Well, its been a while since the last drum and bass production tip. What’s been happening? Well, a colab with Fuj which is turning out pretty nice is nearly complete and some of my own stuff is starting to get there as well.

The biggest difference to my production has been the purchase of my Sennheiser HD650 headphones. As you know, I  ain’t in no flashy studio so I’m a victim of room acoustics like most bedroom producers out there.(the Ultracurve can only do so much)

Working on headphones is a good way of dealing with a bad room. Sure its harder to gauge reverb and pan positions on headphones but I can live with that because of the level of detail you get whilst working on your cans. So I spend maybe 50-60% on the cans these days.

The headphones feel and look professional and the detail and clarity is pretty damn good as well. Mixes (besides pan and reverb etc) translate really well.

Anyways… Sennheiser HD650 Headphones=WIN!

What else have I been up to? Well, (besides boring work) I’ve just been busy building up my drum hits like snares and kicks and shaker loops etc. I just create a Cubase project and load up a snare/kick/hi hat and phatten it up using layers, compression, EQ etc. Then I bounce out a few variations and move on.

*** I don’t save the project. I don’t want a whole load of Snare Projects in my Cubase Folder. If I don’t save it kind of finalizes my work.  ***

So yeah. These self created drum hits/breaks/bass stabs/bass etc have been a big help in getting tunes finished quickly and has improved the quality of my work.

So if you don’t feel like writing a tune. Take some time out and create some new snare/kick samples for your personal library.

You’ll be glad you did when you feel like writing a tune.

Yes, its true. I’ll admit it to you. When the Football World Cup is on I become a bit of sports nut but I think you relate to that. Problem is between work and football this means even less time for drum and bass production which is never a good thing. However, I have started a few things that are shaping up quite nicely indeed.

I’m in the process of selling my Mackie MCU Pro so I’ve had to set it up to show a few people that it works and so forth. Inadvertantly this means I’ve had to play around with it a bit and one thing let to another and so I got a bit inspired. Ableton Live 8 was more DAW of choice this time and once again it blew me away with how easy you can get things going quickly. Remember, I’m not using it in CLIP mode but ARRANGEMENT mode.

So what I learnt from listening back to some old projects in Ableton Live was:

1. I wasn’t focused on an idea. I had 2 or 3 or even 4 ideas in the tune.

2. I was running about 499 breaks on top with sound fx samples etc. Too much!

3. Some of the samples weren’t in the right pitch or key of the tune or

4. Some samples were just plain CRAP!

The good news was that with a few minutes of cleaning up, deleting and re-pitching I was all good. However, without a shadow of a doubt the most IMPORTANT thing when I was doing this was to find the ONE sample/riff that I was going to base my whole tune around. I can’t tell you how key this is to your song making. Find this one idea and everything falls into place. You know which break to choose, what effects to choose, what vocals will fit etc. So, if you find yourself doing that thing we all love which is drum & bass production over the next month think to yourself, “what’s the main idea?” and then go from there.

See you on the dancefloor.

Dauntless

P.S I really dig this post I made earlier on keeping your focus. Check it out here.

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.

Howdy, just a quick post about what’s been going on around the studio. Well, er… not that much. I’ve unfortunately been sucked into that thing called life/JOB and so I’ve had very little time in the studio. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking and dreaming about it. Oh no… I’m always doing that, much to the dislike of my wife! lol

You know how I normally go on and on about reducing the amount of Plugins, Soft Synths, DAWs etc that you might be using in the studio? Well, this applies to your actuall studio to,  so in the next few weeks/months I’m going to slim down the studio gear into a few choice components.

What the hell does all this mean? Access Virus TI Polar.

Access Virus Ti Polar

I’ve got the Ti Snow and I love it but I definitely am missing the extras knobs available on the Ti Desktop and Polar. Having that extra tweakability in a synth is crucial and I’m missing it dearly. Also, getting rid of the Mackie MCU PRO and the Novation SL Remote because the Polar has a keyboard and the Mackie doesn’t get used that much anyway. So, if you’re planning on buying some gear have a good think about what or how its going to fit in the studio and what role the unit is going to play. You might just find that you DONT need it.

