So, are you ready for part 2? The first part was really well received and to be honest I was blown away by the interest in the Q&A session. So, thanks for popping in to have a read and if you haven’t had the chance to check out the LP Cocoon by Chook then click the Album cover on the right there and have a listen. Its 100% quality all the way!

Also, if you have questions to ask or want to make some comments don’t be shy. I would love to hear what you think.

So, on with the show then…

11. Your favorite key to write in?

it’s all about E inn’it

12. Do you use any hardware?

The Virus Ti is the only Hardware i can say I use a lot. It’s got a very powerful sound and the possibilites are just endless with it.

13. What do you put on your master buss? Why?
1. Gain, which I trim down about 5 db so that my master is not clipping even with no limiter on it.
2. A Cambridge EQ, with a Hi pass set at 25-30hz to get rid of unwanted rumble A 2 db increase with a high Q at around 60hz, that pushes the bass and the kick a bit
3. Sometimes I use the SSL bus compressor on the master but not always.
4. Always the Sonnox limiter with the input set between 3 and 6 dnb and the enhance on +-40%
I always have a limiter on the master throughout the whole production process. I find that if you only add it at the end your mix might be pumping or distorting.

14. Do you master your own tunes?

Don’t master the tunes myself. I’ll leave that to a professional.

15. Do you like to colab or write by yourself?

I haven’t released many collabs but I like both. Sometimes I wish I had a permanent collaborater to speed things up a bit.

16. Your music education?

I went to SAE in London in 2002. Fuck that’s ages ago.

17. What other types of music do you make?

I’m also working on some Techno and Tech house projects. I’m hoping to have a few decent tunes ready by the end of the year. I guess The Cocoon Lp reflects the stuff I like quite well.
I’ve also written soundtracks for short films, which was fun. I might be working on a new film soon actually.

Where do you call home right now?

I live in Luxembourg in a village not far from Luxembourg city. For those who don’t know Luxembourg is a country and it’s capital city is called Luxembourg as well. It’s right in between Belgium, France and Germany.

That wraps up the Q&A with the mighty Chook but I think you’ll agree that he really knows his stuff. The insight into what he puts on his master buss was worth the price of admission alone! Stay tuned as I’ll have another Q&A with another Drum & Bass Superstar soon!

See you on the dance floor.

Dauntless

P.S. I’m serious, check out the album Cocoon right now and give it a listen. See ya.

Howdy, I’ll get straight to the point because I have not one sample cd to review but two!

1. Loopmasters Bop – Minimal Drum & Bass

2. Loopmasters A Guy Called Gerald – Deep Techno Sessions

Loopmasters Bop

I’ll start with the the Loopmasters Bop sample CD. Minimal drum & bass is all the rage right now so it comes as no surprise that we see a sample cd emerge from the ether. This time Russian producer  Bop has been given sample cd duty after a string of high quality releases on Hospital records and Med School.

The Sample Pack is the usual affair:

# Over 570Mb of content
# 460 Wav samples
# 216 Loops
# 245 Single Sounds.
# 33 ready to play Reason NNXt, Kontakt, Halion and EXS24 Patches
# Apple Loops, Reason Refill or Ableton Live Versions also available

How does it sound?

Positives: Great selection of minimal drum grooves. Definitely 100% authentic sounding. Great Kicks, Snares, Hi  Hats Awesome synth loops – light/airy/dreamy/vibey loops and great pad/atmos/glitch loops.

Negatives: NOT enough instruments patches and the instrument patches that are there are boring and not very inspiring.

Look, if you want to write in the minimal drum & bass style and are having some troubles then Loopmasters Bop will definitely help you out loads! Check out the samples HERE.

Loopmasters A Guy Called Gerald

A Guy Called Gerald is a pioneer in electronic music and I for one was keen to hear this sample pack ever since his Future Music interview. GCG has carefully sampled all his vintage gear and created his own refills. In his own words:

“My aim is to give you all a deeper understanding with as much enjoyment as is physically and mentally possible using the three elements more frequently missing from this music – the basis of all dance music : RHYTHM, MELODY and BASS.

The sounds herein contain patterns that create specific air movement sequence in earth atmosphere used at the correct pressure.  The sounds will transport you to the groove simulator 1st level : the holographic key to die hold activation.

This package is an attempt to capture some of the sounds and loops so future generations can attempt to connect to the mother groove.

Enjoy!

