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If I make a tune I don't want to ram it full of shite that I think diverges from the norm just to stand out from the crowd. I'll do what I think sounds good and if that sound comes from a "popular" technique then I'll use it 'cause I like how it sounds.

Rehashing an idea isn't necessarily bad. Innovation comes blindly and unexpectedly. You can't preplan excellence.

That's the problem here. Too many stnuc are ready to bandwagon against a style, calling everything a weak imitation and neglecting the artists time and effort which is used to produce something they like.

From 2000 ish onward lack of originality, overproduction, producers who can't and dont know how to play to a crowd put a a dj pedestall cos of one big tune, formulaic music, label bosses going for safe unoriginal big selling tracks, self referencing, all happened to drum and bass, I used to pray everytime I went record shopping to pick up something that would inspire my sets and excite me to play to a crowd, every year it got worse and worse until I couldn't find records to buy, then in 2005 I picked up that our sound destructive comp ep and that was that, an exciting sound had surfaced from the bubbling miasma of underground british music. I truly hope people listen to the Seckles of this age lest the same mistakes are repeated....great thread. Originality is key, originality is the essence of advancement.

Shakedown wrote:From 2000 ish onward lack of originality, overproduction, producers who can't and dont know how to play to a crowd put a a dj pedestall cos of one big tune, formulaic music, label bosses going for safe unoriginal big selling tracks, self referencing, all happened to drum and bass, I used to pray everytime I went record shopping to pick up something that would inspire my sets and excite me to play to a crowd, every year it got worse and worse until I couldn't find records to buy

true words! i too watched the most amazing and inspiring sound i've ever heard in my life (jungle), get throttled down a cul de sac of hundreds of producers all climbing over each other, trying to out drop and out evil the next man. all the musical dynamics....all the great sampling....all the sax lines, flutes, breakbeats and real instrumentation with life and legacy got completely strangled and replaced by the loudness wars of 2002-2007 drum and bass. all of which could be viewed as progress by some people, and that's up to opinion, but i beg to differ in a big way. of course, there were and still are people in jungle/dnb that always took their own path, away from the rest of the playing field... and still make deep deep music, but do you see them getting major airplay, or headlining festivals? very rarely. this is why i see a similar trend happening with this chainsaw thing.

the fact that someone like dj randall and others like him that were literally cornerstones of that whole sound, get next to no large festival bookings alongside all the stadium DNB acts at the moment, is crazy to me. madness!

**by the way, that part above about "label bosses going for safe" is SPOT on. completely agree on that too.

Tomm wrote: Too many stnuc are ready to bandwagon against a style, calling everything a weak imitation and neglecting the artists time and effort which is used to produce something they like.

conversely, i could also say that too many people on here are quick to cry "stnuc", "haters" or "elitists" on anything that might not be convenient to their creative bubble of the world at the moment. that too is neglecting the reality that sometimes the most popular creative ideas, whether they be music or art or anything; are "popular" because they're safe and easy to replicate. why would anyone not try and strive for originality? its not like there's someone standing next to you in your studio going, "you have to get these tracks out to the world TODAY (not tomorrow, or when they've been refined and ripened)..or else the dubstep ferry boat will leave you out on the dock." good ideas and good music always get through. there is no ferry leaving babylon. music is forever.

interesting read

that chainsaw calligraphy song is fuckin annoying. Enough with the "I'm trying to start by car with a dead battery" sound.

SD5 wrote:^with respect, cos I don't really know where you're coming from,
I believe that your view is part of the difficulty that Seckle is describing.
Just as you have posted heaps in your first week,
presumably because of the excitement of discovery,
so have would-be producers swamped us with over-used sounds
that inevitably appear in less-discriminating (imo) sets & in radio shows.
That'd be alright if it was limited to supports exercising their testosterone but it's creeping later & later into nights as spinners succumb to the feeling that "well, if there's so much of it around, people must like it"
That's a mindset that deters innovation and risk-taking....which, taken to an extreme, can produce crap itself, so needs to be tempered thru knowledge of what's come before.
You'll like what you like, for your reasons, but I'm entitled to hear quality ds that the artists produce. If that sounds elitist or wanky to you, wait awhile and if you're still into this music, ykwim. Cheers.

@ elitist

Look, if your favourite artists are now making shite, its up to you to find better artists to listen to end of. If the DJs are playing.... then same.

Someone above mentioned DnB going down a tech-route that turned off a lot of punters - sure, but it also fuelled a revolution in the music that spawned new sounds. Personally I loved a lot of the tech step stuff, because it was more like techno and I still get those records out and listen to them there was quality releases among them from Stakka and KT, early Friction, Skynet, Teebee and more.

