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, well I know Its been a while since I’ve last spoke to you but I assure you that a lot has gone on! In and out of the studio! I suppose the most important bit of news to report to you is the addition of a new member to my studio family in the shape of a TC Powercore X8! This powered plugin dream box has been on the top of my “want” list for so long now that I almost can’t believe my eyes its in the studio! As you can see from the photos its a sexy all black beast which emits a techy blue light when its on. Very Cool INDEED!

What’s even sexier is the included plugins what come bundled with the Powercore (PoCo or short). 14 of them! YES, you heard that right, 14! I was in plugin heaven and the best news was that I had a further $500 squid to spend on plugins as well! Absolutely brilliant I say! Believe me when I say I felt like a kid in a candy store! However I won’t be going into full detail about the TC Powercore here. I’ll give you the full review in a few weeks. That way I can try some of the plugins out and give you an honest and informative review. So stay tuned!

Moving on then…

Well, it seems that everywhere I turn there is a drum n bass remix competition going on. First up you have the Sabre & Critical – One Hundred Teeth Remix Comp over at our good friends Kmag.com. Then you have the Panic Girl – Midnight Remix Comp over at ShadyBrain.net and then two competitions at Back 2 you . 1.  Breeze – We Can Rise Remix & 2. EZ Rollers – Crowd Rocker Remix. To round things up you have the Bachelors of Science – Lost inside Remix competition as well presented by IDJ and Horizons Music.

I love getting involved in Remix competitions because you get to see the individual audio samples of a certain tune and you can learn a lot from these bits. Its like peering into their minds a little and experiencing producing from their artistic point of view. I’ll be honest with you though. Even though I’ve downloaded quite a few Remix sample packs I’ve had ZERO success in finishing them. Yes, that’s right ZERO. I will now hang my head in shame for 5 minutes…

Okay, I had full intentions of finishing everyone of the remix tunes I started but somewhere along the way I lost focus. This happens quite frequently I have noticed but this time I’ll be prepared. I’ve discovered that If one doesn’t have a goal or a plan of attack you’re going to end up starting and never finishing anything. When attempting to finish a remix competition you need to set yourself some very specific goals, for instance:

1. What tempo?
2. What style? Jump up? Neuro? Liquid?
3. Another Genre perhaps? Dubstep? Trance?
4. How much of the original do you want to get in there?
5. Is there a certain sound you want to try? An Artist you want to emulate?
6. What bits of kit do you want to use?
7. … and so on and so…..

Questions like these will help you focus your goals and ideas together and hopefully assist you in finishing remixes and tunes in general. Fingers crossed!

Another big change to the studio or should I say Production flow is the use of Ableton Live. I’ve dabbled in Live for many years now but only ever so briefly and each time I walked away shaking my head in confusion! I’ve never quite “figured” Live out and how to “work” it into my Production method but thanks to Nymfo I have now. Thank you good Sir!

Live’s main strengths are obviously the way it handles loops on the fly and this is primarily how I use it. I use Live 8 to quickly audition all the loops I want to use in my tunes super quick so right now I mainly use it for layering breaks up fast. I use it in Sequencer View and lay out the tune as I go along applying EQ and Limiting as well but only moderately.

The whole Idea behind using Ableton Live 8 is to get the main ideas and loops of the song together and then export the tracks into Cubase 5 where I can go in really deep with EQ and Compression and Limiting etc. I’m still not 100% sure about Ableton Live’s summing engine but hey that’s just me. I know a tonne of producers out there getting great results JUST using Ableton Live but me, I know Cubase extremely well so I’m sticking with it for mixdowns, plus it still handles VST Plugins one million times better than Ableton Live does and this is hell important!

Another big change in the studio has been the plugin folder clean out! I’ve decided to clean out or should I say “limit” myself to only a handful of plugins again. I know I know this sound weird after just getting the PoCo but I’m going to treat those plugins like rewards.

So its probably going to be the Virus TI Snow (pictured at top of page), Spectrasonics Omnisphere, UAD Plugins and Sonnox plugins for now. Stay tuned for a VIRUS SAMPLEPACK coming soon! Also, I’ll be making a drum sample pack available to download for FREE soon as well. It won’t be massive or anything like that but I promise you it’ll be full of 100% brilliant drum hits and loops for you to use in your tunes. Perfect for adding weight and groove to your breaks.

Phew, thats a fair bit of writing then? I better get back in the studio I got a tonne of work to do!

See you on the dancefloor.

Dauntless

Hi peeps, just a heads up on the whats going down over at kmag.co.uk. They got an awesome series started called the  “Science of Sampling”. They’re going to cover pretty much everything to do with sampling like “what is sampling?, analog samplers, digital samplers, the future of sampling etc”. If you know me at all you’ll know that I love my samplers! I have an E-mu 5000 ultra and an AKAI s3000XL (part of huge hardware library) that I absolutely will NOT part with!

To make the feature even more juicy there is going to be a massive competition to the tune of £500 worth of samples from soundstosample.com and a Brand spanking new Maschine from heavyweights Native Instruments! Gulp! I want one of these please!

It doesn’t end there peeps. Not in a long shot because there is also a Shogun music and Fenchurch Clothing Remix special competition here from the man of the moment Icicle. The tune is called “Time to Remember”.

Plus, tonnes of free samples to download from Mistabishi, Icicle, Stakka and David Carbone. We all love free samples! Bring it on I say!

I urge you to take a quick gander over there and check it out. To make things easier for you and me its written in plain easy to understand english and they’ve put in Youtube clips for examples. This article is a great introduction to sampling for beginners and there’s even something for more advanced headz. So get cracking with those Remixes! Enjoy

See you on the dancefloor

Dauntless

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.