Drill'n'Bass/IDM Beat Programming

  blicero said:

  rude_NHS said:

anyway. if reference to that chap who wanted me to elaborate on my technique, all i can say right now is this, just remember to keep it groovy, and think about deliverance, then it wont matter what program you use or what speed you play it at.

 

wtf? you said that you would enlighten us with your unparalleled electronic music wizardry?! and instead we get some played out rant. maybe you're new here, but someone posts almost exactly what you just posted every other week.

 

so be a nice EKT-er and discuss music making techniques with us..

 

i was only asking to see if you used any techniques i was not already aware of, no ones going to beg you for tips on how to make tired-ass amen breaks.

 

(xlt is that-a-way)

yeah sorry dude, i am new here are havent read every single thread about the same thing every one is talking about. sorry for going on a bit of a self righteous rant, probably made myself out to look like a right ponce.

so yeah, basically all the breaks were cut up in recycle seperately, then imported into reason via the nn-19, by means of loading mutliple individual samples and automapping them across the keys. then i saved that as a patch and loaded it into the nn-xt, becasue the nn-xt has multiple outputs and stuff so i could pan each break and process them separatley as they are all different levels and stuff.

the bass is just a generic sound using two subtractors, one with two saw ocs and one with two square ocs, panned slightly apart to give it some width, adn with a envelope filter with a very slow attack to give it some mmmmmmmworp. etc, plus a bit of dist and stuff. it was also loaded into the same combi as the drums and split so the bass is on one half of the keybarod and all the drums on the other half, a split basically.

all the fx where done with two combinators, one with the drum sampler already in it, and another in the chain after that one with more fx in. the fx i used were, mostly a flanger (as you might have noticed) and the shitty reverb unit in reason, plus a malstrom for the ring mod fx and a scream 4 for the crazy feedback squealy stuff. not that many fx really, but where you put them in the chain can have a big effect on what happens. i cant remember the chain exactly, but i think it was something along the lines of drums, reverb, flanger, ring mod and scream, and then a compressor on the whole signal with a high ratio, low threshold, high attack and no release. i'm not to good with comps, but from what i hear when i use this setting, it gives it a real thwacky, real percussive sound, esp on drums at high tempos.

i guess i should mention that the rotaries on the two combis were assigned to the following, one assigned to the delay time on the flanger, one assigned to the feedback on the flanger, one on the algorhthym (ah) of the reverb, and one on the size of the reverb, one to control th freq of the ring mod and one to control the scream 4.

so thats pretty much the whole rack setup and how the sounds were generated for the first half of the song.

the second half of the song is just the breaks on loop, but the spazzy, grind knd of amen at the end was the amen break loaded into the nn-xt with each slice looped to a very short amount and copied so i could create different instances of the same sounds, and aply lfos on pitch an stuff. those drums i just played in on the keyboard with auto quantize on at a slower tempo, something i always find quite good fun.

now the midi was all done in live 4 using two midi tracks, one for combi 1 (drums and bass) the other for combi 2 (fx). however i made another midi track for the combi 1 so i could record the drums and bass on separate tracks, ti make editing easier.

now in live, you can asign clips to keys on the keyboard, and set the quantise on each clip to be triggered at the relevant measure. so with this, you can do very intricate breakbeats live with a keyboard, giving you total spontenious freedom to re-arrange your loops and stuff. so i assigned too many clips to keys with all the fx tweaks already drawn in. if you assign a midi track to the combinator it makes it much esier to tweak the rotaries, and you can do it live and perfectly in time.

so bacisally i played it all in real time, and can recreate live, which is what i do at shows. i played the bass with my left hand whislt using my right hand to trigger the various midi clips. the midi clips comprised of a midi file exported from recycle during cthe slicing process, so what you get is the drum loop mapped out into your sequencer, then i just made loads of short loops of the drum loop starting at different positions in the loop to get rhthymic variations, akin to the style of older drum and bass artist like remarc, goldie and early pusher.

