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So yeah, about 5 minutes ago (4:12 PM ET) I tried submitting a random mp3 file for the hell of it, and it sucessfully posted to the site. I'm confused as to whether I'm really banned or not. Stop teasing me, you sexy devils!

I'm already famous for being unknown.
Yun - The Complex EP

At 11/6/08 01:33 PM, InGenius wrote: I think Waves might have one in the Diamond package, can't remember because I don't use the Waves verbs much since they are CPU hogs.

Save the CPU and do what they did in the old days: use 1 tape track for the reverb, play it slightly before the actual dry vocal, and you can sound like a ghost!

At 8/14/08 09:48 AM, SineRider wrote: I guess tips on sampling. Its my favorite style of Hip-hop. I know how to sample. I've done it before many times, I just never seem to find anything good to sample =/

Digging for things to sample is the adventure part, be it online or in the record store! It's not hard, it just requires some common sense and a good ear.

Just listening for things that catch your ear is the easy part. Logically figuring out how to let them flow together as one coherent piece is the hard part. Practice makes perfect. Perfect practice makes permanence.

At 8/14/08 10:18 AM, Ambimetric wrote: Yeah Yun was in my most listened artists of all time on last fm for so long, infact, I think he's still there.

Flattery will get you everywhere, my good sir.

Quoting the reviewer:
"Vinyl (or samples) are in my mind a cheap way out of the artistry of music seeing as your spinning (or sampling) something you havent made."

There are so many things wrong with that statement, I don't even want to get into it. To be brief, it's one thing if you just take a song and add a drum loop on top of it. It's a whole 'nother ball game if you start sampling 4 or 5 different records to create a fusion or medley that brings a whole new perspective for the listener to enjoy. That's where the art in it can be found.

Take the sound of an airplane engine roaring, toilet flushing, water running from a sink faucet, or something, then pitch it down really low (beware frequencies below 400 hertz) over a short period of time, then back up to regular pitch after a few seconds. Experiment with layering some sounds on it and you'll eventually get something similar.

Lol, a whole song in 1 pattern, wow. Press F5 and bring up the playlist, and make your life easier.
Also, check in the Audio Options (hotkey F10, click "Audio" on the left sidebar) and check to make sure you didnt somehow deselect your audio drivers.

I'm a sampler and vinyl junkie. I've sampled trance, drum n bass, jazz, funk, and classical for hip-hop instrumentals. Sampling in and of itself should be a genre by now, but the suits at record companies are much too afraid to see music history recycled into something even bigger and better, let alone improved upon. It's a conspiracy, I tells ya!

For proof, take a listen to DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
From Wikipedia: "Shadow's first full-length work, Endtroducing....., was released in late 1996 to immense critical acclaim. Endtroducing would make the Guinness World Records book for "First Completely Sampled Album" in 2001. The only pieces of equipment Shadow used to produce the album are the AKAI MPC60 12-bit sampling drum machine, a pair of turntables and a borrowed-by-visiting Pro Tools setup from an early adopter of the technology, Dan "The Automator" Nakamura."

THAT takes some creative skill, arguably equal to the amount of creativity needed to compose songs on traditional instruments. What's to stop us from making that little box with 16 pads on it the newest addition to that family?

Here's a ghetto fix for it you may or may not have tried:
Press F10, and click on Audio on the left-hand side. Under "DirectSound Properties" (underneath where you can pick your sound output) there's a slider that lets you set your buffer length. Crank that mofo up and you should be able to play more samples (i.e. more sounds, instruments, etc.) at the cost of 1 or 2 seconds of lag.

HTH

The Pendulum - Propane Nightmares VIP mix is ok, better than the original by loads because it has actual SYNTHS IN IT. Granite (Dillinja Remix) is on Beatport, and it's pretty sad when the remix is loads more listenable than the original.

Try and find a version of Blood Sugar on limewire that had actual synths in it, no guitars. I think it was the 1st or 2nd track on their BBC Radio1 Essential Mix. That's a good choon.

