Howdy, seems like its been ages since I last posted but to be honest if I’m not doing some drum n bass production 2 days seems like a life time. Never fear in reality it hasn’t been that long… I assure you
I’m writing to you from my apartment in Barcelona Spain, 2 weeks into my honeymoon! (belated that is!)
We spent the first week in London living the Drum n Bass dream. Rubbing shoulder to shoulder with some past greats and some new greats to come. I must say that awesome fun was had by all so unfortunately this meant not much time for my blog! I’ve got some time off from all the craziness so i’ll try to write when I can!
Till then… be well.
Dauntless
NoFrills Locus Crew Sydney 2009
Howdy, I’ve got to make this drum n bass production workflow tips brief as I have 100 things to do today so I’ll just blast you with some cool bulletstyle points about how I’m getting down right now!
1. If you don’t have an idea when you sit down to right a tune, GET ONE! That’s right, go out there and start sampling or listen to some music etc.
2. Focus on getting all the elements of your tune together first! Don’t spend time on compression or effects or whatever. Get your musical elements down!
3. After you have all your bits booming/smashing up the place and your dancing around to your own tune like a mad person, start mixing down. You want to start mixing down after you have all your elements because when it comes to EQ or compression its all relative to whole track! For e.g. Why boost the snare at 200hz if the tune requires a tight little pokey snare? Listen first to the WHOLE tune then make the call. Same goes with compression etc. Don’t forget when your mixing down to leave a little headroom. I’m mixing my kick to around -12db. This seems to be working okay for me right now. Why -12db? Well I was originally mixing to -6db but I found out quickly I was running into the red too much. So now I leave a little room for my compression/eq/limiter.
4. I’ve also been spending some time making Kontakt instruments/banks/presets. I’ve found this to be so important when your writing because you have to work fast when inspiration strikes. Kontakt 3 is awesome for this as it has the cool quickload feature and a very good search function. I’ve also discovered Chicken Systems Translator Pro to help me with converting samples into Kontakt instruments. Very very handy indeed. Works great as well!
Well, only a quick 4 points on how to improve your drum n bass prodution but hopefully you got something out of it!
See you on the dancefloor.
Peace
Daunltess
No Frills Locus Crew Sydney
P.S. I would to hear your feedback/comments about how YOU work etc.
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Who here doesn’t want them? Show me some hands… anyone? Bigger, fatter, phatter, huge, dance-floor destroying whatever, were all talking the same thing here. When it comes to writing dance-floor electronic stuff you need good solid beats. Ain’t no different for drum n bass production. No doubt. No discussion. No excuses. So how do you turn your limp, flaccid and thin beats in powerhouses rhythms? Read on. Read the rest of this entry
Howdy, every now and again I go through my old Future Music or Computer Music magazines and watch the masterclasses for a bit of inspiration or gain a little more knowledge. Now the majority of videos that they’ve brought out focus on the “house” music genre but there is still plenty of stuff you can learn from them. Besides that i’ve also found I’ve picked up new bits of information that i’ve missed in the past. Anyways, check out the videos and let me know what you think. I think Ian is a very talented producer and conveys what he is trying to teach very well. The videos are quite varied in that he goes over drums, arranging and remixing for radio etc.
A Simple Plan
Howdy, things have been a little hectic to say the least but in a good way. I’ve been busy getting down in the studio writing beats! I managed to lure Axiom (Swi) into the studio with promises of Vodka and fishermans friends! (or should I say he kidnapped me for some drum n bass production madness!) Read the rest of this entry
