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Aahh the infamous Dirty South Snare Roll, Mannie Fresh was the king of this supersonic 808 roll when Southern Rap was on the rise. Heres a clip of “Real Big”, though he may not have been the first, Mannie definitely made the 808 roll popular.
Snare Rolls Mannie Fresh’s Real Big
Free 808 Snr

How I achieve this in Reason:

I like to use the NNXT for snare rolls instead of the ReDrum. I find that I can tweak the snare .wav better, and have more control over the dynamics. (I will continue next week with Fl Studio Snare Rolls, but if you are an Fl user ..you can apply this same concept in the Fl piano roll)

I load my 808 Sn into the NNXT

Add Snare To NNXT

Next open the NNXT “Edit Mode Screen”

Open EDIT MODE

Now it’s time to use the pencil tool to draw in my rolls, or my midi controller to try and play the rolls. I use 1/32 and 1/16 “Time Signature” for all Dirty South Beats. I choose where I want the snare roll to start, usually at the end of a 4 or 8 bar measure. I zoom in to see the 16 steps in the piano roll for the bar I’m using. Next I go to the first step in bar 4 and start adding my snares on the “1,2,3,&4″

Zoom in to see 16 steps and add snares

I skip a note down and add 4 more snares on the “5,6,7,8″. Skip a note down again, add 4 more snares “9,10,11,12″, Skip a note down and add 4 more snares “13,14,15,16″. Finally I have a screen that shows my snare rolls on the piano like stair steps:

The Snare Roll

This is how the roll sounds at 79 BPMs

Now it’s time for you to put your spin on it. This is the basic concept, now you can use this to do a roll with toms, or whatever you can think of. Get creative with it… have fun cooking up your “rolls”

Happy Beat Making To All
Pz Til Later..

808-snr