But thats what makes music so democratic - if enough people dont like it, maybe the artists will stop doing it. But not while it sells.

seckle wrote:

Shakedown wrote:From 2000 ish onward lack of originality, overproduction, producers who can't and dont know how to play to a crowd put a a dj pedestall cos of one big tune, formulaic music, label bosses going for safe unoriginal big selling tracks, self referencing, all happened to drum and bass, I used to pray everytime I went record shopping to pick up something that would inspire my sets and excite me to play to a crowd, every year it got worse and worse until I couldn't find records to buy

true words! i too watched the most amazing and inspiring sound i've ever heard in my life (jungle), get throttled down a cul de sac of hundreds of producers all climbing over each other, trying to out drop and out evil the next man. all the musical dynamics....all the great sampling....all the sax lines, flutes, breakbeats and real instrumentation with life and legacy got completely strangled and replaced by the loudness wars of 2002-2007 drum and bass. all of which could be viewed as progress by some people, and that's up to opinion, but i beg to differ in a big way. of course, there were and still are people in jungle/dnb that always took their own path, away from the rest of the playing field... and still make deep deep music, but do you see them getting major airplay, or headlining festivals? very rarely. this is why i see a similar trend happening with this chainsaw thing.

the fact that someone like dj randall and others like him that were literally cornerstones of that whole sound, get next to no large festival bookings alongside all the stadium DNB acts at the moment, is crazy to me. madness!

**by the way, that part above about "label bosses going for safe" is SPOT on. completely agree on that too.

Your view/knowledge of the drum and bass scene is extremly one sided bruv, your failing to see that out of the mediocracy came a new wave of producers/labels/parties that carried the torch onwards and still do today.

The dangerous thing about people like yourself, is that youngers and people new to all this look up to you and take on board what you say without knowing that your account of things is way off base. You have a repsonsibility in my eyes to make sure that when posting such things you are accurate otherwise your not doing anybody any justice and are just helping to fuel the misinformed.

The loudness wars you speak of had been prevalent in dnb since 1995, techniques involving dat recordings to push the volume before cutting were very popular and in fact were influenced by a similar trend in dub. A well known cutting room called Music House was probly the epicenter of the dnb scene in london at the time in terms of dubs and lacquers, most people wanted that super loud cut because it gave a certain intensity to the music.

Granted it got way out of control and the misinformed/uneducated took volume over quality. It was a case of more , more , more until people started to realise that the music was suffering. This is a pretty natural thing to happen really, everything goes in cycles.

In terms of creativity, dnb took a wonderful turn with the new millenium, artists and labels like Marcus Intalex,V Recordings,Hospital records,London Electricity, Alex Pirez, Cyantific, High Contrast, Double Zero carried on the vibe of real instrumentation and emotiv feeling to great acclaim.

There was a plethora of well made, extremly addictive deep and soulful tracks that grew out of that, with the uk charts being hit by the bigger tunes. Midnight,Rock Your Body etc etc. Shy Fx, Future Kut, Dj Marky, the list goes on.

Hospital is one of the most dominant forces in dnb today, I guess if your missing out on this your not going to the right places for it .

At the same time Teebee and crew carved out the neurofunk sound,. Wether you love it or hate it, in terms of pushing sound (ie the boundaries of synthesis within the music) and production levels they raised the bar and paved the way for the european invasion that followed.

Dillinja and the Valve crew delved into the science of sound systems, creating music that could be pushed to extreme levels on custom systems, enhancing the bassweight to the maximum without losing quality of sound. I remember my first Valve system experience, my chest cavity rattled like never before and the clarity of the music was awesome.

Renegade Hardware,Noisia,Dj Fresh etc etc pushed a more techy,futuristic sound that was guilty of some amazing ideas and pushed the envelope in terms of production and how far the sound could be taken. Arrangements became ultra complex and again pushed the envelope of production.

When BC started to release tracks as individuals more than a group, we were treated to some amazing shit, and thats still coming through now.
D Bridge,Fresh and co have produced an enourmous amount of incredible tracks between then and now and have in turn influenced people coming through around that.

Sure there is the dnb by numbers crew, the youngers are attracted to it like flys round shit but that happens with every scene, as they grow up there tastes mature a little and the instant wow factor loses it's appeal. At the end of the day though they are the next generation of that scene.

If you ask most people that were into dnb/jungle from day dot what they were bucking in 94, it would be far different to what flicks there switch now, although I'm also guessing a lot of them will have a soft spot for the vibe that got them into the music in the first place.

