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Just some thoughts over me morning coffee....

Obviuosly you've got the Toasty/Search and Destroy etc fully break driven stuff, then there's kode's lowkey eastern sounding bits that rumble along in the background, then tracks like skreams Groovin where the break is high passed and plays second fiddle to the main beat, but gives the track its momentum. On Geiom's overnight biscuits the break is almost rigid but super effective.

Creative drum programming seems to be a big part of the future of dubstep, so rather than talk about how to get that wumph sound [think everyones got that down now] whats everyones take on the use of breaks?

So this isn't just leeching, my usual technique [when not making empty halfstep] is to take a standard break, put it through recycle [tidy up the chopping cos the auto bit gets it wrong alot]. Import the midi file to cubase quantize to 32ths or 16ths depending on how loose it is, rearrange to create some fills. Import the wavs to battery, maybe reverse a few, do abit of weird panning, maybe replace the original hits with perccusion and mute a few. add a bit of delay/reverb, high shelf from 200hz/400hz up, drive with a tube emulator. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Often feel that the quantisation robs energy from the pattern but it can sound real messy otherwise.

peace

Try to avoid them or come up with my own mostly. Logic's quite handy as you can take the break in recycle, convert it in the exs24 and then make a groove template from that to quantize your kicks and snares to it, so I suppose this works in reverse to the way you suggest as it quantizes the programmed parts to the human feel rather than vice versa.

Think subtle use of breaks in dubstep works quite well - the amen bit in Generation by Dub War is just a little flash at the end of every couple of bars, but quite low in the mix and is very effective.

With regards to quantizing, I find with loads of the older garage beats, it's best to play as much in without quantizing as possible, as it gives it a much looser feel. Ultimately hearing anything in a loop eventually makes rhythmic sense - RZA is the master of this, check early wu-tang

Photek= The breaks master. Listen and learn. I became slightly dangerously obsessed with him. I was like for years.

i was like "wow" for years

and still am

breaks are terrible. make your own orignal beats or fuck off out of music creation.

alan wrote:breaks are terrible. make your own orignal beats or fuck off out of music creation.

i take it you hate hip hop and dnb then

alan wrote:breaks are terrible. make your own orignal beats or fuck off out of music creation.

So basicly, you reject the idia that music made with breaks is legitamate? I'd like you to back up your argument. Baring in mind that some of the most evolved progressive and down right thought provoking music over the last twenty or so years would not have happened without the use of breaks. I would even go as for as to say you would not even be writing on this forum (as it wouldn't excist) had people not thought of sampling drums and other sounds.
Oh I get it. Your joking. Thought so

Oh by the way i very rarly use breaks. I spent about five years getting my drum sounds to sound like breaks as i thought it would allow more freedom in programing

metalboxproducts wrote:Oh by the way i very rarly use breaks. I spent about five years getting my drum sounds to sound like breaks as i thought it would allow more freedom in programing

neither do i if theres a nice roll i might nick it and try and recreate it but i have a lot of fun making my own and then if i never finish the tune then i keep the break in case its required for something else

haha. Making drum sounds = not making many tracks. I had to get a bit of perspective. Iy was driving me mental LOL.

errr orignal sample based music was thro nessitity...its something that happened, mostly was a really good thing, but happen in the 80/90's not in 2006.

we dont need to sample other peoples work anymore...having said that creative good music can be made from samples but most drum breaks are totally uncreative and just a process like explained above.

the orignal statement was about breaks (as in the musical style) which is the preset of all electronics.

alan wrote:errr orignal sample based music was thro nessitity...its something that happened, mostly was a really good thing, but happen in the 80/90's not in 2006.

o rly thanks for the history lesson i thought i was the first person to sample


no one needs to sample, but samples can be used in very creative and effective ways

thats what i just wrote forskin-x wink emoconthingy

maybe i worded it wrongly - samples can be used creatively but often arn't - agreed.

Can we have dicepticons please? Not sure if thats how to spell it.

Its not the sound but the spill that make breaks. Its the feeling inbetween thats really hard to recreate. The sound of the room/ equipment/ flow of the drummer/ the slight inaccurate playing/ source of the sound. Head bending!

right..... just to clarify what i was trying to get at was use of original drum grooves as a sublevel to the main, producer constructed pattern. I'm not talking about looping a break for 5 minutes and calling it at track, more as a subtle enhancement to add variation i.e. rather than adding a new high hat line or bongo pattern sticking an inconspicous break 32bars after the drop. Or alternatively simply using the midi groove to form the basis of a percussion pattern which can then be edited to suit the flow of the track.

I agree that programming everything or inputing it via midi is more original, i was just interested to know if anyone on here was using breaks in this context.

narcossist wrote:right..... just to clarify what i was trying to get at was use of original drum grooves as a sublevel to the main, producer constructed pattern. I'm not talking about looping a break for 5 minutes and calling it at track, more as a subtle enhancement to add variation i.e. rather than adding a new high hat line or bongo pattern sticking an inconspicous break 32bars after the drop. Or alternatively simply using the midi groove to form the basis of a percussion pattern which can then be edited to suit the flow of the track.

I agree that programming everything or inputing it via midi is more original, i was just interested to know if anyone on here was using breaks in this context.

Loads mate. check out distance, search and destroy, boka, hotflush, vex'd, A couple of my tracks do what you say.

tidy up the chopping cos the auto bit gets it wrong alot

how exactly do you go about this, just out of interest? i've been using the Fruity Slicer on breaks and they're often unusably choppy. would i need to invest in something a bit more sophisticated?

Interesting thread. I appraoch each tune seperatly with the bulk of my beats made from single hits which are built up and then stripped to form a more organic feel.

I've high pass filtered some breaks before but then chopped them up completly to get the rhythm i want (putting them over the basic single hit beat).

I'm feeling glitch a lot so i'll usually export various individual drum tracks (bass drum, hi hat, snare , whatever) and then glitch them up and finally assemble everything onto cubase and add the VSTs (reverb etc..) so the whole beat gels.

I think your apprach depends a lot on the software at your disposal.