VST PLUGINS POWER!

Howdy, well its a few months on from my last post about drum & bass plugins, so for all of you that missed the 4 part series you can check them out here but click here for all other drum & bass production goodies.  A lot has happened in the last few months plugin wise, so that means a lot  of sonic goodies for us to play with. Oh yeah baby! As the title of this post suggests I’m not going to work my way through the 9,000,000 new plugins that have hit the market, just the few that have grabbed my attention and the ones I thought would improve your drum n bass production. I’ll  break shit up into sections for your reading pleasure.

Compressors

Well, when it comes to compressors I’ve been trying out a few new ones. The PSP Oldtimer is a nice quality comp that sits well over a drum bus or individual channels. I’ve only really tried it out over a whole mix a few times but its sounds pretty good on the Glue Preset. The Valve and Clean switch is cool for dirtying up the sound a little or adding that little bit of grit. Everyone probably knows by now that I love the Sonnox Dynamics on the Drum Bus. Very transparent and so easy to use its not funny. Also love that Warmth control and the way that Ian Carey uses it as a send effect is brilliant. Check out the videos here. The Waves SSL G-Buss is still an awesome plug that deserves a mention as well. The way it glues stuff together is legendary. Another plugin I use sometimes is the UAD Neve 33609. It could quite well be my new favourite. 

Equalizers

When it comes to equalizers in the last few months I haven’t really been blown away by anything new I can think of. I’m still using my faithful UAD-1 Cambridge EQ for most of my EQ work. I’ll switch that up with the Cubase EQ’s every now and then just for convenience sake. The UAD Pultec Pro pops its head out every now and again on the drum buss for a little magic on any kicks and hats. The cut and boost feature on the plugin is amazing.

Reverbs

Wow, is the only damn thing I can say right now. Wow! Now years ago people were all up in the house saying that there was no place for reverbs in Drum & Bass Production but how wrong they are! With the move towards everything in-the-box a good quality reverb is becoming even more important. I always wondered why samples that I was making didn’t have that special vibe about them. Now I know why…. its all in the verbage! The amount of quality reverbs to grace our presence is simply amazing. My favourite would have to be the 2caudio Aether plugin. This plugin at first looks a little crazy but believe me it is the goods. Once you work out out where the mix level is and how to call up the excellent presets its “all good baby”. The plugin adds that little bit of space/vibe/atmos/magic to what ever you put it on. It even can get totally whacky if you want it to. Check it out here. Now the Space Designer in Logic 9 is always always always worth a proper mention. The new Logic 9 has added some more features to it with the warp impulses. Did I hear the word tasty being thrown around? Because trust me… Space Designer is tasty indeed!

Synths

There are some new synths around like the Native Instruments Komplete 6 pack with Absynth 5 and Kontakt4 etc but I haven’t had time to play with them yet. When I do I fill you in with the details or better yet, if you want to write a review please be my guest! Just drop me an email at info@dnbbeats.com. There is a few more synths worth mentioning like FXPansion’s DCam Squad synth, Camel Audio Alchemy and Sylenth2.2 but I’ll let you check them out. I think all of them are brilliant.

All in all a crazy few months of plugin madness to really help you  produce them quality beats you’ve always wanted. I highly recommend the plugins above if you want to glue your mixes together, bring out/balance certain elements or add that bit of magic space to your tunes. Definitely try out the reverb it will improve your tunes instantly taking them up towards professional level for sure.

See you on the dancefloor.

Dauntless

P.S. If you’ve wondered why the amount of stuff I’ve written lately has been a bit on the slow side I’ve been working  my ass off since I’ve gotten back from Europe. I’m going to take some time of this week to get back on the beats and get on with my drum & bass production.

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, 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