Anyways, this is a TECHNO sample pack but I wanted to see if we could draw some inspiration from the sounds. Generally I find Techno/House sample cds a waste of time but hey I was willing to give this a shot because it was Gerald!

How does it sound?

Well, er… no. I was right in thinking that this was not going to work for drum and bass production. The drums are all wrong and the bass loops are boring or not usable. In fact this was the general theme for the whole sample pack.  Sure there was the occassional sample here or there that “had” something but they were few and far between.

The drum samples were the usual suspects( Drum machine style and vinyl  samples). So the usual 808′s and vintage breaks kicks, snares and hats.

The Bass instruments were solid but pretty much only came in one flavor which is that House bass style. So nothing new there and certainly nothing that you shouldn’t have in your Sound Library already.

So, I couldn’t and wouldn’t recommend Loopmasters A Guy Called Gerald if you want to make drum and bass. I think its strickly for the House/Techno peeps. I know you are a hard headed lot so if you need to check it out click HERE.

Okay, I know for some people these drum & bass production videos have been out for a while but just in case you missed them or was living on the moon or something here they are. I actually just recently watched the all the videos again because I loved them so much. I really love the Alix and Sabre videos because of the level of detail they go into.

Big Tip: Come back and watch the videos every now and again. As you get better and better you pick up things you missed the first time through and so on. Enjoy.

Mad Rabbit and Prime Sess:

Xample and Lomax LOADSTAR

Hey if your keen on picking up a microphone so that you can add that special element to your tunes like Alix check out my review of the Blue Snowball USB or the Audio-Technica AT2020 USB.

**** Unfortunately FM Mag took the videos of Alix Perez and Sabre down. Try to pick up a copy of special FM video mag with all the producers in it. Its well worth it! In the mean time I really love the LOADSTAR DnB tutorial and the Mad Rabbit one is pretty good as well****

GRAB DRUM & BASS CONNECTIONS VOL.3 HERE

The kind people over at Loopmasters have released Vol.3 of the BHK Drum & Bass Connections series. This time Drum & Bass Connections Vol.3 – Essentials concentrates itself entirely on the ever so difficult Drum & Bass “drums” side of things.

So if you’ve ever suffered from some of these problems:

1. Weak or Thin drum breaks.
2. Drums that have no energy.
3. Crappy Drum hits.
4. Boring drum Breaks.
5. Spent hours looking for some usable breaks but been disappointed.
6. Spent hours looking for that something “extra” to toughen up your breaks and hits but with no luck.

Then look no more. Drum & Bass Connections Vol.3 is full of tough, punchy, ballsy breaks with a superb collection of drum hits to back up any of your own Drum Breaks that you might have lying around. Just this weekend alone Sci Phi and myself managed to get some of the drum breaks and hits into a tune we’re working on  and I also managed to use some of the breaks to help me get some new ideas rolling in Ableton. Yep that’s right, I’ve been getting into Ableton a lot more lately because I managed to find a suitable way to integrate Ableton into my workflow.

What Do You Get?

• 148 x Kicks
• 142 x Snares
• 105 x Hihats
• 25 x cymbals
• 40 x Percussions
• 31 x Ghost Snares
• 13 x Shakers
• 27 x Shuffles

Plus:

• 16 x Reason Redrum Kits
• 4 x Battery 3 Kits Each with 4 Combo drum Kits
• 14 x D’n'B Drumloops ( ACID WAV & Appleloops)
• 14 x Rex.2

Who Should You Use it?

Anybody who wants to produce tough gritty Drum & Bass with punchy weighty drum breaks that will destroy the dancefloor and work the crowd up into a frenzy! Drum & Bass Producers who make Neuro-funk, Techy rollers or Tech Step should NOT hesitate to get the pack but let’s not forget the Dubstep massive. This is perfect for the Dubstep lovers out there and the drum breaks/hits should find there way into some heavy tunes.

What I’m NOT So Crash Hot ABout?

Well, don’t get me wrong, I think Vol.3 is a really great pack but there are a few things I would like to have improved for Vol.4.

1. I think there should be more breaks. 14 Breaks is just not enough.
2. There is a lot of high content in the breaks around the 20hkz range and higher, which is too much.
3. A lot of the drum hits sound a bit “samey”.

Loopmasters Official Blurb:

BHK  provides a new exciting set of drum sounds and loops to add to your ever growing sample collection.

