everything else is just easy shizzle compared to his drums.
APhex twin and squarepusherguys are just toying around witch functions of there units while noisia just eq's some loops.
Fanu does this and even more.
and Konflict like tunes when it comes to "experimental but still straight and small and loopy and dancable" break rhythms: (experimental has such a bad taste - when someone says experimental its usually shit but from a big known producer; when I say experimental I mean uncommon but still in the normality ^^)
they are so in the middle. not hard to play at all - but super unique groove (the beat itself seems to vari in speed [of course its not but thats that pseudo-groove inside this one small loop])! This gives the drums pressure - they want to jump out of the loop - and explode but they are just imprisoned inside the loop by an inch
personally I dont like their drums. just eq right give the snare ~200Hz bottom (and even lower) and use some highpass filters for bd and sn with resonance (important) for the punchy sound - voila.
noisia 2005:
"we use software only, we have 3 studios, basically bedroom setups with pc and active studio speakers... but right now the main studio room has 3 pc's:
-one is dedicated to audio, nothing but audio programs and samples on it
-one ( a little laptop) is running cooledit's spectrum analyser, so we can see what we are doing, very very useful!
-one is for internet laming (doa lurking)
we use cubase sx 2.2 and everything else we can get our hands on
we use ADAM p-22a monitors which are really really good, we highly recommend them to anyone who wants to take sound seriously.
in the other studios we have mackie hr 824 and event tr-8 speakers.
we all have a little soundcraft mixer which functions basically as a volume control and a late night basscut (we have a roommate that doesnt particularly like 30 hz at 3 AM)"
"we eq out the low bass from kick drums gererally up to about 60-80 herz depending on the tune/sub etc, and the sub sits in the obvious regions... 30-70 herz depending on the notes being played.
distortion: we use our ears to get that evil distortion, there's not really a set path or plugin or whatever...
just to give an example, a few weeks ago nik and martijn recorded a reese that was actually an arp on a drum kit preset on the korg n5, so it was basically a bunch of drum sounds being played in succession rapidly and recorded into the pc way too loud. it sounded evil as **** and somehow we could even tune it. you never know....."
"as far as freq splitting is concerned, it depends on what we think the breaks need, multi band compression is a great tool, we use it quite a bit but not everything needs it by default at all... we do split drums into kicks/snares/ghosts/hihats/rides channels, and eq/process then separately, especially when the break is dirty and needs cleaning up. and sometimes if we want to retain the feel of the original break more we duplicate the entire break onto 4 channels for example, splitting it into frequency ranges, so you can control them individually - for example gating the lower mid region can be quite useful on muddy breaks....and then sometimes we....etc etc"
"if its a break, we chop it up in an audio channel manually, separate the hits, spread them across tracks, process them individually etcetera. usually sent to a drum bus with some general processing - same goes for single hit sounds, apart from the chopping up bit.
envelope shaping: sx3 apparently has a wicked expanded audio envelope; the one in sx2 just has a fade in and a fade out - these are essential for drums though...the rest of the envelope shaping is done with compression."
The envelope shaping is a real cool feature. I have the same working style as noisia
A tool merely reduces the length and effort of a long, arduous process. Doesn't mean the original process is impossible to repeat.
__________________ For all the intelligence and knowledge that technology empowers us with, the lazy and stupid is amplified along with it (Staticstarter) Threads to check out:Chord Generators & Tips | Pop Sound Sources
A tool merely reduces the length and effort of a long, arduous process. Doesn't mean the original process is impossible to repeat.
Yeah, but how did he do it? Was it just tedious work with processing one small bit with effects, and then lay it down and chop it up in a sample editor, or was there a simpler process I don't know about?
Yeah, but how did he do it? Was it just tedious work with processing one small bit with effects, and then lay it down and chop it up in a sample editor, or was there a simpler process I don't know about?
It's a good question... from what I've read he's usually said he avoided software except for what he designed himself. I dunno how true that is, but he certainly put out some of his landmark stuff pre- sophisticated DAW era (ie late 90s), so he wouldn't have been editing digital audio on a computer (have no idea what he does now).
I'm guessing he must have had a system with hardware sequencers triggering a bunch of hardware synths /drum machines, this would provide basic rhythm patterns, messing with synth parameters in real time to get those masses of organic movement, then layering all that up on some sort of multitrack machine, then repeatedly coming back and refining.
It's a good question... from what I've read he's usually said he avoided software except for what he designed himself. I dunno how true that is, but he certainly put out some of his landmark stuff pre- sophisticated DAW era (ie late 90s), so he wouldn't have been editing digital audio on a computer (have no idea what he does now).
I'm guessing he must have had a system with hardware sequencers triggering a bunch of hardware synths /drum machines, this would provide basic rhythm patterns, messing with synth parameters in real time to get those masses of organic movement, then layering all that up on some sort of multitrack machine, then repeatedly coming back and refining.
nah....afx is definitely a pioneer in software computer music & DSP techniques. may i remind you that max (msp) has been in development since the mid-80s and available since 1989.. afx wrote his own algos and stuff and did process his hardware through them but it's a lot lot more complex then what you describe above..
I really dont understand what you guys think is so special about those beats?
Groove is lacking. Its mainly some delay experiments I would delete the minute after I made them.. sry - can someone explain pls?
edit: I got it - with hard you meant distorted? oh my .. now I understand ^^
Yeah getting overly distorted drums..
there are many tricks to get there.
First pick Good samples. Layer them cut them. Look at the waveforms zoom in and watch if the transients are good. Overlapping etc.
Render the layered kick.
You can give it some punch with two methods after that: with a synthesizer drum, and with a good highpassfilter with resonance.
then compress the thing. and after that maybe put some dist to it ^^
I really dont understand what you guys think is so special about those beats?
Groove is lacking. Its mainly some delay experiments I would delete the minute after I made them.. sry - can someone explain pls?
edit: I got it - with hard you meant distorted? oh my .. now I understand ^^
Yeah getting overly distorted drums..
there are many tricks to get there.
First pick Good samples. Layer them cut them. Look at the waveforms zoom in and watch if the transients are good. Overlapping etc.
Render the layered kick.
You can give it some punch with two methods after that: with a synthesizer drum, and with a good highpassfilter with resonance.
then compress the thing. and after that maybe put some dist to it ^^
I hope you are not talking about NOISIA (Peace Be Upon Them)
i liked noisia in 2004 - they were like c4c. but nowadays sry noisia is not my taste anymore. they sound not great and have no groove anymore.. but thats matter of taste right? I dont like this whole dubstep era... for me its just slow and crappy dnb.
in 1997 we spinned dnb records half speed for fun - but decided out of good taste that its not so good
In my eyes technical itch makes it happen that somehow his distortion is still harmonic?! dunno how he does it.. good HW gear I guess.
this was my fav TI tune back in the days loooved the reverse hat/cymbal ^^ gave the whole thing the right groove!
I'd probably do it different these days. Parallel would be the way I'd
do it now, a wet/dry mix... CV control of the wet/dry balance via a
Cwejman INS-2MX and an envelope, maintaining a clean transient and
fading quickly into a more distorted body.
Trent Reznor (NIN) and cEvin Key (Skinny Puppy); Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto) has always been someone I look up to when it comes to drum sounds too.
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Try and imagine a blind man dreaming- Bret Easton Ellis
