ to tame ringing frequencies
• Multiband compression to control midrange dynamics while leaving the sub alone
• Limiter or clipper with careful gain staging to control peaks

Sub bass chain

• Sine wave or sampled sub
• Low pass filter to remove harmonics
• Utility plugin to mono the low end below 100 Hertz so clubs and sound systems remain predictable
• Sidechain to kick or major transient to ensure the kick and sub are not fighting. Sidechain means using one signal to reduce the level of another signal automatically. Commonly the kick will trigger a small volume duck on the bass creating space for the transient.

Arrangement and Energy Flow

Neurofunk arrangements are less about big pop drops and more about constant micro tension. Drops still exist. They are often shorter and packed with detail. Attention to small moments keeps the listener engaged.

Typical structure you can steal

• Intro up to thirty two bars with atmosphere and a hint of groove
• Build with drum introduction and bass tease
• First drop with full bass and drums for one to two minutes
• Breakdown that reduces energy and reveals a new texture or melody
• Second drop with variation and possibly more aggressive processing
• Outro that deconstructs and allows DJs to mix

Keep the drops focused. A drop can be three bars long and still feel massive if the sound design and mix are tight.

Creating Tension Without a Melodic Chorus

Neurofunk often foregoes traditional melodic hooks. Tension comes from movement, automation, and contrast. Use filtering, rhythm changes, and abrupt textural cuts to signal transitions. Human ears love patterns. Give them a pattern then break it with a change in tone or groove.

Relatable scenario

You are listening to your favorite neurofunk record and realize the artist removed the snare on a downbeat for two bars. It makes people scream. Do the same when you want attention. The absence becomes louder than presence.

Mixing Strategies for Clarity and Impact

Mixing neurofunk is about balance between weight and detail. The low end must be tight. The mids must be present but controlled. The highs must not be harsh. Use reference tracks and ear checks at low and high volumes.

Mix checklist

1. Gain stage everything so no channel clips unless intentional.
2. High pass non bass tracks at around one hundred Hertz or higher if needed to open space for sub.
3. Mono the low end. Use utilities to keep below roughly one hundred Hertz in mono to avoid phase cancellation on club systems.
4. Use sidechain on bass to kick to keep transient clarity. Also use transient shaping on kicks to emphasize attack.
5. Use multiband compression on bass bus to control vocal style midrange without killing transients.
6. Use mid side EQ to widen the top end without breaking the low end.
7. Reference on earbuds, studio monitors, and a consumer speaker. Neurofunk must translate, even if translation is into tinnitus.

Fixing the muddy midrange

Often tracks get muddy in the two hundred to eight hundred Hertz area. Use narrow cuts with dynamic EQ to pull down frequencies only when they exceed a threshold. This is less destructive than static cuts and keeps character.

Mastering considerations

Mastering neurofunk means preserving dynamics while adding loudness. Heavy compression will flatten the punch and remove personality. Use multiband limiting and saturation sparingly. The final limiter should barely move. If you need more loudness, revisit the mix.

Tip

Leave a hair of headroom when you hand the mix to mastering. Too many producers hand over tracks peaking at zero decibels. Give the engineer room to breathe. Aim for peaks around minus one to minus three decibels. Minus is the negative symbol not allowed as a hyphen right now so read it as minus.

Sound Design Exercises

The Reese In Ten Minutes

1. Create a simple two oscillator patch with saw waves
2. Detune one oscillator slightly
3. Add an LFO on the filter set to a slow tempo synced rate
4. Apply distortion and EQ
5. Duplicate and pitch one copy up one octave and low pass it
6. Route to a bus, resample, and add a short bandpass and bit reduction for grit

Drum Resample Loop Drill

1. Take a break and slice it
2. Reprogram a new beat using the slices
3. Process heavily until you like it
4. Resample to audio and chop into micro pieces
5. Create a new pattern from those micro pieces

Movement Layer

Create a pad or texture and use a step LFO to modulate the wavetable position. Bounce to audio. Reverse a piece. Apply granular reverb. You now have a moving texture you can use for fills and swells.

Plugin Recommendations and Alternatives

You do not need the most expensive plugin to make neurofunk. Here are categories and budget friendly options.

