Mistabishi – Drum & Bass Vol.4 Sample CD Review
So you’ve been trying to write Drum n Bass for a while now but your tunes just don’t seem to be getting anywhere, right?

You’re bass sounds weak and your drums just don’t have that punch and weight that most commercial drum n bass does right?

Where do I even begin with Drum n Bass Production?

Well, luckily for us the good chaps over at Loopmasters have stepped in and wrangled in Hospital heavyweight “Mistabishi” to supply us mere mortals with some of his finest samples hot from his very own hardrive!

Check out the Video Overview on the Mistabishi Drum & Bass Vol.4 Sample CD Below

Grab the Mistabishi from Loopmasters HERE!

Okay, normally I have little faith in Drum & Bass sample CD’s. I’ve been let down with the quality over the years but in all honesty the quality over the last 12 months has been getting better and this Mistabishi sample cd from Loopmasters is a prime example of what I’m talking about.

I mean, its an awesome idea right? Get some of the best producers in each genre to offer up some samples for us to use in our own production, brilliant! These samples are absolutely perfect for adding weight to your drums or nastiness in your bass or just kicking off a whole new tune idea!

Here’s a run down of what’s in the pack. Personally I think its a big light but to be fair its all quality through and through.

New Drum n Bass Production Standard?

Logic Audio was always a favourite DAW for drum n bass production but does Logic 9 stand tall?

Its an interesting question since I’m a die hard Cubase user, however,  every now and again I find myself wandering around and checking out what’s happening with the other sequencers out there. I find it refreshing to explore other DAWs and experience a different kind of work flow (or pull my hair out in frustration trying to figure them out!). This helps the creative juices flow a little more readily which could only be a good thing. I managed to finally get a copy of Logic 8 when I purchased my wife an Imac24 a year ago, so I’ve had some time to dig around a little and get my hands dirty. Well I must say that I wasn’t at first really impressed with what I saw, so it was back to Cubase land for moi! I found the audio editing to be “illogical” and some of the work flow to complexed.

Then Logic 9 came out and to be honest I wasn’t fussed at all with its arrival.

I mean, the feature list basically put it on par with the rest of the other DAWs. out there. However all was not as it seemed for lurking in the program lay some very cool new features/plugins just perfect for drum n bass production.

1. Amp Designer – Very cool plugin allowing you to mix and match 25 amps, 25 speaker cabinets and 3 mics you can place around the speaker cone. The sound of the amps are brilliant. All of them have there very own flavour and all very very useable.

The cabinets and mics sound great as well. Insert the Plugin on your bass channel and volia! You have instant access to a wide variety of sounds and textures at your disposal. I found the plugin perfect on my mids (reese bass) and awesome on my sub bass. I’ve yet to put it on my drum buss but I have all the confidence in the world that it would sound great.

2. Pedalboard – Here you have a collection of 30 stompboxes from all over the place! Fuzz, Delay, Chorus, Flanger, Treble, Wah, Overdrive and Boost. The pedals themselves sound wicked, alone or joined up together. The majority of them have a real analog sound to them. The developers over at Apple didn’t hold back on these ones. Even though we have the likes of IK Multimedia Amplitube and T-Racks and Peavey’s Revalver I do wish these plugins were available to everyone! Damn you Apple! In particular the chorus, phaser and flanger pedals sound best. Really lush sounding and warm. Quality all the way!

3. Convert to Sampler Track – I’m not really sure if Logic was listening to us drum n bass heads or not when they implemented this one but its just what the doctor ordered. Mucking about with Recycle and the EXS24 was down right CRAP! So I’m really glad they took the bull by the horns and did something about chopping up beats!

They really did a nice job of it too! Except they should have given you the option of having a multiple out EXS24 when you sliced up the audio track. This would have made more sense but hey, lets just cross this bridge first. This little feature makes chopping up old funk breaks just perfect for drum n bass or any other breakbeat orientated music. The EXS is a very capable sampler even if its a bit long in the tooth now! This feature alone is going to save you plenty of time! Trust me!

4. I wont go into detail about every new feature but some other worthy of mentioning are:

Bounce-in-place. I say FINALLY! EPIC WIN!

Flex time – Not bad at all.

