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Written by DJ Techbot
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Wednesday, 06 July 2005 |
1)I understand music theory, Can play a few chords and riffs. But I can't play along to a sequencer, so I tend to get the best loop I played and just repeat it.
I spend a lot of time trying to recreate the sound of a loop (say from CM or FM) so that I can add variations where necessary. The original loop will have all the complicated groovy bits, mine will just augment whats there.
2)The drums and bass obviously hold the tunes together and here I usually use Skip to my loops by FBS and the Bass Legends Sample CDs. Other bass loops are sometimes put through an amp plugin to give them the TB sound.
3)I use Cooledit to cut up the loops and Acid to timestretch them. All old versions ( I've been unemployed the past year and and probably unemployable at this stage). I use cue points so I can recut the loop if necessary. I don't use Acid to sequence just timestretch.
4) I always write several tunes at the same bpm at once to give a more consistant mix, since I couldn't mix or master a tune to save my life. All sequencing is done in cubase. Each tune is rendered at the end of each session and brought directly into the cubase mix file. That is then rendered.
I then listen to it over a period of WEEKS maybe months before I am happy that there are relatively consistant levels.
5) As for my source material ie vocals and such. This is the raison d'etre of my music.
My favourite source is newsgroups. You can get entire radio shows from the 40's -50's right up to the Art Bell stuff. ( I have spent about two years downloading radio shows on a weekly basis)even before I got broadband.
I also use audio books and TV adverts.
As for the 'pellas. Try soulseek or just google for pellas as opposed to acappela and you will find them.
But it is an area I am trying to move away from.
Hence ccmixter.org is my new main source.
There are so many good singers here at KVR and the Auditorium, if only they would offer their studio outtakes. I've asked before but nobody seems interested.
I've just come across a plugin called blue glitch. It is for making IDM and anyone who uses it to make IDM should pack up there kit and take up knitting.(not knocking the plugin, just the inevitable laziness it might inspire- it's a great plugin and as soon as I can sort out my credit card I will get it.) But for vocal manipulation, it's a scream. There is a dropout every five seconds in the demo but thats more than enough for me to get the loops I want.
And finally
I use the SP808 loop sample (that has shitty timestretching that I don't use) to play the vox samples over my groove.
A quote from Fullof kittens at the CM/FM forum
http://forum.midiaddict.com/viewtopic.php?t=68770& sid=fca7f7e4a412bdada48577f7958be77f
Quote: Plump DJs are supposed to be among the best of the genre, but I got their newest record and although it's very well produced it basically marks time for an hour. There's not a lot of "musical gesture" and the songs seem pretty interchangeable. Having looked through some breaks forums it seems like they perceive the painting-by-numbers aspect as a positive attribute; there is an ideal breaks track and the closer you approximate it the better you are. That can be an interesting challenge for a producer, and it assuredly has a lot of utility on the dancefloor, but to me the writing of it feels a lot like writing for a commercial: you get a bunch of loops that sound good together and then trigger them in an appealing order, and you're done. That's nice and all but it doesn't reslly aim for a high standard, artistically.
The guys doesn't think much of anything I do but I appreciate his comment here, though I of course don't agree with it. I don't write for a club anymore, I used to play in a local pub every second saturday and always got a good reaction. People would hear a riff they recognise and expect it to go in a certain direction which it never does. Great fun.
Its the novely factor of the sounds that keeps me interested. Checkout the last Krsna krsna sample on the second mix. It's nothing special but it jumps out at me more than any other loop (as a quick sample that could easily be repeated for a while- which I didn't).
For more like this checkout Freddie Fresh ( alot like Fatboy slim- in fact its his voice on an answering machine that was the source for Fatboy slim is fcuking in heaven) or even better go for Fortyone on the Comfort stand netlabel or Chenard Walker at Freesamplezone netlabel.
It may indeed be music by numbers, but in recent weeks I've begun working with a female singer songwriter and a djembe drummer (who also does dance type stuff) and we are reworking a lot of the material for a live set, probably to be aired live on the webradio.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 06 July 2008 )
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