Essentials Volume 3 contains new loops layered drum hits all re-worked from Special Edition Volume 3 Dub Step , Rough Connection  Volume 3 and Special Edition Volume 2 DnB.

A cool collection of new 24 Bit  drum loops were also created specially for this pack.  The BHK loops are in Acid wav, Rex.2  and Apple Loops for drop and rock performance in any Daw. The drum hits are in both 16 Bit Wav & Aiff.  formats.

The pack contains a staggering 531 drum hits great for Drum and Bass, Dub Step  Break Beat, Hip Hop, and pretty much any electronic music style you which to create.

Native Instruments users will be pleased to know we have included 4 Battery 3 kits from Rough Connections Volume 3. Each Battery 3 Drum Kit has 4 usable Combo kits so your ready to start programing patterns directly after loading it  into your DAW. 16 ReDrum Kits are also included for Reason users.

BHK provides some really raw and layered drum hits so you can create your own new snares layers with ease. Each hit is pumped just enough so you can effect each sample without running into head room issues.

This flexible Industrial Strength drum pack has more then enough license free content to make Essentials Volume 3 your go to source for modern synthetic drums.

BHK Essentials Volume 3 has everything you need to create authentic sounding drum tracks and loops all in one pack.

Do yourself a favour and grab Loopmasters BHK Drum & Bass Rough Connections Vol. 3 and put an end to your weak thin breaks for good. You deserve phat driving punchy breaks and so do your fans on the dancefloor.

GRAB DRUM & BASS CONNECTIONS VOL.3 HERE

Dauntless

The Power of DrumnBass Drums

DnB Drums! Who doesn’t love them? Nobody that’s who! Whether it’s the funky shuffle of a funk break sped up to 172bpm or the fierce and chaotic rhythm of the Amen break smashing up the dance, nobody on this god given earth could deny the raw and awesome power of dnb drums!

At its birth DnB (or Jungle as it was known in the mid to late 90′s) was actually created at a slighty slower bpm then what we find today around 160bpm in most cases  and in some cases slower even still! However I don’t want to fill your head with the history of DnB, that’s for another article. You want to know about how to make these most powerful of drums of which I speak!

Its All About The Layers

First and foremost I think its important to know that it doesn’t matter what style of drum n bass you produce all styles use plenty of layers in there drums, and when i mean plenty, i mean PLENTY! Get used to it. Get used to hearing the term layers and get your head around the fact that in order to get your drums to sound right, your going to have to start to use layers. Now, I’ve written another article about dnb and layers here. So check that out when you can.

A Quick Note To Self

You can’t just go and rush off and layer up 13 different types of drum breaks on top of each other… it just doesn’t work like that! Careful selection of layers is crucial. I hate to say it but with time you get better picking which layers will go with what. Some people like to layer up different drum breaks by the sound of the break , their character if you will. Maybe a crusty floor funk break on top of a punchy drum machine style break perhaps? Which ever way you go about it, think about what you are trying to achieve first. Get used to using a Spectrum Analyzer when working on your drum breaks. My favourite as analyzer is called Span and its made by Voxengo.

Getting Busy With The Drum Breaks

There is  a few methods that I have personally tried when it comes to creating a break.

Method 1. All audio. Cubase is well known for its ability to manipulate audio and its real strength shows up here when it comes to creating tight beats. Cubase even comes with its own audio slicer tool built in. Very much gets the thumbs up from me!

Method 2. All midi. Normally load the breaks up into a sampler like Native Instrument Kontakt 3 or Battery 3 or Logic’s EXS24 and get cracking!

Method 3. Combination Style. Sometimes I’ll mix it and combine the two styles together. Mainly because i’ve got a huge collection of kicks, snares and hi hats etc to beef up any breaks that need “beefing” up.

Noticed i haven’t mentioned the word REX anywhere? Now, in the past I’ve been guilty of staying up all night “recycling” my breaks to the break of dawn. Its a practice i rarely do anymore. I’m really comfortable chopping drum breaks now in Cubase so by working strictly with audio it’s one less chore i have to do now.

Take your time whilst learning how to layer properly. It will take time my friends and that’s no doubt. Stick to one of the methods and check the results to see if that style of writing drums agrees with you. If not, then move onto the next method. Rinse and repeat. Oh and also, “have fun whilst your doing all of it! It’s meant to be FUN!”

Hope that helps.

Peace out

Dj Dauntless
If you get a chance check out the Snowball USB Microphone by Blue. I love it for recording podcasts and guitars or whatever.