Selective Track Import – very interesting.

Drum Replacer – Could be interesting

All in all the new Logic 9 is a nice surprise. Its not say, perfect but no DAW out there is. I still love the automation system in Logic and I personally still love the way it looks and lets not get me going about the awesomeness of Logic’s Space Designer Reverb and Delay Designer! In fact I would say that it has never ever looked and sounded so good! Plenty of top notch drum n bass producers cant be wrong! Now get over to the Apple store and check out the videos if you haven’t already. Definitely worth a look.

See you on the dancefloor.

dauntless

No Frills Locus Sydney

P.S For some great Q&As with big Drum n Bass artists or some general chit chat head over to sydneyfriction.com.

I regulary post and hang out there.

Peace

Howdy, I’m back with another drum n bass production video golden moment. This time from the man of the moment (some would say for all the wrong reasons!) Mistabishi. Regardless to the goings on to what he has or has not done his 4 part drum and bass production special for Computer Music Mag was choc full of brilliant tips and insight. If you don’t know what I’m talking about check out  DogsonAcid.com. As a drum and bass artist he is definitely one of  Hospital records up and coming superstars. I really loved the way he describes how he uses reverb in his tunes. How lush does the TC Electronic ClassicVerb sound? Well wicked! Anyways.. Just makes me want to rush out and buy one straight away! Which of course is well dangerous for my health (my wife would kill me) and my bank balance! I’ll you check out the rest of the video, enjoy.
Cheers
Dauntless
No Frills Locus Sydney

P.S I haven’t had the chance to check out the new sample pack Mistabishi has created for Loopmasters. I’ll

hopefully review it soon. Pop back in later to see my review.

Howdy, how has the last few weeks been for ya then? Good I hope. They were great for me, and yes if you were thinking did I manage to get some studio time in on my Honeymoon, well the answer is yes…. and no! Ha.
I’ll get back to that in a bit. First of I wanted to talk about layering breaks and how important this drum n bass production technique is. I kinda went over some concepts in an earlier blog post. You can read it here.  When I look through the statistics a lot of people want information about how to layer their drums. Now, layering drums can be a tricky thing. I spent years in my early production life trying to do so… and failed miserably! I tried every VST Plugin, every VSTi Plugin and every DAW out there with NO LUCK but with sheer determination and the guidance from a few inspirational souls my breaks started to come together. Bit by bit everything that I was taught started to make sense to me and when you hit that point things are good! Anyways, lets get you up to that point because there’s nothing like a big PHAT break that YOU made!

Lets Get Rolling
The first thing I like to do is start with a drum break I like the sound of. What I’m looking for is a nice kick, snare and hat sound. The break must be PHAT! Its important here to pick a great sounding break. If you’re struggling to find any breaks check out Loopmasters for some drum n bass samples. If you pick a crap break your already in a losing position. This is why the Amen break is so loved/abused. Its a great sounding break! Generally I like the sound of old funk breaks. Loop them up and apply a bit of EQ to bring out the individual elements in the break kick, snare etc.

I use either the Sonnox EQ or my trusty UAD Cambridge EQ (above). They are some  my favourite VST Plugins for sure! I definitely cut the bottom out of the breaks, say lower then 50hz. I don’t want too much going on down there as you have to leave some room for the sub. If you find that you have a subby kick, EQ that shit out of there or replace the break entirely.

You need to do this NOW or its going to screw stuff up for later. One of the only options you have if you want to keep the kick is to use a method called “Sidechaining”. This is technique is very popular in House music but its popularity is growing in drum n bass production circles. Next, I’ll  limit the break a little to bring out some of the levels. This helps to give the drum break a healthy amount of snap or punch usually .

I use the Sonnox Transmod for this as its ultra transparent and I love the little drive setting on there (truly one the best VST Plugins out there). Just to let you know I work at the tempo of the break for this. I don’ t import the break into Cubase at drum n bass tempo. Just use the original tempo of the break. ( I got to give credit to Nik from Noisia this for this one. Big ups… Me and the wife spent some time in Groningen In the Netherlands with the Noisia boys. Awesome dudes! Maybe even the highlight of our 6 weeks!) Anyway… moving on.

