Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Artist news
  • Guitar Amps
  • Guitar Pedals
  • Synths
  • Guitars
  • Drums
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Software & Apps
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • EVH trance state
  • Antonoff on Please Please Please
  • “Mick looked peeved. The Beatles had upstaged him”
  • 95k+ free music samples

Recommended reading

Hardgroove
Music Production Tutorials “It’s tougher and faster than ever”: Jump aboard the modern hardgroove train and learn to build a club-ready beat
Marshall Jefferson
Samples SampleRadar: 267 free deep house samples
Best beginner DAWs: Cockos Reaper 6
Music Production Tutorials New to making tracks? Start here
playbeat 4
Tech "No two beats will ever be the same": Audiomodern's Playbeat 4 is an AI-powered infinite groove generator
Djrum
Artists “I'm always starting sessions and not finishing them, I don't see that as unproductive”: Djrum talks creativity
eats everything in his studio
Tech “Entrance Song is a massive 808 sub and a 909 kick. Those two shouldn’t work together - I’m not sure they were even in key”: Eats Everything on his ever-changing approach to production and DJing
Lawrence Hart
Artists Watch UK electronic artist Lawrence Hart build a track from scratch in his hardware-stuffed studio
  1. Tutorials
  2. Music Production Tutorials

How to make a Burial-style beat

Tuition
By Computer Music ( Computer Music ) published 2 October 2009

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Audio only

Audio only

Step 1: It’s said that Burial doesn’t use a traditional sequencer, preferring to create his tracks in Sony’s Sound Forge audio editor. This means that his tracks don’t rigidly fit to a regular grid. We can do the same in a DAW (we’re using Reaper, the demo version of which can be downloaded from here) by turning off Snap.

Page 1 of 8
Page 1 of 8
Kick and snare

Kick and snare

Step 2: Drag in some kick and snare samples from our Burial beats folder (right-click to download). At this stage, we just want to get a groove going with the kick and snare. Place the first kick at the start of the first bar, but don’t worry about where the other beats sit in relation to the tempo track – just go for what sounds good.

Page 2 of 8
Page 2 of 8
Looping

Looping

Step 3: Once you’ve got a rhythm you like, you’ll want to loop it. As you’re not working to a tempo track, set the left locator at the start of the bar in which you placed the first kick, and experiment with right locator placement until the loop sounds right.

Page 3 of 8
Page 3 of 8
Layering sounds

Layering sounds

Step 4: You’ll likely find that you want to beef up the snare with some supplementary sounds. Sidestick and rimshot samples are particularly useful for Burial-style beats, so try layering some up with your regular snare sound. A shaker or hi-hat over the snare can also some add top-end, if required.

Page 4 of 8
Page 4 of 8
Additional sounds

Additional sounds

Step 5: With the kick and the snare sorted, let’s fill in the gaps with some other percussion sounds, such as open hi-hats. You’ll find appropriate samples in the Burial beats folder, but bear in mind that Burial often uses non-standard samples for this kind of task, such as metallic Foley-style sounds taken from films and videogames.

Page 5 of 8
Page 5 of 8
Hi-hats

Hi-hats

Step 6: To create realistic shuffle rhythms, it helps to use multiple hi-hat samples – if you repeat the same samples too many times within a beat, they can sound very artificial. So use the two closed hi-hat samples in the Q&A folder together, as we have here.

Page 6 of 8
Page 6 of 8
More shuffle

More shuffle

Step 7: As well as hi-hats, sometimes finger snaps and other percussive sounds make for good shuffles. Create another shuffled groove with the closed hi-hat and finger snap samples in the Burial beats folder. If you’re having trouble, open the example Reaper project, which you can find in the same place.

Page 7 of 8
Page 7 of 8
Setting the tempo

Setting the tempo

Step 8: Once done, you’ll probably want to set your DAW’s tempo to that of the loop. If your DAW doesn’t feature any kind of ‘set tempo by locators’ function, you can do this by dividing 240 by the length of the beat in seconds. For example, if your loop lasts two seconds, the tempo will be 120bpm.

Listen to our Burial-style beat:

Page 8 of 8
Page 8 of 8
Computer Music
Computer Music
Social Links Navigation

Computer Music magazine is the world’s best selling publication dedicated solely to making great music with your Mac or PC computer. Each issue it brings its lucky readers the best in cutting-edge tutorials, need-to-know, expert software reviews and even all the tools you actually need to make great music today, courtesy of our legendary CM Plugin Suite.

Read more
Hardgroove
“It’s tougher and faster than ever”: Jump aboard the modern hardgroove train and learn to build a club-ready beat
Marshall Jefferson
SampleRadar: 267 free deep house samples
Best beginner DAWs: Cockos Reaper 6
New to making tracks? Start here
playbeat 4
"No two beats will ever be the same": Audiomodern's Playbeat 4 is an AI-powered infinite groove generator
Djrum
“I'm always starting sessions and not finishing them, I don't see that as unproductive”: Djrum talks creativity
eats everything in his studio
“Entrance Song is a massive 808 sub and a 909 kick. Those two shouldn’t work together - I’m not sure they were even in key”: Eats Everything on his ever-changing approach to production and DJing
Latest in Music Production Tutorials
Yune Pinku
10 more things producers can learn from our In The Studio With... series
50 producers
50 production secrets from the pros
Oasis
"The din was huge": Noel and Liam Gallagher perform behind closed doors for the first time in 16 years
Lexicon 480L
Why reverb is one of the most reliable effects in a producer's arsenal
Plugins Future owns
Our resident platinum award-winning mixer and producer shares 10 of his go-to plugins
apple
Here's how to compress your mix bus for sonic punch
Latest in Tuition
MusicNomad fret tuition
Can you fix your guitar's frets yourself? We try three innovative approaches from MusicNomad to investigate how they might conquer a major cause of fret buzz
Music theory basics: understanding intervals, and how they define the distance in pitch between two notes
10 music theory tricks every producer and songwriter should know
Delay pedals
“When you want a boring sound to sound rhythmic and exciting - reach for the delay”: How to understand and use delay effectively in your productions
Full Bucket Music FB-3300
Fantastic (free) plugins and how to use them: Full Bucket FB-3300
apple
Here's how to compress your mix bus for sonic punch
Recording vocals in a studio
Want to record some real musicians in your studio? Here’s how to prep for success

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...