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So after the smashing success of Total Science Drum and Bass Vol.5 Loopmasters is back with BHK D’N'B Rough Connections Vol.4. Everybody knows that the BHK Series has been a great success and supplied the Drum and Bass community with some quality samples and I’m happy to inform the peeps that Vol.4 is plenty more of the good stuff.

Click Here To Grab Your Free Samples

Atmosphere Sounds

Excellent high quality sounds. Small in number but very high quality sounds to get you inspired to write music over the top or use as intro’s and breakdowns.
Definitely aimed at the Sci-Fi Dark Neuro-Funk Producers out there. Probably wouldn’t go astray in some banging Metalheadz type tunes either!

Drums

Drum Breaks

When it comes to drum breaks there is more than enough there to keep you satisfied. Now on a slightly honest note I wasn’t that impressed with all all the breaks. However, if you look hard enough there is some gems that are thrown into the pack and absolutely begging for you to use in a tune or two. A cool thing about the breaks folder is that there is plenty of variation in the breaks so all the major styles are covered. Big stompy breaks, liquid breaks, rolling breaks whatever they’re all there.

Kicks

A very nice selection of 40 kicks. All very punchy and have plenty of weight to them. All full range as well so you wont have a problem getting them to cut through a mix. If you hate spending a few hours or days struggling layering kick upon kick and getting nowhere then these samples are a blessing. Load them up in the sampler or arrange page and off you go!

Snare

All the snares smack hard and have just the right amount of tail on them and stereo width. Dirt Dirt and more Dirt has been processed on these snares so if you are looking for hard dirty heavy snares then look no further. Here is a fine collection of 41 dirty driven punchy snares that will find a home in many many tunes. Snares are some of the hardest parts in Drum and Bass Production to get right but having these bad boys on your HDD is a God send.

Misc FX

A great little collection fo 51 sounds. Very techy oriented. You’ll find sounds with plenty of motion and tonnes of character. Perfect for adding a little spice to your tunes. There is just the right amount of reverb or delay on the samples which is cool because I hate samples that drenched in reverb and delay.

Sound FX

Curiously there is another folder called Sound FX which is more geared towards little bass snippets. All the samples are labelled with their key/note. You get some nice twisted reese like sounds in here and some other cool sounds you could chop up and reverse etc.

Synth Sounds

Little collection of 15 samples that come in the form of single long notes that have plenty of modulation. Pop these little guys into a sampler and have some fun! Because the samples are evolving and mutating you get this nice changing textures over time. Wicked. Draw in some notes and go crazy with modulation like LFO’s and envelopes. Then resample and resample again.

Reese Sounds

Crazy collection of 34 Reese sounds. All very different and all labeled with the root note/pitch. Long sounds with modulation and distortion of varying degrees. You the same method as outlined above for maximum impact with these guys.

Bass Loops

To me the Bass loops were very uninspiring but you know what? I think that about most DnB sample pack Bass Loops, except the Total Science pack. Most of the time your just get a bunch of unusable and loops and hear its just the same. If you want to get the most out of these you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and start going crazy on the chopping and reversing. Not that this is a bad thing but if you wanted to just get cracking straight away you best look in another folder!

Sub Bass

Small collection of sub bass sounds but to be honest you don’t need really many at all. I’ve probably been using the same Sub sound for a while now. Netherless the sub’s here a big fat and warm. Some get a little dirty but thats okay if you want to make some big ass sub tunes. You can also make your own Sub Bass if you’re keen. Just read this post on making Sub Bass here.

Synth hits

34 synth hits that sound pretty dope. Shorter than the sound fx samples these little guys are perfect for adding some extra flavor to your bass lines. Just add some delay or fx and your good to go. Twist, repitch and reverse these guys for the best effect. I like to add these parts last when the main body of the tune is finished already. That way you got a key to work around and finding some extra sounds is a breeze.

Conclusion

BHK DnB Rough Connections Vol. 4 comes now in nearly every format under the sound which is crazy! You the regular Kontakt, EXS24, Redrum,
NN-XT, etc but now chuck in Native Instruments Maschine and Fxpansion Geist! So I think that covers probably nearly everyone under the sun!

If you purchased any of the other BHK packs then you probably know how good the samples are and Vol.4 is no exception. Quality hard hitting samples for you to use in your own tunes. The best way to use it is definitely add them as layers to your own samples. Most of the samples pitch is clearly marked so you shouldn’t have too many problems doing that at all.

There is a lot of great samples CD’s out right now like the Total Science Drum and Bass Vol.5 sample pack and if you read my last review I think its the best one out there. However, I would recommend this pack for producers who make Neuro funk ala Phace, Noisia and Misanthrop or Amen smashers like Tech Itch and Donny etc.