Time To Get Edward Scissors Out!
Once I have the break rolling and its phat as funk. I’ll open up the audio editor in Cubase for some chop chop action. Its a simple matter of using Cubase’s hit point detection tool and the rest is history. If your NOT using Cubase (why aren’t you? lol) then you could use Propellerhead Recycle or Native Instruments Kontakt etc to slice up the beat. Or is you wanted to get ultra simple on it you could just cut it up in the project window. Dead easy that is!

Time For The Fun Stuff!
Now, after that’s all done I’ll separate the hits onto different audio channels to work with. I’ll boot the tempo up to drum n bass friendly tempo of 172bpm and I’ll have a look at the break hits and shorten the hits (if there to long) or play around with the envelopes if I think there is too much noise or air in there for my liking. I’ll then buss the drums to a Group Buss (Cubase calls them Groups) and apply some compression and some slight/heavy distortion.

I’ll use the Sonnox Dynamics for the compression and I’ll use Studio Devil for the distortion. I’ll try other plugins out as well if I’m not getting what I want from the other 2. I do all this to gel the break back together and to give the break my own vibe. I’ll then bounce out this break and start all other again. If I don’t think the kick has enough punch I’ll layer it with another kick, same for the snare hats etc. I have a library of hits that I turn to when some parts need reinforcing. Remember when layering to check Cubase’s Phase button to see if the hits are sounding good or not. I could write a whole article on phase so I’m not going to get into that one! Its crazy! Anyways, just try to be a precise as you can and try a few different hits out.

Please Sir Can I Have Some More?
Now I just don’t layer individual hits onto my breaks, some times I’ll layer whole breaks themselves. The trick here is to be selective about what layers your trying to merge together. Try to pick 2 layers that complement each other. Maybe 1 has a nice kick snare and other a nice shuffle? Maybe one break is crusty sounding and the other punchy but clean? The whole plan is to join them together and make them sound like they are from the same kit. You use COMPRESSION for this and a bit of distortion if you will please. Place the plugins on your drum bus. Make sure you are bussing your drums that your trying to layer! Amit describes the Wave C4 compressor like cheese melting over your beats. It helps glue stuff together Period! Now personally I don’t really get down with Multiband limiting/compression but you have to find a plugin you like to work with.

The UAD LA2A works great for me and lets not forget the daddy of them all the WAVES SSL G Buss! Killer! 2 of the best VST Plugins for gelling shit together!

Another Thing…
Don’t forget that you don’t have to use all the elements in the loop your trying to layer up! You have the choice to take out a crap sounding snare or kick etc. Rearrange the hits so the pattern fits the one your working on or come up with a whole new pattern/loop. I like to only take the first few hits from shaker loops and loop them around etc. Oh, and I like to quantize to 16′s. I know I know, I’ve been playing around with swing and groove quantize for years but for dancefloor stuff I like to keep it straight. People like Noisia, Phace and Misanthrop can still make it sound funky with the beats quantized to 16s. Who am I to mess with that cold hard fact?

To Finish Up
Okay, I hope that has cleared some stuff up for you. Maybe not ultra detailed as I wanted but for that I’m going to start putting together some short/long videos on drum n bass production. There is something wicked about videos I really love. So In the videos I’ll show you how I use my favourite VST plugins and show you around the studio and more. Anyways.. good luck with your tune making and I’ll see you on the dancefloor.
Peace out

Dauntless
No Frills and Locus Sydney

Howdy, I’ve finally returned from my absolutely smashing Honeymoon. Needless to say my wife and I had the most amazing time overseas and would like to thank everyone who we met and hung out with but anyways…
On with the show then.
Just picked up this bad boy copy of CM and I must say that I love it. Featuring no less than 6 Major DnB headz in the flesh, giving up all their precious secrets on how to write the perfect dnb tune. I personally think the Alex P and Sabre videos are incredible. They both come across as very knowledgeable chaps and excellent tutors.

Anyways, I know a few of you might not be able to purchase the magazine and therefore NOT be able to check the vids. So for all you peoples here’s a taster from Youtube. There all there for you to geek out over then. There must be 8hours or more of content. Dope. So stop wasting time. Start watching them.
Cheers
Dauntless