To pick up on your point about Randall, no disrespect to him but the guy doesn't release tracks that often if at all anymore (and didn't release many in the first place), he is a legend and was part of the original jungle crew, but that was almost 20 years ago. To stay prolific in a scene you need to do the things that keep your profile up no matter who you are, look at Andy C, he's still bringing through some of the biggest acts dnb has ever seen, still puts out badass tunes and still has the profile.

It's no suprise that the person in dubstep with arguably the biggest output is the arguably the biggest dj in the scene.

I hope you take on board what I've written Seckle, sweeping generalisations and the writing off of whole scenes/styles is irresponsible and detremental, people look upto you on here man, that's something you should be proud of but also extremly aware of when posting threads like this. Mass generalisations can be damaging when the speaker has an audience of people that look upto them.

Hellfire Machina wrote:

seckle wrote:

Shakedown wrote:From 2000 ish onward lack of originality, overproduction, producers who can't and dont know how to play to a crowd put a a dj pedestall cos of one big tune, formulaic music, label bosses going for safe unoriginal big selling tracks, self referencing, all happened to drum and bass, I used to pray everytime I went record shopping to pick up something that would inspire my sets and excite me to play to a crowd, every year it got worse and worse until I couldn't find records to buy

true words! i too watched the most amazing and inspiring sound i've ever heard in my life (jungle), get throttled down a cul de sac of hundreds of producers all climbing over each other, trying to out drop and out evil the next man. all the musical dynamics....all the great sampling....all the sax lines, flutes, breakbeats and real instrumentation with life and legacy got completely strangled and replaced by the loudness wars of 2002-2007 drum and bass. all of which could be viewed as progress by some people, and that's up to opinion, but i beg to differ in a big way. of course, there were and still are people in jungle/dnb that always took their own path, away from the rest of the playing field... and still make deep deep music, but do you see them getting major airplay, or headlining festivals? very rarely. this is why i see a similar trend happening with this chainsaw thing.

the fact that someone like dj randall and others like him that were literally cornerstones of that whole sound, get next to no large festival bookings alongside all the stadium DNB acts at the moment, is crazy to me. madness!

**by the way, that part above about "label bosses going for safe" is SPOT on. completely agree on that too.

Your view/knowledge of the drum and bass scene is extremly one sided bruv, your failing to see that out of the mediocracy came a new wave of producers/labels/parties that carried the torch onwards and still do today.

The dangerous thing about people like yourself, is that youngers and people new to all this look up to you and take on board what you say without knowing that your account of things is way off base. You have a repsonsibility in my eyes to make sure that when posting such things you are accurate otherwise your not doing anybody any justice and are just helping to fuel the misinformed.

The loudness wars you speak of had been prevalent in dnb since 1995, techniques involving dat recordings to push the volume before cutting were very popular and in fact were influenced by a similar trend in dub. A well known cutting room called Music House was probly the epicenter of the dnb scene in london at the time in terms of dubs and lacquers, most people wanted that super loud cut because it gave a certain intensity to the music.

Granted it got way out of control and the misinformed/uneducated took volume over quality. It was a case of more , more , more until people started to realise that the music was suffering. This is a pretty natural thing to happen really, everything goes in cycles.

In terms of creativity, dnb took a wonderful turn with the new millenium, artists and labels like Marcus Intalex,V Recordings,Hospital records,London Electricity, Alex Pirez, Cyantific, High Contrast, Double Zero carried on the vibe of real instrumentation and emotiv feeling to great acclaim.

There was a plethora of well made, extremly addictive deep and soulful tracks that grew out of that, with the uk charts being hit by the bigger tunes. Midnight,Rock Your Body etc etc. Shy Fx, Future Kut, Dj Marky, the list goes on.

Hospital is one of the most dominant forces in dnb today, I guess if your missing out on this your not going to the right places for it .

At the same time Teebee and crew carved out the neurofunk sound,. Wether you love it or hate it, in terms of pushing sound (ie the boundaries of synthesis within the music) and production levels they raised the bar and paved the way for the european invasion that followed.

Dillinja and the Valve crew delved into the science of sound systems, creating music that could be pushed to extreme levels on custom systems, enhancing the bassweight to the maximum without losing quality of sound. I remember my first Valve system experience, my chest cavity rattled like never before and the clarity of the music was awesome.

Renegade Hardware,Noisia,Dj Fresh etc etc pushed a more techy,futuristic sound that was guilty of some amazing ideas and pushed the envelope in terms of production and how far the sound could be taken. Arrangements became ultra complex and again pushed the envelope of production.

When BC started to release tracks as individuals more than a group, we were treated to some amazing shit, and thats still coming through now.
D Bridge,Fresh and co have produced an enourmous amount of incredible tracks between then and now and have in turn influenced people coming through around that.

