emusonacid! legacy

Since most of you are working in Drum & Bass related styles, I was wondering what the old techniques were.... I know that back in the days (before decent time stretching) dnb producers used to pitch shift their beats to fit them in the bpm. But how exactly does it work ? Can you still get a good kick and snare sound if you pitch shift ? Do you EQ afterwards (which wouldn't make sense)? Were the rolls (or shuffles) only done by hihats or snares ?

Thanks for your help...

Well. I could be wrong here, but; I don't think they pitched shift so much because they where trying to fit stuff into the tempo range, it was more so that when rave was still around, alot of dj's used old hip hop breaks and played them at 45rpm. thus giving the same kind of sound as pitching up an amen by a fifth. I calculated that when you set your turn table at 45 rpm, you have about 33 percent increase in tempo. so your amen would be going about 140 instead of 110. Second reason for pitching up the break is to move the kick out of the conflicting range of the bass. the kicks set in about 120 to 150 hz range while your subs are of course at like 80. so you have more room to have everything.

Another misconception that some people had at one time or another, even me, is that dnb producers where time stretching... well the vocals in the mid 90's. but ultimately that was the only thing they were timestretching. the drums where "timestretched" in a matter that didn't reflect the treatment of the vocals. In 1995 or so, Omni Trio came out with a choon called "Renegade Snares" This track was made from the amen break. What he did at the time, and what alot of use still do, was cut a break up. When you cut a break up, you can have your sampler play each hit at different speeds and you will still retain the original sound quality. the end just gets cut off, but the important bit remains. my current trend for breaks, since that is the kind of dnb i make (not so much into drum machine and bass...) is to chop each break into 16th notes. So i have 4 pieces for each beat. by doing this, you can swap pieces and get really short snares and small kicks. also your cymbals could go up to 16th note speed if you so wanted. the freedom in cutting into 16ths is incredable.

now this is what you want to do. get your break cut up. which ever way you want to do it. just make sure you cut that baby up into 16th notes. now set each hit on seperate keys of your sampler. c plays kick 1 c# plays kick 1 pt 2... now you can resequence your break. just play that octave or three chromaticly, and as it plays you can adjust the pitch in with your pitch wheel and you will see as you play the break, it will still sound good and joined for lack of a better word. You really shouldn't pitch shift or timestretch your drums as they both kind of do the same thing by screwing up your sound.

Once you cut up an amen break, you will know what the shuffles where. I could never really understand what I was hearing when I heard an amen, but once you spend some quality time with the break, your drum programming understanding will increase greatly. but here is a hint....
KkScscskkScs.... basic set up. lower cases are ghosts, excluding the cymbals... basicauly the shuffles where cymbals and snares ulternating quitely. but you have to place them right. If you take the amen and rearrange the cymbals and ghost snares you will actualy make the break sound weird, almost out rhythm because of the emphasis on the wrong beat. The ghost snares are stronger then the cymbals since the cymbals are pretty much keeping time in that break.

Eqing the break afterword can be needed. I have a break there my kick is already pretty high with a nice attack on it, but I may roll some more off the break to give even more room to the bass. I think if i really wanted to I could roll of at 120 hz easy and still retain the kick. I may also boost some high frequencies on it to restore some of the loss do to generation loss. My samples would be considered generation two and there are some loss to the high end, each time you sample you could lose some as the digital info errors. Also if you are sampling from vinyl you need to get rid of the turntable's rumble so shelving the low frequenceis at like 60hz could be needed.

if you need any further help, give a shout and we will give you a hand. If you need any breaks hit me up or go to dogsonacid.com and look for a thread by a guy name bourbon biscuit. he has alot of breaks for download too.

snh