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Halif

Anyone care for some mutant drum n bass?

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I've been doing a lot of stuff musically recently, trying very hard to collaborate with people whose work I love and respect but is outside of my genre. Very challenging.

To take a break from that, I have busted out some pretty mental drum n bass type things. Have a listen if you feel like hearing something different.

I warn you, though. It is likely not Drum n Bass in the sense of what most people would expect. Hell, it's probably not even drum n bass - well, if you compare it to anything that officially comes under that label in a music store, then you might as well say it's not even music :wink:

I have been going completely nuts with beat splicing, because I have a hefty catalogue of breakbeats and conventional 4/4 rock beats which I made myself and rendered to samples. So I've been recycling my own shit. It's all original, for better or worse.

https://soundcloud.com/tepalom/tepstep-rough-concept

https://soundcloud.com/tepalom/make-way-for-the-quiet-rough

There you go - these are rough and raw sketches, so don't expect slick production... or any production really. It's just experimenting.

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the 2nd link, stayed silent for me.

the first, I liked, and "I would like to get, out of it, with it" :)

I am interested to know how this track was produced, how come your thumb started hurting?

is it real instruments or electronic instruments?

Edited by planthelper
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I liked these too man. They could be developed further like you said, but a good start.

Planthelper, I assumed fingers are hurting due to the little wheel modulator you get on keyboards or other hardware for electronic music. Persistent use of said wheel to vary whatever effect is being worked with(?)

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Not bad at all, I like the first one in particular :-)

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Thanks for listening, guys.

I am interested to know how this track was produced, how come your thumb started hurting?
is it real instruments or electronic instruments?

Sorry, PH, I was just being stupid and attempting to make crude innuendos. Stinkmeat is exactly right: on my controller there's a little wheel which I use to modulate or bend pitches/frequencies/filters. I was in a 14-year-old state of mind on the day so for some reason I wanted to include some wanking humour in my description. Apologies for the poor taste and confusion. My thumb doesn't really hurt, and my knob is fine.

All my music is made through a DAW (digital audio workstation). I have a keyboard, but it's really a keyboard controller, meaning that it doesn't make any sound by itself.

It's a sturdy, heavy (20kg) 88 key controller which completely relies on a PC for sounds. Basically, I use an obscure software package (Renoise - a tracker which has a small but loyal following, mostly in Europe) which starts like an blank sheet for writing notes on.

So, about seven years ago, I bought these two things and was ready to ROCK - and being far more enthusiastic than I am technical or logical, I was somewhat disappointed to find out that neither the software, nor the keyboard had anything in the way of sounds (aside from a couple of demo tracks which sounded like they were made in the 80s - and in fact may have been.....).

Over the years I built up a library of free to download sound samples ( a single snare sound here, a single kick drum there) and some VSTs (virtual instruments) which were also ancient and thus freely distributed, and I got busy making sounds that were pretty awful, to be honest.

I was so proud when I reached a level where I was able to make something like the most basic techno beat from 1992..... except that by this point it was like 2009.

Realising that I wasn't exactly going to release a chart topping electronic super hit anytime soon, I gave up on trying to mimic sounds I had grown up listening to in my teens (Aphex Twin, Underworld, Orbital, Boards of Canada, Squarepusher, Future Sound of London, and many more), and started just playing around for no reason other than to amuse myself.

It's just been in the last two years that I've really started to get my head around how this software works (yeah, I'm a slow learner - but in my defence it's not the most user friendly interface out there) and started making tunes for sheer fun and enjoyment. I've let go of trying to get crisp, amazing, modern SFX and slick smooth production, and just gone nuts with my own style of lo-fi weirdness.

Also collaborating a bit, which has been really interesting. I was rapped (misspelling for bad pun) when an artist who I like used one of my concept sketches for his freestyle rap. Check out Mae Dali on Soundcloud if you're interested in unique, sometimes experimental, and truly old school freestyle hip hop. He's a very interesting person and very prolific with his sounds on Soundcloud. Almost everything he does is a free download - a true artist.

Here's the track in which he used my music if anyone's interested:

https://soundcloud.com/maedali/maealom

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nice work man

i think i like the 2nd best, or maybe the other new track u didnt post here - wild violets.

might just be my tastes but i reckon u should do like a chillout version of that one, with more sparse atmospheric percussion, i reckon it could nicely in that direction, i guess the intro kinda starts out like that...but yeah i dig the new sounds

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