Sure there is the dnb by numbers crew, the youngers are attracted to it like flys round shit but that happens with every scene, as they grow up there tastes mature a little and the instant wow factor loses it's appeal. At the end of the day though they are the next generation of that scene.

If you ask most people that were into dnb/jungle from day dot what they were bucking in 94, it would be far different to what flicks there switch now, although I'm also guessing a lot of them will have a soft spot for the vibe that got them into the music in the first place.

To pick up on your point about Randall, no disrespect to him but the guy doesn't release tracks that often if at all anymore (and didn't release many in the first place), he is a legend and was part of the original jungle crew, but that was almost 20 years ago. To stay prolific in a scene you need to do the things that keep your profile up no matter who you are, look at Andy C, he's still bringing through some of the biggest acts dnb has ever seen, still puts out badass tunes and still has the profile.

It's no suprise that the person in dubstep with arguably the biggest output is the arguably the biggest dj in the scene.

I hope you take on board what I've written Seckle, sweeping generalisations and the writing off of whole scenes/styles is irresponsible and detremental, people look upto you on here man, that's something you should be proud of but also extremly aware of when posting threads like this. Mass generalisations can be damaging when the speaker has an audience of people that look upto them.

Well said, I was just going to say that however this thread was looking in the beginning, it is a wasteman thread to epic proportions. Congrats everyone

SD5 wrote:^with respect, cos I don't really know where you're coming from,
I believe that your view is part of the difficulty that Seckle is describing.
Just as you have posted heaps in your first week,
presumably because of the excitement of discovery,
so have would-be producers swamped us with over-used sounds
that inevitably appear in less-discriminating (imo) sets & in radio shows.
That'd be alright if it was limited to supports exercising their testosterone but it's creeping later & later into nights as spinners succumb to the feeling that "well, if there's so much of it around, people must like it"
That's a mindset that deters innovation and risk-taking....which, taken to an extreme, can produce crap itself, so needs to be tempered thru knowledge of what's come before.
You'll like what you like, for your reasons, but I'm entitled to hear quality ds that the artists produce. If that sounds elitist or wanky to you, wait awhile and if you're still into this music, ykwim. Cheers.

Firstly, it does sound elitist and wanky and I've been around longer than most, so telling him to wait a while is redundant and also comes across as being elitist and wanky.

Your a fool to think Youthfull Implants is new to this, post count doesn't mean new bruv. He has a vast history in edm, from working for the Renegade Hardware camp, to being a prolific underground breaks dj in london and scene stalwart to now pushing things in australia from many angles. Again, jumping to conclusions does nothing positive at all.

This right you speak of to hear the music you want to hear, your spot on but you don't get to dictate where you find it, that's totally down to you to discover, you can't put that on a dj or a promotor or a label or a scene.

Hellfire Machina wrote:

SD5 wrote:^with respect, cos I don't really know where you're coming from,
I believe that your view is part of the difficulty that Seckle is describing.
Just as you have posted heaps in your first week,
presumably because of the excitement of discovery,
so have would-be producers swamped us with over-used sounds
that inevitably appear in less-discriminating (imo) sets & in radio shows.
That'd be alright if it was limited to supports exercising their testosterone but it's creeping later & later into nights as spinners succumb to the feeling that "well, if there's so much of it around, people must like it"
That's a mindset that deters innovation and risk-taking....which, taken to an extreme, can produce crap itself, so needs to be tempered thru knowledge of what's come before.
You'll like what you like, for your reasons, but I'm entitled to hear quality ds that the artists produce. If that sounds elitist or wanky to you, wait awhile and if you're still into this music, ykwim. Cheers.

Firstly, it does sound elitist and wanky and I've been around longer than most, so telling him to wait a while is redundant and also comes across as being elitist and wanky.

Your a fool to think Youthfull Implants is new to this, post count doesn't mean new bruv. He has a vast history in edm, from working for the Renegade Hardware camp, to being a prolific underground breaks dj in london and scene stalwart to now pushing things in australia from many angles. Again, jumping to conclusions does nothing positive at all.

This right you speak of to hear the music you want to hear, your spot on but you don't get to dictate where you find it, that's totally down to you to discover, you can't put that on a dj or a promotor or a label or a scene.

Big up ya chess Jody.

To the producers.. its simple, be yourself & dont copy next mans sound.

Also Hellfire Machina is on point

safe

I learned of dubstep thru my love of industrial and dub music and never listened to drum and bass or garage or any other genres, so I tend to love harsh bass synths. One of the things that attracted me to the genre in the first place was the emphasis on bass sound design. I think that too many artists rely exclusively on that aspect with boring/standard drums and arrangements. I get bored of those tracks pretty quickly. This distinction between good music and boring music has far more to do with what is done with the sounds than the actual sounds themselves. The right context can make any sound work. But, as others have said...variety and contrast make things far more interesting.