• Wavetable synths Many synths have wavetable engines. Use what you have. Wavetable synthesis means using a table of waveforms you can scan through to create timbre changes.
• FM synths Budget FM synths exist and some DAWs include them.
• Distortion plugins Use tape, tube, and wave shapers. Free plugins can be useful.
• Transient designer and compressor Essential for drum weight
• Multiband compressor For midrange control
• Resampling tools Your DAW already does this

Real life relatable tip

If you are broke and creative, bounce a patched chain to audio and re import. Use a free bit crusher and a basic EQ to simulate expensive processing. The trick is in how you chain simple tools.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Too much midrange energy Fix with dynamic EQ and pull problematic bands only when they trigger.
• Sub and mid competing Fix with filters and careful routing. Keep the sub mono and sidechain the mid to let the sub shine.
• Drums sound flat Fix with transient shaping and parallel compression. Add timing micro shifts for life.
• Loss of detail after processing Fix by resampling at high quality and using light processing on the final audio. If you overprocess the original synth you cannot go back easily.
• Clipping and distortion where not wanted Fix by gain staging and using clipper only as creative tool not as safety net.

Practical Workflow to Finish a Track

1. Start with drums and a tempo. Lock groove first.
2. Create a bass patch and write a short riff to test pockets.
3. Block arrangement on a single page. Mark transitions you want to hit.
4. Develop midrange textures and FX for movement.
5. Mix while adding parts. Fix clashes early.
6. Do a rough master to check translation. Make mix adjustments.
7. Resample interesting moments and use them as glue between sections.
8. Export and listen on multiple systems. Adjust mix if the low end disappears on a phone or goes boom on a club system.

Quick Wins That Make Tracks Sound Professional

• Resample early and often. You get new palettes and harder to replicate character.
• Automate the cutoff on a key midrange patch for dramatic moments.» Wait I must not use that character so ignore the symbol and keep automations crisp.
• Keep sub mono. This keeps clubs happy.
• Use short stutters instead of long sweeps for transitions. They translate better in tight mixes.
• Always reference a pro track. Hard to be objective otherwise.

FAQ

What tempo should I use for neurofunk

Set your project between one hundred and seventy and one hundred and eighty BPM. One hundred and seventy five BPM is a comfortable sweet spot. This tempo range gives you space for rapid drum patterns and tight bass movement.

Do I need expensive plugins to sound like neurofunk

No. You need a few core abilities like wavetable synthesis, distortion, and multiband compression. Many affordable or free plugins provide these. The rest is technique. Resampling and creative routing often produce results that expensive plugins copy later.

How do I keep the sub clean while making a noisy midrange

Use separate layers for sub and midrange. High pass the midrange below around fifty to one hundred Hertz and keep the sub mono. Use sidechain on the midrange to the kick to avoid collisions. Use dynamic EQ to tame resonances only when they become problematic.

What is resampling and why do producers use it

Resampling means recording the output of a sound or a group of sounds to audio. Producers resample to capture the exact character of processing then re process the audio to create textures and new timbres. It is a way to push sound design beyond the limitations of a single synth.

How do I get that squelchy midrange sound

Combine FM or wavetable synthesis with bandpass filtering, aggressive distortion, and modulation. Use an LFO or step sequencer to move filter cutoff or wavetable position. Resample and add extra saturation to lock the character.

How do I program neurofunk drums that do not sound robotic

Start tight, then humanize timing by small amounts on selected hi hats and ghost snares. Use velocity variation and different samples for repeated hits. Add small micro timing shifts of five to twenty milliseconds. The goal is tight groove with tiny imperfections that feel human.

Should I mix in mono

Mixing in mono can reveal phase cancellations and balance issues. It is a useful check. Keep your sub mono and test mixes in mono to ensure the track does not fall apart on club rigs. Many pros switch between mono and stereo as a quality control method.

What are good arrangement lengths for neurofunk

Track lengths vary. For club play aim for four to six minutes. For streaming and personal release, three to five minutes can work. The important thing is energy management. Keep the listener engaged by introducing new textures or removing elements before boredom sets in.

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