old school dnb drums

different remixes of this song were really big here in the american underground rave scene around y2k, a local breakbeat dj used to kill it with a breakbeat remix of this song. we had alot of local guys pumping out killer breakbeat remixes of classics around that time. god i really miss those days, i get a little rush of excitement and butterflies in the stomach everytime i think back to those years. sure, partially it was the drugs but the people and the whole vibe is something that seems to be long gone now.

anyway i was wondering how would you pull of drums like in this song from 5:18-5:42? it sounds like they layered a few amens to trigger different hits at the same time and later on in the time range i mentioned, a phaser. but i'm not quite sure. i've always been impressed with the wild jungle-inspired old school dnb drums when... i'm assuming... they'd wild out on the sampler. i'd like to be able to incorporate a similar style in my songs but am not sure how these old school guys pulled it off. i've definitely tried and gotten great results but it didn't have the sound of these old school tracks, it sounded too clean cuz i was using just 1 funk break and single one shots layered over top. then i'd bounce my drum loop and slice it up but it didn't sound as wild and busy as these.

isnt that just the same break with a flanger on? it sounds like its a couple of samples behind to start with then it just flanges out higher (pitches up) and back down again.

thanks for the reply, yeah you're right it's a flanger not a phaser. effects aside, in regard to strictly the drums themselves, do you think it's probably just 2 or 3 layers of the same break playing different parts of the break overtop of itself? i've heard alot of that type of sequencing in old dnb but am trying to grasp what it is they're doing. layering another loop of the same break overtop their main loop and playing around with the overlapped loop's sequencing? IE: there might something like 1 bar playing the overlapped loop with the same sequence then the next bar the overlapped loop might be delayed it something like 1/4 bar so you get parts where there are a couple snares one after the other. it's kinda hard to tell what's going on but i've always been curious what kind of technique they're using to do that.

to be honest i think you're going to deep trying to copy it so much, i'd just try a few different things and go with what works.

To answer your question tho to me it sounds like the same break, chopped up like you said and with the flange intensity automated in and out. the delayed bits are probably just the same bit copied and pasted, no fancy delaying happening

The important thing to take note of is that this was produced in 1993 or possibly 1992 so the equipment would have been analogue samplers and most likely an Atari ST with Octamed for sequencing.

All of the effects would have been outboard effects units so keeping the signal chain and use of samples simple made things a lot easier.

Russla is bang on with this. Its the same break chopped up in to a sampler and sequenced to buggery.

if its 1992 and done in a tracker, chances are its 2 channels with the same break, and one is slightly pitched up, just a few cents, causing it to phase. could do all kinds of neat tricks in a tracker, could timestretch it by offsetting the sample starting point, could pitch, pan, some of them even had filter envs. modplug had lp and hp, a clunky reverb and surround sound, but that isnt until 1999 i think.

Octamed was a seriously powerful tracker, for its time. Best one out there, looking at the competition. It had 32 channels for example. Some of these songs were done on 4, screamtracker had 4 channels. pretty weird way to compose music, had it been analog i could understand how youd have to just deal with it, but digitally it doesnt make sense, why wouldnt it have infinite channels, if its digital? perhaps hard to understand for someone who started tracking as late as i did. the scene was all but gone when i started, it had peaked just a few years prior, so some links still worked, but most didnt.

logikz said:

if its 1992 and done in a tracker, chances are its 2 channels with the same break, and one is slightly pitched up, just a few cents, causing it to phase. could do all kinds of neat tricks in a tracker, could timestretch it by offsetting the sample starting point, could pitch, pan, some of them even had filter envs. modplug had lp and hp, a clunky reverb and surround sound, but that isnt until 1999 i think.

Octamed was a seriously powerful tracker, for its time. Best one out there, looking at the competition. It had 32 channels for example. Some of these songs were done on 4, screamtracker had 4 channels. pretty weird way to compose music, had it been analog i could understand how youd have to just deal with it, but digitally it doesnt make sense, why wouldnt it have infinite channels, if its digital? perhaps hard to understand for someone who started tracking as late as i did. the scene was all but gone when i started, it had peaked just a few years prior, so some links still worked, but most didnt.

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It was all dependant on how much memory the Atari had. You could get a 512Kb and 1024Kb version. I'm sure there were extra RAM modules that you could stick in the back too.

Mickey Finn and Aphrodite made Some Justice with 2 Atari STs and Octamed. There was no Clock Sync in those days so they just had to time pressing both Space Bars at the exact same time to get everything in time when recording the Output to DAT.

well goddamn croog, i didnt know that! makes sense, its a memory thing, of course.

octamed was amiga though.

i do have a some justice .med file which is a remix, but totally badass and its just the one file.

logikz said:

well goddamn croog, i didnt know that! makes sense, its a memory thing, of course.

octamed was amiga though.

i do have a some justice .med file which is a remix, but totally badass and its just the one file.

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Yep you're absolutely right. OctaMED was proprietary to Amiga. I bow to your excellence of great duck billed mong.

these are some great replies, thanks. i remember an old interview with fatboy slim where he said he was still using his atari for tracking, he just recently caved into pressures to start using a modern daw.