Hellfire Machina wrote:

seckle wrote:

Shakedown wrote:From 2000 ish onward lack of originality, overproduction, producers who can't and dont know how to play to a crowd put a a dj pedestall cos of one big tune, formulaic music, label bosses going for safe unoriginal big selling tracks, self referencing, all happened to drum and bass, I used to pray everytime I went record shopping to pick up something that would inspire my sets and excite me to play to a crowd, every year it got worse and worse until I couldn't find records to buy

true words! i too watched the most amazing and inspiring sound i've ever heard in my life (jungle), get throttled down a cul de sac of hundreds of producers all climbing over each other, trying to out drop and out evil the next man. all the musical dynamics....all the great sampling....all the sax lines, flutes, breakbeats and real instrumentation with life and legacy got completely strangled and replaced by the loudness wars of 2002-2007 drum and bass. all of which could be viewed as progress by some people, and that's up to opinion, but i beg to differ in a big way. of course, there were and still are people in jungle/dnb that always took their own path, away from the rest of the playing field... and still make deep deep music, but do you see them getting major airplay, or headlining festivals? very rarely. this is why i see a similar trend happening with this chainsaw thing.

the fact that someone like dj randall and others like him that were literally cornerstones of that whole sound, get next to no large festival bookings alongside all the stadium DNB acts at the moment, is crazy to me. madness!

**by the way, that part above about "label bosses going for safe" is SPOT on. completely agree on that too.

Your view/knowledge of the drum and bass scene is extremly one sided bruv, your failing to see that out of the mediocracy came a new wave of producers/labels/parties that carried the torch onwards and still do today.

The dangerous thing about people like yourself, is that youngers and people new to all this look up to you and take on board what you say without knowing that your account of things is way off base. You have a repsonsibility in my eyes to make sure that when posting such things you are accurate otherwise your not doing anybody any justice and are just helping to fuel the misinformed.

The loudness wars you speak of had been prevalent in dnb since 1995, techniques involving dat recordings to push the volume before cutting were very popular and in fact were influenced by a similar trend in dub. A well known cutting room called Music House was probly the epicenter of the dnb scene in london at the time in terms of dubs and lacquers, most people wanted that super loud cut because it gave a certain intensity to the music.

Granted it got way out of control and the misinformed/uneducated took volume over quality. It was a case of more , more , more until people started to realise that the music was suffering. This is a pretty natural thing to happen really, everything goes in cycles.

In terms of creativity, dnb took a wonderful turn with the new millenium, artists and labels like Marcus Intalex,V Recordings,Hospital records,London Electricity, Alex Pirez, Cyantific, High Contrast, Double Zero carried on the vibe of real instrumentation and emotiv feeling to great acclaim.

There was a plethora of well made, extremly addictive deep and soulful tracks that grew out of that, with the uk charts being hit by the bigger tunes. Midnight,Rock Your Body etc etc. Shy Fx, Future Kut, Dj Marky, the list goes on.

Hospital is one of the most dominant forces in dnb today, I guess if your missing out on this your not going to the right places for it .

At the same time Teebee and crew carved out the neurofunk sound,. Wether you love it or hate it, in terms of pushing sound (ie the boundaries of synthesis within the music) and production levels they raised the bar and paved the way for the european invasion that followed.

Dillinja and the Valve crew delved into the science of sound systems, creating music that could be pushed to extreme levels on custom systems, enhancing the bassweight to the maximum without losing quality of sound. I remember my first Valve system experience, my chest cavity rattled like never before and the clarity of the music was awesome.

Renegade Hardware,Noisia,Dj Fresh etc etc pushed a more techy,futuristic sound that was guilty of some amazing ideas and pushed the envelope in terms of production and how far the sound could be taken. Arrangements became ultra complex and again pushed the envelope of production.

When BC started to release tracks as individuals more than a group, we were treated to some amazing shit, and thats still coming through now.
D Bridge,Fresh and co have produced an enourmous amount of incredible tracks between then and now and have in turn influenced people coming through around that.

Sure there is the dnb by numbers crew, the youngers are attracted to it like flys round shit but that happens with every scene, as they grow up there tastes mature a little and the instant wow factor loses it's appeal. At the end of the day though they are the next generation of that scene.

If you ask most people that were into dnb/jungle from day dot what they were bucking in 94, it would be far different to what flicks there switch now, although I'm also guessing a lot of them will have a soft spot for the vibe that got them into the music in the first place.