after about three or four takes i got one i liked, so i sat down to finley editing some of the tweaks. i hate doing this so i didnt do it for too long, which is why there isnt as much variation in sound as i would have liked, but then i did make it in one rather stoned sunday afternoon. so yeah, i just did a few fine tweaks like adjust the reverb size every now and again, and the flanger feedback, and made the scream tweaks a bit more varied. first the first chunk of the tune, i consentrated more on editing the drums rather than the fx, to get tight filer rushing and rolls and stuff, but yeah, its just me trying to re-create go plastic in my room.

i use this approach for pretty much most of my beat based stuff, and it good fun too, esp at gigs, people are like, wow he's triggering all the breaks live and its never the same twice, well to a certain extend.

hope you find this useful. if anyone uses reason 3.0 and would like to have a look at the song then let me know and i'll record all the midi into reason and upload here.

I don't use reason but that was a very interesting post anyway, nice one

  rude_NHS said:

yeah sorry dude, i am new here are havent read every single thread about the same thing every one is talking about. sorry for going on a bit of a self righteous rant, probably made myself out to look like a right ponce.

thanks, man. that's much better.

i'm still using Reason 2.5, i need to get 3. but is is my main app. i'd like to explore the rewire possibilities in ableton more.

can you do pitch/slow drops or reverse effects on drum slices in reason? i haven't figured this out yet.

  blicero said:

  rude_NHS said:

yeah sorry dude, i am new here are havent read every single thread about the same thing every one is talking about. sorry for going on a bit of a self righteous rant, probably made myself out to look like a right ponce.

 

 

thanks, man. that's much better.

i'm still using Reason 2.5, i need to get 3. but is is my main app. i'd like to explore the rewire possibilities in ableton more.

 

can you do pitch/slow drops or reverse effects on drum slices in reason? i haven't figured this out yet.

yeah man, load your rex files into an nn-xt, group them then copy them to other zones. click on a sinlge zone/slice an play around with the pitch envelops and stuff. to reverse them, play around with the play mode at the bottom of the display.

you can also fiddle around with the pitch envelope in a rex player, but you'd have to automate that which takes bloody ages.

  rude_NHS said:

yeah man, load your rex files into an nn-xt, group them then copy them to other zones. click on a sinlge zone/slice an play around with the pitch envelops and stuff. to reverse them, play around with the play mode at the bottom of the display.

you can also fiddle around with the pitch envelope in a rex player, but you'd have to automate that which takes bloody ages.

cheers! i'll try it out this weekend.

I program everything straight into FL. I don't use any automators whatsoever.

When I need to cut a beat, I load the beat back in as a sample and make it cut itself.

  william s. braintree said:

I program everything straight into FL. I don't use any automators whatsoever.

 

When I need to cut a beat, I load the beat back in as a sample and make it cut itself.

i listen all your tracks, they are great i very like this kind of music :).but i have a guestion what do you use to cut vocal in "Hello My Name Is William" :).that sounds really nice almost like in one of Boards of Canada track :).

Sorry for my english ;).

  OldSteelOak said:

  william s. braintree said:

I program everything straight into FL. I don't use any automators whatsoever.

 

When I need to cut a beat, I load the beat back in as a sample and make it cut itself.

 

i listen all your tracks, they are great i very like this kind of music :).but i have a guestion what do you use to cut vocal in "Hello My Name Is William" :).that sounds really nice almost like in one of Boards of Canada track :).

 

Sorry for my english ;).

Your English is okay. You can get the idea across =)

The process for that song was kind of long [and a bit confusing to explain], but I took each sample and lined them up in Cool Edit [like you hear at the beginning], then once they were overlapping I took little random snippets [maybe a quarter of a second, sometimes half a second] and saved them as wav files. I plugged those little snippets into FL and programmed them as "beats." Actually, all of the percussion [kicks, snares, hihats, everything] in that song was modeled from those samples. And all of the synths were my voice with various eq and effects. But anyway, I programmed the rest of the song, went back into Cool Edit and put the two takes together.