Buying the gear isn't gonna make you the next Tiesto or Armin if you don't learn how to count/match beats per minutes. Regardless:

Technics SL1200s or 1210s are pretty much the standard decks, and with good reason. They've been doing it right since 1969, and thankfully havent mucked with the design much. The only difference really is the feature set (pitch reset, etc.). Direct drive turntables are preferable to belt drives, as you'll probably be replacing the belts over and over and over.

Mixers are another beast. The Pioneer DJM-800 is a very sexy one, beautiful sound and some built in effects. It can also act as 61 midi triggers, which can have its uses. Another is the Rane TTM 56, but that's probably a bit pricier.

HTH.

The way signal processing works is that the lower the note, the slower it's going to play the thousands of samples that are in the sawtooth waveform. One issue might be that instead of just hitting a lower key, you make sure that the knobs for Coarse pitch are all the way to the left (Midi Value 0 if you have an external controller). The problem that 3xOsc has, in my opinion, is that it sounds too thin sometimes.

One option is resample a reese from an analog synth such as an Emu or Roland SH201 into FL. I feel that any sound that's been through analog processing seems to have a noticeably "warmer" feel to it. But sometimes you need a sound of your own.

To make a real proper reese of your own you definitely want to do some frequency splitting. I posted a tutorial on how to do this in FL and/or Cubase (the theory is essentially the same, regardless of software) on the forum a while ago, and it's located here: http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/7923 47

Method #2 will both teach you more and is more CPU-efficient. I just like my method because I usually do stuff the hard way. :)

In terms of crafting your sound, there's a plugin I like to use called Filtrator, which is pretty much a distortion plug in with an LFO built in to it, so I recommend that. Any other tube distortion plug ins are nice to have in your arsenal, just in case.

HTH.

Aw man, I wish I got interviewed, but I don't think I'm pawp-you-lur enough T_T
Good work, Fire, lookin forward to more!

Spor - Dreadnought/Molehill (pretty much the whole Tactics EP really)
Noisia - Brainstitch/Concussion/Block Control
Ram Trilogy - Titan
Nav - Terran
Unknown Error - Hellraiser
Unknown Error - Sucker Punch (love this choon)

Just to name a few :)

Well, I for one am glad they changed it back. If for some reason you're still concerned about people stealing your music, I suggest making a CD, signing and dating it and then mailing it to yourself. The post office will timestamp the envelope, so just store it in a safe place and don't open it. That + saving all your project files can provide almost all the legal recourse you need!

For a phat kick, you can use some compression to get more of an "oomf" feel from it. The Fruity Multiband Compressor has a preset that does it relatively well (i think it's called Wam or Sub, something like that). Tinker with the low and mid gain/ratio knobs and that ought to bring it out more.

You can also use sidechaining on either the volume of the kick or the compressor itself to make it stand out even more from the song's bass line.

I would definitely love to listen/participate in interviews and podcasts for this sort of stuff. Interviews with artists, regardless of genre, always provide some great insight (technical or otherwise) into music production. The whole idea I think would benefit the community as a whole.

If you would, hit me up on my AIM, I'd be interested in helping out with this.

Keith Mansfield, Johnny Pate, Bobby Davis Orchestra, Vic Caesar, Roy Ayers.. a ton of funky gold right there, mate. For truly funky stuff, soundtracks from old blaxploitation movies in the 70s are full of it.

As more of an instrumental man, as well as part-time half-assed rhymesayer, I've always been curious as to how people write their lyrics and music. I also think it'd be an interesting bit of discussion to compare how some people come up with their ideas, regardless of genre.

Personally, letting my imagination run rampant often makes for entertaining scenarios to which I want to write a soundtrack. Or during the day, if I hear someone say something interesting, I'll put out my phone or a paper and write it down to come back to later.

So how do YOU do it? Do you picture things in your head? Imagine settings or themes for your works? Draw? Watch movies on mute? Mash away at the keys hoping for a melody to pop out? Describe your experience here!

