Amen is king

  Thisket said:

Amen is crap. It was novel the first several times, now it's just garbage.

i feel the same way about the 303

  BCM said:

ban breaks. nobody should be allowed to sample breaks ever again until some fucker's actually come up with some new ones by either playing or programming them.

 

PROGRAM YOUR OWN BEATS!

 

(i'm gonna start a campaign).

uhh what? thats what most people do with breaks! - cut 'em up and shufle them into whatever they like. its just the same as using samples from a drum machine or whatever. of course, if you are meaning only the lazy looping of breaks then yeah i'm mostly with you - i appreciate novelness and effort in music and you don't have either present when you are blankly looping a drum break sample.

yes but do you like it when zelah uses slowed down amen breaks?

  william s. braintree said:

Yeah, I've never actually used a break in one of my songs. I usually program my own [from drum kits I've built] and cut them up, or throw them back in as samples to get that 'sampled break' feel.

nice one.

  feta lol said:

yes but do you like it when zelah uses slowed down amen breaks?

no.

  feta lol said:

yes but do you like it when zelah uses slowed down amen breaks?

at around what bpm ? I've never heard these Slow Amens that are often referred to

lol you guys are some judgemental motherfuckers haha... jesus people, breaks are pretty fundamental to the sort of music we listen to, lighten up a bit eh?

bollocks

I can see you're here for a well crafted debate

fanny batter

  greenbank said:

  BCM said:

ban breaks. nobody should be allowed to sample breaks ever again until some fucker's actually come up with some new ones by either playing or programming them.

 

PROGRAM YOUR OWN BEATS!

 

(i'm gonna start a campaign).

 

 

uhh what? thats what most people do with breaks! - cut 'em up and shufle them into whatever they like. its just the same as using samples from a drum machine or whatever. of course, if you are meaning only the lazy looping of breaks then yeah i'm mostly with you - i appreciate novelness and effort in music and you don't have either present when you are blankly looping a drum break sample.

I'm sorry, but no, writing your own beats is different from using a pre-recorded break. Yes, some people are innovative in the way they cut shit up, but the sound is still the same. The amen still has the gray tone no matter how you cut it. I just can't respect someone that's cut up a pre-existing beat on the same level as someone who WRITES a killer beat.

right on!

  william s. braintree said:

  greenbank said:

  BCM said:

ban breaks. nobody should be allowed to sample breaks ever again until some fucker's actually come up with some new ones by either playing or programming them.

 

PROGRAM YOUR OWN BEATS!

 

(i'm gonna start a campaign).

 

 

uhh what? thats what most people do with breaks! - cut 'em up and shufle them into whatever they like. its just the same as using samples from a drum machine or whatever. of course, if you are meaning only the lazy looping of breaks then yeah i'm mostly with you - i appreciate novelness and effort in music and you don't have either present when you are blankly looping a drum break sample.

 

I'm sorry, but no, writing your own beats is different from using a pre-recorded break. Yes, some people are innovative in the way they cut shit up, but the sound is still the same. The amen still has the gray tone no matter how you cut it. I just can't respect someone that's cut up a pre-existing beat on the same level as someone who WRITES a killer beat.

Um, I'm pretty sure he was talking about just cutting certain hits from a break and then using them in a sampler to program beats. You know, take just one kick out of a break and use that as the kick in a sampler. Its programming beats but using a sampled source rather than the 909 kick, for example. He's writing his own beats, not looping a pre-existing one.

i thought he was talking about something along the lines of the Dr Rexx thing on Reason..you know where you get a breakbeat and slice it up into sections then re-arrange. not the individual hits, just small sections of the break....

i don't have a problem with someone sampling a kick drum from somewhere and a snare from somewhere else etc then programming a beat themselves using these hits - if that's what you meant greenbank then i agree with you. if you were talking about using small sections from breaks and re-arranging them then I'm not against it at all, but I'm not into it and think people should give it all a rest for a bit...

I can understand sampling a break for a snare or kick or something to use out of conjunction with the actual break.

  BCM said:

i thought he was talking about something along the lines of the Dr Rexx thing on Reason..you know where you get a breakbeat and slice it up into sections then re-arrange. not the individual hits, just small sections of the break....

 

i don't have a problem with someone sampling a kick drum from somewhere and a snare from somewhere else etc then programming a beat themselves using these hits - if that's what you meant greenbank then i agree with you. if you were talking about using small sections from breaks and re-arranging them then I'm not against it at all, but I'm not into it and think people should give it all a rest for a bit...

So sequencing amens is ok but the slicing them up and re-aranging is not? Amens do actually sound better if they are cleverly mashed about a bit and cut up - not to robotic if you know what I mean (which is the effect sequencing usually has on it). I think there's a bit of skill involved with amen manipulation although obviously if someones fucked about with an amen really well I'll give more credit to the music maker making his own beats.

unless you are breaking out a drum kit and playing it yourself what you're doing drumwise is not above someone chopping the fuck out of breakbeats into individual hits and programming them in a sequencer. stop lying to yourself. and how many of you are playing an actual drum kit yourself? anybody? i saw 1 screenshot of a kid with a drum kit in his studio here.

all the drum sounds you kids use are made by someone else, what the fuck does it matter if it's some synth drum or sample cd of an actual kit or a breakbeat hit? it's how you use it that matters.

  aeser said:

  Thisket said:

Amen is crap. It was novel the first several times, now it's just garbage.