Hope that helps a bit.

thanks a lot maybe i can do this :).i read a interview with guys from Boards of Canada and they use a human voice as synths too i am very lazy but i must try it :).you have many nice ideas for your music im impressed :).

Cheers.

now the midi was all done in live 4 using two midi tracks, one for combi 1 (drums and bass) the other for combi 2 (fx). however i made another midi track for the combi 1 so i could record the drums and bass on separate tracks, ti make editing easier.

if anyone uses reason 3.0 and would like to have a look at the song then let me know and i'll record all the midi into reason and upload here.

I was using reason via live but throught an audio port...how do you manage to write midi track in live while reason is salved? cant get it :S

2 id love to see this file actually ! could it be available please?using R3 and ablton5

thanks

hello!?? could you please help me with your description there please?

thanks in advance!

x

audacity

you know those?

it's the forerunner of the tracker.

squarepusher using Cooledit 2.0 pro to edit his breaks in 2001

What are those ganzfeld goggles made with?

Hey guys, does this squarepusherizer still exist? I can't find it on the interwebs.

Skrillexuz0r killed it

  On 2/15/2006 at 3:27 PM, blicero said:

 

 

whatever you do, don't be a sell out and use a cheat VST like supatrigga or the squarepusherizer. it'll show. that's one of the things that slightly ruined part of the acid hooligan ep from 168.1 for me (although for a project where time is very limited, shortcuts are necessary).

 

it's like using cheezy photoshop fx. most people can spot the laziness a mile away.

lmao yo wuddup wit dat dblueglitch

chopping up individual slices and mapping the actual audio file is much easier than doing it the midi way btw. maybe not for you, but for me it is. the only issue with manual chopping and glitching is the horrendous amount of audio files you end up creating as well as dealing with sample clicks.

Acid does that too. I've always used acid for sequencing, but have been thinking about moving to Ableton for a change of scenary.

  On 3/23/2014 at 1:41 AM, PhylumZunami said:

chopping up individual slices and mapping the actual audio file is much easier than doing it the midi way btw. maybe not for you, but for me it is. the only issue with manual chopping and glitching is the horrendous amount of audio files you end up creating as well as dealing with sample clicks.

 

Another drawback is that it's a lot harder to replace a sound, say the kick drum, later in the process. You'll have to go in and replace the sample for every single instance in the timeline. The extra level of abstraction that MIDI and a sampler adds makes the whole process more modular and flexible, ie. you can easily replace stuff.

If you live in Holland and want to learn tracking, pm me. For a small price, your soul, I'll be your master.

  On 3/26/2014 at 8:55 AM, psn said:

 

Another drawback is that it's a lot harder to replace a sound, say the kick drum, later in the process. You'll have to go in and replace the sample for every single instance in the timeline.

 

In Acid you just click on the track, it tells you how many time a specific auidio file is in a track, and you can replace those 100 kicks or whatever with a different sample. This of course only helps if the sample you want starts at the same point as the one you're replacing. If you're replacing a sound that's located 5 seconds into an audio file, fahgeddabowdit.

I'm surprised Acid isn't a more popular program among people who do a lot of beat slicing in their music. Though for live shit it kind of sucks I suppose.

The main reason I guess is that I'm used to it. The set-up's straightforward and logical. It allows me to work fast. Hell, Squarepusher used Vegas to make 50 Cycles off Ultravisitor, and that's like the video editing software version of Acid. Actually Vegas is what I started on, and I do miss its time stretch function, which he clearly enjoys too. Not sure sure why Sony didn't transfer that over to Acid.

  On 3/28/2014 at 2:49 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

cmon, what can't *insert daw of choice* do?

Talent button.