Tuesday 17 January 2012

1 comment:

  1. A fresh breakbeat is critical to a fresh drum & bass sound. So, Rob -- what's the secret?
    "A lot of people think writing breakbeats is just about lifting a drum break and looping it, but there's more to it than that. We sample the breaks we want, add some noise to them, give them some horrible EQ, distort them and do anything else we can to give the break 'authenticity'. We get second- and third-hand breakbeats that are 20 or 30 years old or more that have been through some hideous processes in their time. For some of them, it's no good sampling the original breakbeat, because the people who sampled it first -- normally early hip-hop artists -- have done something to it on their crappy little DJ mixers that has added to the flavour.

    "On the other hand, you can take a sample and turn it into a breakbeat that sounds like it was just recorded in a drum booth. You can make it go either way depending on the style of your track, whether it needs to be grungy or clean.

    "Whatever you do, you're aiming to end up with new breaks. All we wanted years ago was an unlimited supply of fresh breakbeats, and we've learnt how to achieve that. A lot of the beats on Saturnzreturn were actually redrummed; then we processed them in Pro Tools. That way, we could get the right flavour of the breakbeat we were trying to emulate but still be fresh. We got about 1.3Gb of breakbeats that way!"

    (ROb Playford, Sound On Sound)

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