To pick up on your point about Randall, no disrespect to him but the guy doesn't release tracks that often if at all anymore (and didn't release many in the first place), he is a legend and was part of the original jungle crew, but that was almost 20 years ago. To stay prolific in a scene you need to do the things that keep your profile up no matter who you are, look at Andy C, he's still bringing through some of the biggest acts dnb has ever seen, still puts out badass tunes and still has the profile.

It's no suprise that the person in dubstep with arguably the biggest output is the arguably the biggest dj in the scene.

I hope you take on board what I've written Seckle, sweeping generalisations and the writing off of whole scenes/styles is irresponsible and detremental, people look upto you on here man, that's something you should be proud of but also extremly aware of when posting threads like this. Mass generalisations can be damaging when the speaker has an audience of people that look upto them.

thanks for your points. here's mine...

since you've called my viewpoint in this thread "dangerous", let me in turn say that your viewpoint on the intelligence level of the so-called "youngers" on this forum is ridiculous. how the hell do you know how old people are on this forum? do you think that young people can't decide for themselves, or cannot have their own viewpoint on jungle and drum and bass? they don't need protection from strong opinions. you're talking as if musical genre's need protection. give it a rest man. let people use their own logic and figure out if things don't make sense. why do i have to have some feel good view of the way jungle turned out? jungle has a nearly 20 year legacy. thats millions of perspectives on it. i never got that memo that you're supposed to toe the line about how you view music.

your take on the history of jungle is full of things i have a BIG problem with, and rather than long this out as this isn't a drum and bass forum or thread for that matter, i'll just say these quick things.

• -the loudness wars i addressed were quantified by the years i mentioned, 2002-2007. you've said it goes back to 1995 in jungle. in my perspective as a longtime jungle vinyl buyer, thats absolutely NOT the case at all. you mean to say that aphrodite, for example, back in 1995 was cutting tunes loud? do you own any old jungle records from those days? if you did, you'd know that the mastering and cutting was anything but overly loud in 1995. DAW were barely prevalent in 1995. Software was still fighting hardware in 1995. Software mastering suites, like you have these days, were thousands of dollars in 1995, and out of the hands of 3/4 of bedroom producers. by 2002-2007, mastering software & hardware was easy to get, and by about 5 years ago, the loudness thing was full tilt. Its easy to see why people talk about loudness wars these days.
  
  -andy c and randall represent absolutely polar opposites in the music that they've supported over the years. they dj very differently as well. randall doesn't need defending. either you can accept why randall is ESSENTIAL to understanding jungle, or you can disagree with that perspective. in the same vein, i'd say that studying a label like reinforced is ESSENTIAL to understanding jungle. does reinforced put out records like valve does? no, but that doesn't lessen how critical they've become, in a genre thats full of copycats right now. unlike you, i'm not going to take some reactionary stance on what you call sweeping generalizations and being "dangerous". sometimes sweeping generalizations turn out to be right. i totally disagree that someone that's less prolific in their output is automatically seen as less successful. thats a totally stupid way to look at music. source direct made two albums and under 20 12"s. their two albums are listed in many places as two of the most influential electronica/dance albums of the 90's. according to your logic, because they were less prolific, we shouldn't be paying attention.

you seem to have a very strange view about the importance of this site. this is one of dozens of equally important and influential dubstep sites out there. many of them serve the same purpose...to reinforce and build community. building community doesn't mean that you can't discuss things that might provoke community discussion or strong debate. it doesn't mean you have to "protect" people from strong opinions and make sure your replies fit into some politically correct box. if anything, thats not community building, thats promoting bullshit and hot air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LkjNqVM5o8

Hellfire Machina wrote:

SD5 wrote:...with respect... so have would-be producers swamped us with over-used sounds...Cheers.

Your a fool to think Youthfull Implants is new to this...

Good onya for backing your mate. Haven't heard of him under that moniker in the dubstep scene here but that has nothing to do with the discussion anyway.

Hellfire Machina wrote:This right you speak of to hear the music you want to hear, your spot on but you don't get to dictate where you find it, that's totally down to you to discover, you can't put that on a dj or a promotor or a label or a scene.

Agreed, I don't get to dictate & wouldn't want to. But, like anybody, I'd like to have some influence in countering the proliferation of UDM.

KnobGoblin wrote:I learned of dubstep thru my love of industrial and dub music and never listened to drum and bass or garage or any other genres, so I tend to love harsh bass synths. One of the things that attracted me to the genre in the first place was the emphasis on bass sound design. I think that too many artists rely exclusively on that aspect with boring/standard drums and arrangements. I get bored of those tracks pretty quickly. This distinction between good music and boring music has far more to do with what is done with the sounds than the actual sounds themselves. The right context can make any sound work. But, as others have said...variety and contrast make things far more interesting.

i voted for autotune obviously.

starkey wrote:i voted for autotune obviously.