If you’re into the heavy Dubstep sounds you could most definitely find some usable sounds on here. Artists like Triage, SPL and Babylon System are a perfect example of what you could do with the sounds.

BHK DnB Rough Connections Vol.4 definitely gets the BIG thumbs up from me.

Click Here To Check Out Loopmasters BHK DnB Rough Connections Vol.4

Okay, so one of my all time favorite Drum & Bass Artists Total Science have joined forces with Loopmasters and released Total Science Drum & Bass Vol.5 so as you might be able to tell I was very KEEN to check out this sample cd.

Ever since “Champion Sound” hit the dancefloor I have always been impressed with Total Science. The big drums and even bigger bass never failed to impress me. Now thanks to Loopmasters I could incorporate some of their sounds into my own projects!

BIG UP!

Click Here To Check It Out

So, lets dive in then!

Drum Breaks

You get a healthy bunch of breaks to work into your tunes. Most of the breaks sound nice and full,have a nice stereo spread on them making them sound big. They also have good dynamic range and are jammed with loads of character. Now this can be bad if you just get lazy and use the break as is because you’ll be caught out. So DONT DO IT!

Do you have to layer them up? Well, for some of them you do but for others you don’t. I personally would layer some more breaks on top to make your track more original.

Its not all plain sailing though because I think there is way too many drum breaks Fx loops. In my opinion a few are ok but there is way too many here for my liking. Small criticizm but one nonetheless.

Total Science has also supplied us with the construction Kits as well. Making it easy to mix and match what ever elements of the break we choose. You still have to do a bit of work with the Kicks and snares but the real value is in the hi hats, rides, claps and perc. Great way to give your own breaks a bit of character or grit or top end shizzle.

Drum Hits and Drum Construction Kits

Your best bet is to use the supplied Ableton Sampler patches which make life so easy when it comes to finding the perfect kick,snare or Perc loop to layer. Ableton Sampler is a REAL God Send if you ask me. Its so easy to use but is so powerful that some times I wonder if I need Kontakt at all! You get access to all the important features of a synth you need, filter, pitch and the envelopes. However, my favorite feature is the wave shape with can add a nice bit of overdrive/distortion to the sample.

Bass

I know a lot of people love Total Science for their great drums but for me it was always their crazy bass sound that i loved, Heavy but always catchy! Tracks like Borderline and Jungle Jungle are some of my all time favorites so I was keen to get stuck in. I wasn’t dissapointed because the bass loops are top notch. Plenty of usable loops to get you grooving straight away and in quite a few different styles as well.

The Ableton Sampler patches I have to report are very useable indeed. Most sample packs let you down when it comes to the presets but not Total Science. Well labelled and most times pitched correctly the lads have provided some heavy BASS to get your low end sounding nice and proper.

Pads and Chords

Great collection of Sampler patches. Instant quality through and through. I’m amazed at the level of quality in these patches. You can start vibing start away with patches.

Vocals

little collection of vocal snippets. Perfect for adding a bit of old school spice to your tunes.

FX

Supplied in the handy Sampler format the FX patches are quality. You get a great collection of risers all with the correct pitch and intelligently labelled. There isn’t a great collection of Stab or Hit FX but you do get a few really good DuB FX sounds to throw in your tunes.

Perc Loops

The Perc Loops are a bit hit and miss. Some of them are awesome and some a bit average. No problem really just use the good ones then!

Lead and Music Loops

If your struggling for a bit of musical inspiration then these loops will definitely have you up and running in no time at all. You get quite a lot of loops here but all of them are very useable indeed. The loops come in a tonne of different styles and moods making the sample pack perfect for what ever tune your writing.

Listen, I have no problems recommending Loopmasters Total Science Drum & Bass Vol.5 to any body. If you’re a beginner then its perfect because it has everything you NEED to get up and running quickly. If you’re more of an advanced producer you can analyze some of the sounds to dive into more of the sound design and A/B samples with your own. This sample CD is unlike any other out there in the market today for Drum and Bass. Its proper quality through and through and I think you’ll quickly discover that buying it was one of the best purchases you could have ever made.

Click Here To Check It Out

Back To Your Roots

If you’ve ever had writers block in the studio ( and lets face it who hasn’t?) or can’t finish a tune or other catastrophes then have a crack at getting back to your roots and sampling some shit. Now for some that might mean going down to the local $2 used record shop but for me that means chugging my way through the mountains of sample cd’s that I have on my HDD and in my CD wallets.