At 2/5/08 11:58 AM, Rig wrote:

At 2/5/08 11:57 AM, Rig wrote: By the way: free VSTS and free VSTis. Still working on 'em.

Maybe I should link to them too. :P
http://rig.newgrounds.com/news/post/7764 8 - VSTs
http://rig.newgrounds.com/news/post/7772 9 - VSTis

Nice, Rig, I'll be sure to check those out :)
Cheers to the other people who tossed in theirs.

A few days ago I had a long talk with someone on AIM regarding FX processing and plugins, so I decided why not just make a whole list of recommended ones? Most of these have a demo version that you can use to check out, but I HIGHLY suggest paying the money for these, they are well worth it!

TC Native Works Bundle: This pack is one of my favorites, for many reasons. The Sonic Destructor plug-in does wonders for lo-fi work, and the Filtrator plug-in used to be one of my go-to tool for filtered distortion. (For all you DnB heads, Noisia have used the Filtrator plugin on a few occassions on their basslines!) It's been discontinued, so it's somewhat hard to find, but well worth it.

PSP Vintage Warmer: Toss this on the master channel of your project, adjust to taste, and enjoy your incredibly warm subs and crisp highs. A must-have if you're going for an older sound, or even if you just want to polish your work some more.

PSP Nitro: In my opinion one of the coolest plugins for effects processing. I personally use it for bit-crushing or for creating incredibly weird echoes, so if you do any ambient work at all, you may wanna try this out for some whack effects.

Predatohm: A really sick plug in for incredible vintage tube compression. Another must-have for DnB producers looking for a phat or chunky bassline. It also comes with some vocal effect processing capabilities as well. (Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame has also been known to use the Ohm Force line of products.)

Antares AutoTune Pitch Correction: A somewhat cheesy plugin, if you want to sound like T-Pain, this is the plugin he uses to make that Vocoder-ish effect with his vocals. It processes and corrects pitch on the fly to a certain scale or key. This can be especially useful on guitars and other string instrument recordings you do that seem just slightly off-key.

Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch: This is not a plugin, but instead a freeware program that will stretch out a sampled file very very long -- up to ONE BILLION times as long! This leads to some incredibly sick and twisted ambient sounding tracks. The parameters for how long to stretch are adjustable as well. Another cool tool for ambient producers.

Happy producing! :)

It's not uncommon for some artists to release their MIDI patches/files for remix competitions, and those are more often than not under Creative Commons licenses. The intent is to use it for that competition to get an extra B-side for a record release from up-and-coming artists, but maybe there's some leeway with Creative Commons.

But hey, what do I know about copyright law? I sample vinyl records >_>

At 2/4/08 04:10 AM, FlameConker7 wrote:
I have a feeling you're REALLY.... REALLY white.

Skin colour done matter nowadays in musical genres? Oh lawdy, dat sum white man writin' da classical muzik, ooooh yessah!
1963 called, they said you should learn how hip-hop transcends race relations.

Yun - The Sound of Love
Fresh off the presses, this track has a sweet funky soul vibe that will get you groovin like it's 1970. :D

Bored of your predominant genre? Start messing with others! From my experience even if you spend just a few weeks messing around with a different style, some of that stylistic flair can transfer over to your other stuff, leaving you with an even more engaging work in the end.

I feel you on the repetitive stuff though. Especially in hip-hop or drum n bass productions. The nature of production is listening to the stuff over and over, so if I can listen to stuff on loop and not get sick, I know that project's a keeper. :)

I'm interested in investing in some studio monitors, and have no idea where to start! In terms of pricing, I don't want to go above $400 or $500. Thus far I've been using the Sony MDR series of headphones (great pair of headphones, by the way) but am looking to step up my sound system.

I'm looking for monitors that will last for a good while and has a great frequency range with minimal colour to the sound.

Anyone have any suggestions for brands to look at?