For the peeps that managed to read down this far I have a treat/tip. Voxengo Gliss EQ2.0. If you don’t have this badbwoy yet then get it into your VST Plugins Folder pronto! That means find it and install NOW! My homeboys Phace and Mayhem have given me the big green light that this EQ is serious bizness! So super hot tip for you there! The Voxengo Gliss EQ2 is great for adding character. So it’s not really supposed to be for surgical EQ strikes okay? Leave that job for the Sonnex or  UAD Cambridge.

Voxengo Gliss EQ 2 VST Plugin

Another wicked VST Plugin that Is now an essential must is the BX Control. This plugin helps with the stereo image of your tracks giving you the option to go really wide in the mix with out effecting the low end. Nice.

Brainworx BX Control 2

Also Drumnbass Videos don’t come around every day so check this one out  by Blame – On My Own Feat Ruff Squad.

See you on the dancefloor

Dauntless

The Loopmasters Ray Keith Sample CD Challenge

Here’s the story: I’ve had a couple of weeks to test out the Loopmasters Ray Keith Drum & Bass Vol.1 Sample Pack and you know what? It’s KILLER!

This time around I didn’t just want to add the samples to my existing tunes to check them out, I wanted a new challenge.

If I could get a track or two up and running using JUST the samples from the Ray Keith Sample Pack I could work out the depth of the pack and its ability to smash up the DANCE FLOOR!

==>>GRAB RAY KEITH ORIGINAL DRUM & BASS  VOL.1 HERE<<==

The Evil Plan Is Hatched!

The quickest,easiest and nastiest way to check out how phat Loopmasters Ray Keith was, is to use Ableton Live 8. As you may be aware I’ve been using Live 8 more and more and more for this type of thing because its a perfect fit. I fired up Ableton Live,  set the BPM to 172 and BOOM away I went.

The Bass

First stop was the BASS. I normally start with drums but I’ve found that if I start with a  music element first I don’t get bogged down so much with the technical mumbo jumbo of building beats.

Well, how was the Bass then? All 100% quality. There is quite a wide selection of Bass Loops so if you’re after something gritty or smooth or dark or jungle sounding or what ever Ray got you fully covered. There is also a nice selection of Bass one shots for all you peeps out there that want to get down and write your own b-line, in the future I’ll be using one of those sounds but for now I just wanted to get up and running. I quickly selected a bass loop that had a nice steppy riff to it and moved on the beats.

The Beats

I won’t lie to you. The beats in Loopmasters Ray Keith are awesome! Once again you get wide selection of loops to choose from and every one of them has a vibe and sonic flavour. The only downside here was not enough Percussion loops to my liking but hey nothings perfect right?  Whilst i had the Bassline rolling I was able to audition a few drum loops. It was a hard choice but I managed to pick a drum loop that had a nice shuffle rhythm to it that worked with the bass line.

The single  drum shots are all gold. You get solid Kicks, Snares and Hats to play with. Whilst the numbers may be small the quality more then makes up for it.

What does this mean for you?  Your beats should never sound weak on the dance floor again!

The Rest…

Continuing on I moved onto the more musical side of things, like Pads, Atmos, Blips and then FX sounds. Here, the same thing again. A fine selection of loops to choose from in a variety of styles but I really could have  done with more FX sounds like swooshes and risers etc I know from experience people on the dance love these sounds. The FX sounds that are there, are 100% Classic Ray Keith sounds so if your after instant Jungle badness (who doesn’t?) you’re sorted.

And Finally…

Listen, I think  the Loopmasters Ray Keith Original Drum & Bass Vol.1 Sample Pack is a definite must have in your studio. You can use the loops to phatten up your own breaks, bass, fx or whatever or you can use the loops to help kick start your creative juices. Once you got a tune up and running you can pull the loop out and go from there. Click the link below to grab your copy of Loopmasters Ray Keith today.

==>>GRAB LOOPMASTERS RAY KEITH ORIGINAL DRUM & BASS  VOL.1 HERE<<==