You see, even though you can write a tune with just some drums and some bass the reality is you is going to need some more sounds. Pads, FX, Swooshes, Vocals, Movie snippets are all required in your work. Ok, maybe not in all your work but you get the point. Anyways, like I made the point in an earlier post about drum n bass production.  Collect and prepare  all your samples first before you start arranging. This makes the arrangement part that much easier and mixing down the track will NOT be a living nightmare.

Anyways, to help me with this NOT so enjoyable task I’ve enlisted the help of Ableton Live and its brilliant audition/explorer window. (narrow strip down the left side)

So, all I do is…

1. Set the BPM at 172-174

2. Import a break. (Probably one of mine)

3. Pick a sample folder

4. Start auditioning some sounds and dragging in the ones I like

5. Oh… I use the arrangement view, NOT clip view. (hit TAB button)

6. After I have finished with the folder I will Collect All and Save (file menu)

7. Delete folder

8. I have also worked out that if you “consolidate” all the samples you like you can find them

easily in the project folder for use later on.

9. Just save what ever sounds you like. FX, Bass, Drums or whatever. The idea is to just weed

out the crap samples from your HDD first.

What Generally Happens…

What I find usually  happens is I’ll quickly get some sort of groove/vibe going straight away. I’ll find a pad/atmos sound and then some stabs and then fx. (I suppose it depends on what sample cd I’m auditioning. ) I’ll lay out the samples in some of sort of arrangement that makes sense e.g. Swooshes at the end of bars, Hits at the beginning etc. Then if its a solid vibe I’ll save the project under a descriptive name e.g. Jungle vibe and move on. I’ll mute the parts and continue on finding samples.

This is a great way of working quickly and efficiently. Being able to work quickly as a producer is a skill that can not be underestimated. I’ve been searching for years for a work flow that could get me good results but still allow me flexibility.  Ableton has given me what I wanted and I’m a happy man indeed.

What About Me…

Ok, what if you don’t use Ableton Live? Well, I suppose you could use Media Bay in Cubase or the Add media in Logic. However, I just don’t see them as good. Don’t get me wrong they ARE good but just not as good as the one in Live. Also you could try using Kontakt Sampler and using the “next sample” feature which gives you the option of playing the samples but I’ve found that to be hit and miss.

What Next?

After I’ve gotten all my samples together its time to work out their pitches and weed out the samples that just don’t fit the track. Sometimes I’ll place a “holding Bass” groove in there to project to see how all the samples fit temporally and continue on with either finding more samples or doing a quick arrangement. Right now at the moment I’m NOT 100% on mixing down in Ableton Live but I’m giving it a go anyways. Its not perfect by any means but I’m willing to live with the restrictions.

So, I hope you get down and dirty and find or create some phat ass sounds to use in your projects. Also, if you haven’t tried Ableton Live yet give it a shot, it might work out for you and that ain’t not bad thing!

Howdy, just a quick heads up from the good people over at Loopmasters.com. They have been busy over the Christmas and New Year break and are gearing up to release some fine sample cds over the coming months.

Now some people already have these but for those who missed out here they are.  A short teaser collection of samples from producers like Total Science and Timo Maas. (by the way the Total Science sample cd is going to be an absolute monster judging by the preview samples!)

Pt one =  http://www.datafilehost.com/download-4f01bd13.html

Pt two = http://www.datafilehost.com/download-bdb831de.html

Pt three = http://www.datafilehost.com/download-a29c0202.html

Plus  a giveaway for our DJ Mixtools series – This offers 500MB comprised of DJ Mixtools audio material. (Dubstep and Swedish House)

Downloads are fully working but who knows how long they are going to be up for, so go grab them!

Howdy, happy new year and all that. Yes, its a little late but hey, better late then never!

So, moving on… gotta treat for you because a good friend of mine Severity Zero put together some tasty instruction on how to create your very own Sub Bass Patch.

So make sure you click the link and follow/comment etc.

Severity Zero or Leo as I know him is one of the rising stars in DNB so keep a look out for his name.

Enjoy.

*** How to get a basic, decent sub bass sound going … on a shoestring ***

One of the pillars of drum and bass production is getting that ‘dnb’ sub bass sounding right. Being able to master this skill is absolutely essential, as this is “drum and bass” after all, and without the latter.. well, you got nuttin’, man!

The good news is that it really not hard to get a decent, booming bass sound going. You know, the type that makes chests vibrate on the dance floor – AND you don’t need to pay top dollar for the right VST/plug in to do this. I’m an advocate of the “less is more” rule when it comes to choosing the tools to get the job done. Personally, I’m an Ableton user and, call me crazy, I like to stay clear of any external VSTs, plugins, “bass-o-nators”, synths, etc. Yes, it is certainly possible to get a HUGE sounding bassline happening by just using your DAW’s built in tools, irrespective of what DAW you use!