Cheers,
Yun

How is this still alive?

Quite frankly, all this bad-talking of hip-hop music (note: not rap) is really ineffective. Anyone that's in touch with the true hip-hop culture knows that their music is a medium for artistic expression.

But seeing people continue to just be completely and utterly confused about what hip-hop is bothers me. The ignorance is just staggering.

There are a handful of artists here with the true B-boy spirit in them that are truly in touch with the hip-hop culture. It's history is riddled with the struggle of the lay man, his triumphs, and his downfalls. Hip-hop today strives to epitomize the spirit of b-boys busting out the cardboard at a block party; the spirit of a swamprat philosopher with no home, crafting the right words to describe his plight; the spirit of the unknown kid rhyming in a cipher in a New York subway.

Hip-hop does not give a @#%! about your culture, creed, skin color, social status, age, or anything else for that matter. There are artists that spend months, sometimes years, carefully crafting breakbeats, melodies, and poetry with the right texture and emotion imbued in them to express their struggle in the real world, their successes, their highs and their lows. This is what hip-hop cares about -- artistic expression.

I, as well as many other artists here, are proud to be those people that wish to express themselves. I've been in seclusion lately trying to write fresh material, something new to people's ears that they haven't heard before in the genre, something that is connected to my muse, my soul. Not unlike other genres (metal, punk, trance to name a few) this is what hip-hop is about., this is what all musicians must do.

But to see people brush off hip-hop as "FL presets with clicks and whistles garbage music" is just sad. It's sad to see that you're so ignorant and have such a warped view of reality that you can't connect with what truly is a spiritual genre. To think artists such as Soulja Boy are representations of what hip-hop is just adds to your ignorance and fills me with sadness. To think your perspective of hip-hop is so narrowed does the same.

Just because you choose not to want to relate to the message behind the music, does not make it any less of a genre.

The messages within hip-hop music are purposefully chosen with the intent to connect with every person that has experienced something in their life. Happy businessmen, the clinically depressed, the homeless and the richest of the rich can all understand the simple message that is encapsulated in the music. Some just simply refuse to do so.

And hey, maybe that's our fault as artists. Maybe we are born with some kind of complex, forcing us to believe our own genre is the only one that exists, the only "right" one. Maybe we aren't doing a good job in connecting with the fans that we already have as well as new ones, or even strengthening the bonds that already exist.

Try putting yourself in our shoes. Chances are the common hip-hop artist doesn't really "get" death metal or punk rock or psytrance, because they don't really understand the message behind it. Sure, it's music, often times incredibly composed music, but there is no true connection to us. We are in this genre because it's what we have connected with.

Unfortunately, there will never be peace in the world of music, let alone the whole frickin' world.
So please, I implore you. Continue to question the genre of hip-hop with such futility. The true hip-hop artists will continue to put out incredible works, do what they were born to do. The negativity this world is filled with will continue to fail at phasing what truly is a beautiful genre.

You hit Horse for 500!
Horse has died.
You hit Horse for 391!
You hit Horse for 419!

Case in point: if you hate hip-hop so much, why do you even spend your precious time on this earth trying to rag on it, rather than contributing to your own signature genre of music?

A program like Ableton Live would enable you to cue up and play samples ON the beat, which is what I imagine what you are trying to do is include your electronic melodies, drums, etc. with live instrumentation and vocals.

In Ableton Live, as soon as you press play on a sample you've loaded up, the whole project will begin to play. The program kind of gets "locked," so to speak, on the time signature you've specified.

For instance, if it were a 4/4 time signature, every time you click to play a new sample, it will ONLY start playing at the beginning of the next measure. If I recall correctly, this is what a few big electronic artists like John Digweed and Sasha do in some of their live performances.

Essentially, it keeps your samples playing in sync with each other at the given time signature at tempo, but only when you choose to activate them. This triggering of samples can also be routed to a MIDI controller if you want a more tactile form of control over your samples than clicking.

Hope I didn't confuse you. :)