Jump Up Drum & Bass With AC13

A quick volume automation on the bass does the sidechaining, so it ducks when the snare hits. That gives it some room in the mix and makes it feel a bit more dynamic. Do it again for the kick, and double it up so you've got a little bit more room on it.

The two layers on my downbeat were cool, but there was some frequency missing in the low end. Chop a one-shot onto its own channel and cut out the higher frequencies. Essentially you use it as a sub with a little bit of low mid in there.

Put the responses on an offbeat a little bit, so they don't feel too robotic. I layer some of them for a weird offbeat kind of feel, with a triplet, and make them a little shorter.

To match the energy of the initial stab, I add a grit layer from the presets instead of just giving it more brightness. It gives it a little bit more edge, because we're going for something quite aggressive here. To go even further, pop Thermal on it or make the Serum patch a little bit more aggressive.

Put a reverb on one of the layers and automate the mix, upwards towards the end and back down again. That gives it some room in the mix and fills it out a little bit more. I use Valhalla Supermassive on the Massive Vocal preset, with a short delay and a little bit of mix, and make sure it doesn't pick up too many low frequencies.