Whatever your weapon, wether it’s FL Studio, Ableton, Cubase, etc.. A decent sampler is part and parcel of any modern DAW. I recommend you become well familiar with how your DAW’s built-in sampler works. In particular, learn how to load samples, loop them, set loop points and how to adjust attack and release times.

Before you start writing me off as a cheat, I’m gonna make it clear that I’m not going to direct you to pluck a bassline samples straight off your favourite sample pack, chop out one note and then play at different pitches, etc… Instead, we’re going to be creating this shizz from scratch. Yeahh!

What I would like to share with you is my recipe for my basic sub bass sound. What you choose to do after that is entirely up to you, the possibilities are indeed endless.

Have I hyped this up enough already? Enough with the blabber, let’s get down to business. What you will need for the job is:

- A sine wave waveform (ie. in a wav file for instance)

- A sampler (Most DAWs should have one) that you can play notes with using the piano roll

- An overdrive/saturator effect (most DAWs come with one built in)

- EQ – use the DAW built in, or your favourite external one

- Spectrum Analyser – same as for the EQ

Load the sine wave into the sampler, and set the sampler it to loop that wave continuously. Don’t loop a big section of it, 4 to 5 ‘wave crests’ will do. Now play a note of that sample, preferably a high one (ie C3,C4) so you can hear the typical “sine” sound. In most instances you will hear a clicking sound, and this is because as the sine wave starts repeats itself, there will be a gap. What you want to do is to move the looping points (start and finish) so that they’re placed exactly at a point in which the wave crosses the middle line, thus eliminating the gap.

Got it? Now what you’ll find is that as you play lower and lower notes, you’ll get more of a “sub bass” sound going. However, the “pure sub bass” in that fashion is, well, quite boring as it lacks harmonics. There’s no mid range or highs. What you’ll find is that, unless you got a sound system capable of playing those realllly low notes, you won’t hear any bassline at all. Think of those poor people who will be hearing your future blockbuster hits on their crappy ipod headphones!!

The solution here is to add some grit to the sound in the form of distortion/overdrive. This will add harmonics to the sub bass and make it resonate at other frequencies which will now be audible on all types of speakers. There you have it, “byass for da masses!!” I like to be gentle with the overdrive, but that is personal preference. Feel free to experiment with this so that you can get your unique sounds going.

Now that we’ve got our bass sound, we want to make it sound more natural, more like a real instrument. Think of a bass guitar and how a plectrum strikes the string, and then the string vibrates until the sound dies out. The next step is to adjust the attack and release times on that sampler so that when you play an individual note it doesn’t just start and stop abruptly, instead it mimics that “string” action. I recommend adjusting the attack to about 30-50ms and the release to about 800ms. Again, experiment with these values to get your own unique sounds going. I find this really adds that “Boom” quality to the bass sound.

Next, EQing. Although our bass may be sounding quite decent at this stage, it may or may not fit well within your mix. I suggest using an EQ to roll off the frequencies above about 200hz. I find that if this isn’t done, the bass sound may start interfering with other sounds in the mix such as vocals, keys, pads etc. Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. You may choose not to EQ that bass at all if you’re doing a track that is mostly drums and bass and not much else going.

Finally, you want to use a Spectrum Analyser to check that your bass is hitting the right frequencies. I’ve run countless commercially released tunes through an analyser to see what kinds of levels the producers applied to their subs. I found that, within the “sub” territory (ie. between 30 and 150Hz) the notes peak at anywhere from -10dB to -6dB, so you’ll want your sub peaks to be within this zone. How far within the zone really will depend on your mix. As it has been said often, “use your ears”.

There you have it, a simple guide to get you started with writing some sick sub basslines. Remember, this is just the basic, basic stuff. You can add any effects you want to create some proper sick sounds. Try adding some chorus (between distortion and the EQ) or crank that distortion right up. Hell, maybe even use a totally different waveform, like a saw or triangle. Rip out little bits of other samples and zoom in enough so that you find a bit that roughly resembles a sine wave, then and loop that instead. Layer another more mid-rangey soundin bass (or two) for a fuller sound. Anything is possible!

By the way, yes, you can do most of the above by using a soft synth, too. You can set an oscillator to sine, add an overdrive within the synth, etc. But how much fun is that? Besides, synths can cost ya $$$, especially if you collect dozens of them. Stick to the basic building blocks, I say. Not only will this save you money, but this sampler-based method will also use less of those precious CPU cycles on your machine.

Happy producing!