I would have but it wouldn't let me vote for chainsaws and auto-tune. Big up teh chainsaw crew!

seckle wrote:

Hellfire Machina wrote:

seckle wrote:

Shakedown wrote:From 2000 ish onward lack of originality, overproduction, producers who can't and dont know how to play to a crowd put a a dj pedestall cos of one big tune, formulaic music, label bosses going for safe unoriginal big selling tracks, self referencing, all happened to drum and bass, I used to pray everytime I went record shopping to pick up something that would inspire my sets and excite me to play to a crowd, every year it got worse and worse until I couldn't find records to buy

true words! i too watched the most amazing and inspiring sound i've ever heard in my life (jungle), get throttled down a cul de sac of hundreds of producers all climbing over each other, trying to out drop and out evil the next man. all the musical dynamics....all the great sampling....all the sax lines, flutes, breakbeats and real instrumentation with life and legacy got completely strangled and replaced by the loudness wars of 2002-2007 drum and bass. all of which could be viewed as progress by some people, and that's up to opinion, but i beg to differ in a big way. of course, there were and still are people in jungle/dnb that always took their own path, away from the rest of the playing field... and still make deep deep music, but do you see them getting major airplay, or headlining festivals? very rarely. this is why i see a similar trend happening with this chainsaw thing.

the fact that someone like dj randall and others like him that were literally cornerstones of that whole sound, get next to no large festival bookings alongside all the stadium DNB acts at the moment, is crazy to me. madness!

**by the way, that part above about "label bosses going for safe" is SPOT on. completely agree on that too.

Your view/knowledge of the drum and bass scene is extremly one sided bruv, your failing to see that out of the mediocracy came a new wave of producers/labels/parties that carried the torch onwards and still do today.

The dangerous thing about people like yourself, is that youngers and people new to all this look up to you and take on board what you say without knowing that your account of things is way off base. You have a repsonsibility in my eyes to make sure that when posting such things you are accurate otherwise your not doing anybody any justice and are just helping to fuel the misinformed.

The loudness wars you speak of had been prevalent in dnb since 1995, techniques involving dat recordings to push the volume before cutting were very popular and in fact were influenced by a similar trend in dub. A well known cutting room called Music House was probly the epicenter of the dnb scene in london at the time in terms of dubs and lacquers, most people wanted that super loud cut because it gave a certain intensity to the music.

Granted it got way out of control and the misinformed/uneducated took volume over quality. It was a case of more , more , more until people started to realise that the music was suffering. This is a pretty natural thing to happen really, everything goes in cycles.

In terms of creativity, dnb took a wonderful turn with the new millenium, artists and labels like Marcus Intalex,V Recordings,Hospital records,London Electricity, Alex Pirez, Cyantific, High Contrast, Double Zero carried on the vibe of real instrumentation and emotiv feeling to great acclaim.

There was a plethora of well made, extremly addictive deep and soulful tracks that grew out of that, with the uk charts being hit by the bigger tunes. Midnight,Rock Your Body etc etc. Shy Fx, Future Kut, Dj Marky, the list goes on.

Hospital is one of the most dominant forces in dnb today, I guess if your missing out on this your not going to the right places for it .

At the same time Teebee and crew carved out the neurofunk sound,. Wether you love it or hate it, in terms of pushing sound (ie the boundaries of synthesis within the music) and production levels they raised the bar and paved the way for the european invasion that followed.

Dillinja and the Valve crew delved into the science of sound systems, creating music that could be pushed to extreme levels on custom systems, enhancing the bassweight to the maximum without losing quality of sound. I remember my first Valve system experience, my chest cavity rattled like never before and the clarity of the music was awesome.

Renegade Hardware,Noisia,Dj Fresh etc etc pushed a more techy,futuristic sound that was guilty of some amazing ideas and pushed the envelope in terms of production and how far the sound could be taken. Arrangements became ultra complex and again pushed the envelope of production.

When BC started to release tracks as individuals more than a group, we were treated to some amazing shit, and thats still coming through now.
D Bridge,Fresh and co have produced an enourmous amount of incredible tracks between then and now and have in turn influenced people coming through around that.

Sure there is the dnb by numbers crew, the youngers are attracted to it like flys round shit but that happens with every scene, as they grow up there tastes mature a little and the instant wow factor loses it's appeal. At the end of the day though they are the next generation of that scene.

