A Beginner's Guide to Jungle Breakbeats

A beginner’s guide to jungle breakbeats. I kick off with some context and history, then cover how to chop and process breaks in your DAW.

Check out my DnB music on Spotify!

Check out my latest happy hardcore EP:

Chapter markers:

00:00 Intro

00:33 Chapter 1: What are breakbeats?

03:31 Chapter 2: UK breakbeat music

10:06 Chapter 3: Why do breakbeats sound good?

14:29 Chapter 4: Where do I get jungle breaks?

17:31 Chapter 5: Old school breakbeat technique

21:10 Chapter 6: Automatic slicing

24:13 Chapter 7: Contemporary technique

29:49 Chapter 8: Breakbeat processing tips

If you'd like to use my Live slicing preset you can find it here:

This should be placed in your Ableton user library in the Defaults/Slicing folder.

Tunes mentioned:

The Winstons - Amen Brother

Bobby Byrd - Hot Pants (I’m Coming)

Lyn Collins - Think (About It)

Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks

Tommy Roe - Sweet Pea

Mantronix - King of the Beats

MC Duke - I’m Riffin’

Hardnoise - Untitled

Shut Up & Dance - This Town Needs A Sheriff

The Scientist - Exorcist

Shut Up and Dance - Derek Went Mad

Low Noise Block – Rave In The Bedroom

Lennie D’Ice - We Are I.E.

The Prodigy - Charly

Meat Beat Manifesto - Radio Babylon

The Stone Roses - Fools Gold

Awesome 3 - Don’t Go

RatPack - Searchin’ For My Rizla

Big Daddy Kane - Raw

DJ Red Alert & Mike Slammer - In Effect

Q-Project -Champion Sound (Alliance Remix)

Shut up and Dance - Raving I’m Raving

Marc Cohn - Walking in Memphis

DJ Crystl - Meditation

Deep Blue - The Helicopter Tune

LTJ Bukem - Music

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares

Engineers Without Fears - Rhythm

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP)

DJ Krome & Mr Time - The Licence

Model 500 - The Flow (Alex Reece Remix)

Alex Reece - Pulp Fiction

Nasty Habits - Shadow Boxing

DJ Trace - Mutant Revisited

Codename John - The Warning

Boymerang - Soul Beat Runna

D’Cruze - Watch Out

Mark from Solardo talks about sampling the break from "Tribesmen":

Software mentioned:

Ableton Live

Akaizer

ReCycle

Eventide Audio H3000 Factory

Oeksound Soothe 2

Inphonik RX950

D16 Group Decimort 2

Airwindows

iZotope Neutron 3

FabFilter

Jungle photo by Chris Abney on Unsplash:

[danceablesolutions]

Only started producing a year ago even though I’m 46. I couldn’t get my head around when I tried in 97! Having great fun and success now largely thanks to YT tuts. This has to be one of the best. Wicked Tim. The most maximum of big ups to you!

[tehfn]

True story. I was at school in 1987 when acid music started to appear. I said to my friends, as a joke because I was into heavy metal, "They should make an acid tune from that Charly advert". When The Prodigy released it I thought they did it as a joke.

[blasder]

i would pay for an online course made by this guy

[GreatBallsOfAcid]

This is not a guide, it’s a masterclass! Thank you for helping keep this magnificent culture alive!

[sjnybro]

Made an iceberg video without a clickbait thumbnail. I salute you sir.

[PeePeePrivate]

I’ve basically been asking the universe for a video like this for the past 4 months and here it is exceeding my expectations in terms of overall entertainment, information, and lasting understanding. Thank you very much

[iggysixx]

Copyright infringement mostly becomes a problem when you gain an audience. (That's why some earlier records of certain artists contain movie samples, and are suddenly replaced by silence when they release the same track on a bigger label.

[MaskedMenace]

Black American music has gifted the world with so much. I love my people and culture.

[living_in_exile]

Incredible guide, I am not a producer but, as a jungle fan, now I understand way more about how my favorite artists produced their stuff. Forever grateful for this!

[YanickFM]

one thing i really liked about this was that you used a lot of the built in features of the DAW. I do like learning about plugins that other people use, but I also love to see a focus on stuff i can actually do immediately, without downloading anything new.

[kidsonicofficial]

The "elongating" of these beats was originally called Juggling, until Grandmaster Flash came up with the Cueing system, where it was then called "the Merry-go-round". Also, Get RhythmLab or DoubleClick's packs. Jungle Warfare was rereleased a while ago but they removed the breaks because of the copyright issues.

[bontempo]

Lol. My dude. You just made probably the best reference video for Jungle breakbeats. Excellent research. Accurate information. And your covering of a broad range of styles and techniques is what makes this an excellent video for reference and inspiration. If you wasn't involved in Jungle production back then, you certainly did it justice here. Hats off to you !
Any beginner would do well to take this all in. Particularily the importance of getting the beat adjustment and timing right.

[jedgould]

6:48 A label president once told me the reason they don’t go after samples is the infringer has no money to collect. In the nineties when a record success did warrant a suit, it was only with a hit record. No worries, because no one pays for music now anyway. 😂

[Breakbeats.]

As a beat nerd the breaks you mentioned were a refresher course. My favorite part was learning about early adopters of said breaks. Most of whom were very obscure to me.

[japhy]

that was an INSANE amount of knowledge and passion shared - thank you so much. I'm a seasoned electronic music producer and I've still picked up a few new techniques. Kindest thanks

[FallerToon]

No words. That was magical for me.
The history part into educational part was perfect. It confirms some of my thoughts about breakbeat samples that i heard like everywhere.
And you come with some bangers like these (34:02) oh my god. One of coolest youtube tuts i have seen (and mostly listen).
I don't make music but this was enjoyable to watch and gives me vibes to produce beats like these. :D
Thanks for the video (and thanks youtube algorithm i guess ?)

[xmc]

That was fuckin excellent, really loved the short history of it with artists. Would have been cool if while you mentioned each artist/song the album track was playing in the background softly with a brief pause on describing it and switch to full volume of the track to hear how the artist implemented it in their track. But for real very helpful vid. Subbed!

[bazathedon]

tim your a lifesaver mate! no more wondering how my favourite breaks were made, you've laid it all out in an engaging format. got the ep i love it! hardcore eruption and unity are phenomenal. vibena has returned!

[idleprepress]

I love playing those types of beats on normal drums, it's an endless dynamic meditation to play around with the rhythms, chop them, emulate all that "retrigger" and "beat crushing" stuff making the flow continuos and organic. You just throw some random fat bass riff and can then do anything as long as you're in the pocket.

[alasdairkeddie]

Amazing depth of breakbeat history and technique. I've wanted to have a crack at DNB production since the 90s, no excuses now :)