Oldskool jungle hardware/equipment

dillinger

New Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2013
I'm not a music producer, but for a while I've been curious to know what some of the primary tools were that helped create the breaks, basslines, and synth sounds of oldskool jungle, darkside, and hardcore.

One of my curiosities is how the "reese" bass was made, as heard on tracks like Renegade - Terrorist. I think it has something to do with detuning two oscillators on top of each other, but how was this achieved before computers were used as synths (or was that already being done)? Was it done manually on a specific type of synth that had multiple oscillators? I also would love to know where the regular warm jungle bass sound came from, heard on tons of tracks in varying forms, but DMS & the Boneman X - Sweet Vibrations is an example of what I mean there.

I wonder how the amen and other breaks were so accurately cut up and spliced back together by artists like Remarc and others. Was this accomplished manually with samplers, or did they already have the assistance of computers?

How did they pull all those sounds from old soundclashes and dub sirens? Did they record onto samplers from vinyl?

I have a total lack of knowledge about any of this stuff since I was a kid during the 90's and I've been surrounded by computers my whole life. Any info you can give about the creation of this type of music during its prime would be awesome even if it doesn't specifically answer any of the stuff I mentioned.
 
Dude, you could detune two oscs ever since about 1968 when the Moog Modular was available.

Computers have been involved in music by the time the 90's came around. Many tunes were sequenced using Cubase on a Mac or Atari computer via midi to hardware synths and samplers. The Amiga computer had sampling and some tunes were created with a tracker:

 
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That reese sound that was battered in the 90's was actually sampled from Reese - Just Want Another Chance, which was made in 1987!


As for sampling the most common sampler was the Akai S series, here's a good look in to the equipment, the Source Direct interview is pretty funny.


 
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Dude, you could detune two oscs ever since about 1968 when the Moog Modular was available

Yeah I feel kinda stupid for wording my question that way. I realize that any synth with more than one oscillator and detune capability could make a modulated sound similar to that, but was wondering how the signature "jungle" one was made, specifically. DocOdessah addressed that with the sample from 1987, but I can't imagine ALL the tunes that used that bass sound were just manipulated samples? It's such a signature sound that I figured maybe there was some specific equipment used to (re)create it. Not much experience with synthesizers here so pardon my ignorance and thanks for the replies!
 
Thats the beauty of old jungle....i mean the original jungle sound, its flaws in a sense made that sound that cant be replicated in todays sound. Todays take on jungle makes for some great tracks from artists such as Bladerunner for example. But the old sound, made on basic samplers and bits of other kit....Plus you never had the internet as tool, so yu literally had to learn to use this stuff from scratch....no forums and masses of information online then. I love that rugged sound from the early days, i think its waht made it so ground breaking.... Todays dnb never excites me like the old days did
 
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