utilizing breaks properly

Groovestick

Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2010
been re-reading the DOA noisia interview and it seems like they use breaks a lot in their music.

been producing for a few months now and i've only really had experience with making beats out of single, layered hits (eg. some hat samples, a good kick and snare, etc) and working all in midi.

i've got a whole bunch of breaks but i'm not really sure how to use them. i know noisia cut theirs up and then somehow incorporate them into their tunes (probably moreso with their older tunes). all the breaks i have sound real shit sped up and highpassed and i can't figure out what parts of them to use and how to use them in a beat i've made that has a huge kick and snare and good hats.

noisia's older stuff (therapy sessions etc) has real busy drums (something like the tide and moonway renegade). how would you go about constructing the drums for a track like moonway renegade?

i'm finding it hard to make really good sounding beats just with single layered hits. eg. when i want to make a sick fill, i go through my sample library, make a decent rhythm but no matter what i do, i can't get any natural sounding fills.
 
I normally just take a few different good sounding breaks, slice them up, cut out the kicks/snares (unless they add some nice sound to the main kicks/snares I'm using, gotta be careful not to layer too much tho), sometimes re-arrange to my fitting, EQ, hi-pass, filter, whatever I feel like sounds good. Just blend them in nicely. All standard stuff really. Overall it gives the drums a much more busy feel and adds to the atmosphere.
 
Just a case of trial and error. for me, ill take a break, amen break for example. high pass to about 200hz, put a dip at 200 hz and then another at around 2-3k. then thicken it out with some drum hits. I think velocity comes into play a lot when trying to make decent fills.

---------- Post added at 12:13 ---------- Previous post was at 12:10 ----------

don't be too scared to get creative with your beats either. simply applying a few fx's can sometimes, "make a break".
 
sample them from other peoples songs or search for some jazz breaks or something. dunno really, can come from anywhere.
 
As you already work in midi, i'd recomend you stick with it and make your own breaks, it does take allot of work, i've been trying for a while now and only 1 in 10 of my amens work for me lol but its worth the effort! the key to fast hectic breaks is layers, double up your hi-hats, use lots of ghost hits (snares/toms/any precusion you can think of that works)

You can experiment with Rex amen breaks, quite useful for learning how they flow, and most DAW's allow you to edit them, if not get a copy of Recycle and have a play

theres a bundle of a rex amen breaks in a zip sumwhere on this forum, have a search around, cant do it myself, if u dont find them i'll zip sum up and post them back up
 
we crate dig for our breaks. reactor grits record collection is unthinkable (70s art jazz from japan, heart sounds and whale noises with metallic percussion arrangements, turn of the century choir arrangements, polish disco and jazz rock purchased in krakow, its a pretty unique blend and we get chunks of odd noises and funny skwarks from there, but also breaks and basses)
 
get ur self some dnb sample packs that have breaks to get used to using em them go an search for ur own wen uve got an idea what u want
 
stop. trying. to sound. like. other. artists.

bet my entire ass that all your music influences when you write tunes (if you do so), are from dnb producers, hence you try to standarize your sound to the ones in the top.
We. are. trying. to. make. music. we. need. influences. to. evolve. .. Man. it's. really. annoying. to. write. this. way.
 
bet my entire ass that all your music influences when you write tunes (if you do so), are from dnb producers, hence you try to standarize your sound to the ones in the top.
We. are. trying. to. make. music. we. need. influences. to. evolve. .. Man. it's. really. annoying. to. write. this. way.

Kind of agree with what Strife is saying but i think developing your own sound is something that comes in time. Still i think listening to other musicians work and figuring out how they have done it is important because you can then take certain techniques into your own work. Then again, i spent a long time just trying to copy other peoples sound until i realized how negatively that effected me as an artist.
 
^^ your sig says it all, that is all most people asking these kinds of questions are trying to do in my opinion. Its knowing how to make these sounds that teaches you, then you can apply similar techniques to different stuff. Im still in the same boat myself... the kind of sound i want to create i cant because i dont know how to use the synth properly yet, im getting better but not that good.

Back to op... what i usually do with breaks is i find some individual hits, (snares kicks etc) then layer them up so they sound good. Then slice up the shuffle part of a break and layer that up with it, makes the beat flow, but cut out the kicks snares etc of the break.

or another way is maybe if you find a break with a nice kick/snare, just slice and use that from the break as an individual hit.

Im sure theres other techniques also
 
a quick listen to moonway renegade (in shit youtube quality mind you), sounds like they have the fills on a tight quantization with either sharp enveloping or sample play back stopping before the next event (ie in midi the note would have no release)
 
a quick listen to moonway renegade (in shit youtube quality mind you), sounds like they have the fills on a tight quantization with either sharp enveloping or sample play back stopping before the next event (ie in midi the note would have no release)

dude, how did you do the drums at the start of your track "no truth in tuning"? sounds sick.
 
thanks :)
the drums just have a delay on them. sometimes i copy the delay and automate a low pass filter to simulate a more natural decay (but i don't recall doing that here). then there is a low pass layer that fades in and out under the glitchy type sound.
 
i'm talking more about the breaks themselves. how much of it is chopped as opposed to fuller breaks playing and how much of it is single hits etc?
 
i'm talking more about the breaks themselves. how much of it is chopped as opposed to fuller breaks playing and how much of it is single hits etc?

I chop all my breaks into single hits. Cubase's hitpoints feature is wicked for this.
 
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