 

 

i feel the same way about the 303

I feel the same way about the electric guitar. Completely overused and blown out of porportion.

I think the amen is here to stay, wether or not we like it. It's catchy break with lots of energy, and it's not like we're really "inventing" any new ones, is it? It's the same old shit over and over again. And that's fine with me.

Unless you want to remove the rythm aspect of the drum and play melodies by shifting the pitch of the hits or making random and spontaneous breaks with no coherancy (typo) you're to a certain degree reproducing something thats been created before and proven to be an effective musical effect/composition. But to me, being sic of rythm is like being sick of harmony. Don't get me wrong, i think experementing with harmony and disharmony is exciting and often creates the best music, but aboning harmony completely is a bit much. It can be done, but what's the point when the oposite is proven to be the better alternative. Harmony works, rythm works, amen works. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

  TEXX said:

I feel the same way about the electric guitar. Completely overused and blown out of porportion.

i feel the same way about computer music

yes that amen break is incredible. easy to eq, easy to slice, the drummer is quite regular, it's just a fookin pleasure to work that break. it's just a shame i discovered it so late and still am not bored of it. many people reproach me the use of the amen :( but i don't care i still am in love :heart:

edit: and i like the idea of using such a classic. it's like a wink to all the peeps who used it before. it's perfect both for serious & cheesy tracks. i love the amen. amen.

Listen to Venetian Snares's "Good Jungle" from Shitfuckers to hear the best Amen usage ever. That track makes me want to headbang and break shit.

  TEXX said:

  aeser said:

  Thisket said:

Amen is crap. It was novel the first several times, now it's just garbage.

 

 

i feel the same way about the 303

I feel the same way about the electric guitar. Completely overused and blown out of porportion.

 

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sort of kinda bullshit in a way maybe

I think the amen is here to stay, wether or not we like it. It's catchy break with lots of energy, and it's not like we're really "inventing" any new ones, is it? It's the same old shit over and over again. And that's fine with me.

 

Unless you want to remove the rythm aspect of the drum and play melodies by shifting the pitch of the hits or making random and spontaneous breaks with no coherancy (typo) you're to a certain degree reproducing something thats been created before and proven to be an effective musical effect/composition. But to me, being sic of rythm is like being sick of harmony. Don't get me wrong, i think experementing with harmony and disharmony is exciting and often creates the best music, but aboning harmony completely is a bit much. It can be done, but what's the point when the oposite is proven to be the better alternative. Harmony works, rythm works, amen works. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Hearing the amen break in every track is like hearing 20 Bach organ songs in a row. The sound just gets fucking old no matter how good the material is written.

  Braintree said:

Hearing the amen break in every track is like hearing 20 Bach organ songs in a row. The sound just gets fucking old no matter how good the material is written.

That doesen't prove a thing, other than the fact that the you pay more attention to rythm than melody in music. Yes, i see your point but if you don't like the amen, don't use the amen, and go out of your way to avoid listening to music that uses the amen. This doesen't effect anybody but you, and you're the only one who suffers here (you and anone else who gets bored by the amen), but my impression from listening to electronic music is that most people think the amen sounds nice, and will continue to use it for years to come.

i meant atomising/discretising (uhh or something) a break and using all the individual hits to make a new rhythm or whatever is perfectly fine by me - takes effort and if done well its ace. taking a whole break and looping it can be ok but only rarely, mostly its lazy and a bit shite. i also meant using only hits from one but personally i almost always end up using more to fit what i want.

aeser is spot on: reshuffling/reprogramming every single component part of a break IS writing a beat. the only difference between that and playing some drum hits yourself, sampling them and using those to make a beat is the miniscule amount of extra effort required to press record. (unless you give people extra credit for owning a microphone and a drum kit, which would be utterly fucking stupid). once the sounds are in your sampler/computer then it's all the same. if you can't stand breaks then does that mean that using drum machines is bad too? they all have distinctive sounds/textures/timbres/whatever.

yeah but its more your own if you actually own a drum set, or if you can play the drums properly

one of the main points of using a break is to use something that a large number of people already recognise and (thanks to the power of the human brain) can recognise when mangled and twisted into something completely different - they can form an idea of what exactly it is that you did and can appreciate the technical prowess involved. saying 'oh but its less yours' is missing the point. it's an open market, anyone has access to the same breaks as their favourite artists use, it's just that not everyone can turn boom tsh boom tsh basic drums into a juddering beast of rhythm with cuts/edits/stutters/retriggers/repitches/slides or indeed into another simple but different and totally tight pattern. it becomes yours by what you do to it.