If you ask most people that were into dnb/jungle from day dot what they were bucking in 94, it would be far different to what flicks there switch now, although I'm also guessing a lot of them will have a soft spot for the vibe that got them into the music in the first place.

To pick up on your point about Randall, no disrespect to him but the guy doesn't release tracks that often if at all anymore (and didn't release many in the first place), he is a legend and was part of the original jungle crew, but that was almost 20 years ago. To stay prolific in a scene you need to do the things that keep your profile up no matter who you are, look at Andy C, he's still bringing through some of the biggest acts dnb has ever seen, still puts out badass tunes and still has the profile.

It's no suprise that the person in dubstep with arguably the biggest output is the arguably the biggest dj in the scene.

I hope you take on board what I've written Seckle, sweeping generalisations and the writing off of whole scenes/styles is irresponsible and detremental, people look upto you on here man, that's something you should be proud of but also extremly aware of when posting threads like this. Mass generalisations can be damaging when the speaker has an audience of people that look upto them.

thanks for your points. here's mine...

since you've called my viewpoint in this thread "dangerous", let me in turn say that your viewpoint on the intelligence level of the so-called "youngers" on this forum is ridiculous. how the hell do you know how old people are on this forum? do you think that young people can't decide for themselves, or cannot have their own viewpoint on jungle and drum and bass? they don't need protection from strong opinions. you're talking as if musical genre's need protection. give it a rest man. let people use their own logic and figure out if things don't make sense. why do i have to have some feel good view of the way jungle turned out? jungle has a nearly 20 year legacy. thats millions of perspectives on it. i never got that memo that you're supposed to toe the line about how you view music.

your take on the history of jungle is full of things i have a BIG problem with, and rather than long this out as this isn't a drum and bass forum or thread for that matter, i'll just say these quick things.

• -the loudness wars i addressed were quantified by the years i mentioned, 2002-2007. you've said it goes back to 1995 in jungle. in my perspective as a longtime jungle vinyl buyer, thats absolutely NOT the case at all. you mean to say that aphrodite, for example, back in 1995 was cutting tunes loud? do you own any old jungle records from those days? if you did, you'd know that the mastering and cutting was anything but overly loud in 1995. DAW were barely prevalent in 1995. Software was still fighting hardware in 1995. Software mastering suites, like you have these days, were thousands of dollars in 1995, and out of the hands of 3/4 of bedroom producers. by 2002-2007, mastering software & hardware was easy to get, and by about 5 years ago, the loudness thing was full tilt. Its easy to see why people talk about loudness wars these days.
  
  -andy c and randall represent absolutely polar opposites in the music that they've supported over the years. they dj very differently as well. randall doesn't need defending. either you can accept why randall is ESSENTIAL to understanding jungle, or you can disagree with that perspective. in the same vein, i'd say that studying a label like reinforced is ESSENTIAL to understanding jungle. does reinforced put out records like valve does? no, but that doesn't lessen how critical they've become, in a genre thats full of copycats right now. unlike you, i'm not going to take some reactionary stance on what you call sweeping generalizations and being "dangerous". sometimes sweeping generalizations turn out to be right. i totally disagree that someone that's less prolific in their output is automatically seen as less successful. thats a totally stupid way to look at music. source direct made two albums and under 20 12"s. their two albums are listed in many places as two of the most influential electronica/dance albums of the 90's. according to your logic, because they were less prolific, we shouldn't be paying attention.

you seem to have a very strange view about the importance of this site. this is one of dozens of equally important and influential dubstep sites out there. many of them serve the same purpose...to reinforce and build community. building community doesn't mean that you can't discuss things that might provoke community discussion or strong debate. it doesn't mean you have to "protect" people from strong opinions and make sure your replies fit into some politically correct box. if anything, thats not community building, thats promoting bullshit and hot air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LkjNqVM5o8

Lol, you didn't really read my post properly did you, when you take something personally it clouds your thinking.

Jungle 1995 - I was there, lived it and have had strong ties to the jungle/dnb scene since I was around 15. Albeit I was geographicaly lucky as fuck because it blew up in my back yard. Aphrodite's first major label remix was for my band that was signed to warner bros at the time, he did 3 for us in fact, and yes they were loud as fuck, using the dat techniques I spoke of earlier.

Strong view points are not the problem, inacurate information IS, and your posts in this thread are full of exactly that. That's what is damaging. It doesn't do anyone any favours at all and just helps to perpetuate misinformation.

I won't continue to pull your last post apart because it's pointless.

I'm out....

lame thread..."let's talk shit about a portion of the genre"

lol

i have tunes that span across this whole genre...i think somewhere near 3000 artists...umm this is just a stage in dubstep's development...let's just listen to the tunes...can't we all just get a bong?