Making Breakcore

[Tettenkop]

Hello,

I'm new to this forum, but new as well to the art of making electronic music yourself!
I'm very into breakcore (venetian snares and all that) and I would like to focus on this particular style when I start making e-music.
however: I have no clue about how and where to start! should I use computerprograms, or analog equipment?
I definately need some assistance, just to start off with.
hope i can find some here.

thanks already,
tettenkop

[Kassen]

Definately programs; trackers were (are?) popular as was soundforge. You might want to have a look at this, scroll down to the red insert box.

There is still a forum on C8 (http://c8.com/c8/phpBB2/forums.html) but it's just a pale shaddow of the list.

Anyway, I sugest you get a sample treatment program and learn all of the hotkeys untill they become muscle memory and use that as your main instrument.

[Tettenkop]

ok, that seems reasonable to me, I just bought myself a laptop.
any suggestions on what programs to use?

[Mohoyoho]

I don't produce Breakcore music, but I have seen people perform it with Ableton Live on their laptops.

[Kassen]

[Tettenkop]

ok, i'm all set, i've got acid pro 4, fruityloops and adobe audition.
where can I find some good samples.
I find a lot through the internet, but maybe you guys know where to find some quality wavs

[Afro88]

http://www.phatdrumloops.com/old_site/

Massive library of funk drum loop wavs. If you've heard an old loop in a track, it will be in here.

[DTQ]

For a good drum distortion, check out izotope trash and guitar rig plugin...

[mosc]

Yes, the guy with the long name knows what he's talking about. Listen to his stuff: http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-7390.html

[k.e.p.]

the best tracker (and maybe the best software for making breakcore) i've seen is Renoise! see www.renoise.com for a demo
I think it's really worth to get into a tracker if you won't end up slicing and editing samples all day long, especially if you are into that kind of music, a tracker simply enables you to do so much things "on the fly". The first time I used renoise was like "aah, that's the way, they do it..."

[Tettenkop]

I downloaded the renoise demo, but it seems quite difficult.
On the other hand, I think I understand how people use it,
but i'll need to study a lot before I'll be able to make good use of it.
do you guys think it's a good idea to start studying these trackers, or is it a waste of time?

[mosc]

Guys that make this kind of music love trackers. It you like the music, it might be a waste of time not to study them.

[Tettenkop]

right,
the tutorial page is in my bookmarks, I'll see what I can do.
maybe now's the time to do something I never did in school: Cramming!!

[k.e.p.]

I think a can be a bit confusing when you start to work with a tracker the first time, but I'm sure you can get into it pretty fast. Checking the tutorials and the examples is a good starting point. Maybe this file, showing some basic stuff in renoise, may help you. I made it for a friend of mine a while ago, a day later he came up with his first own breaks!
Take a drumloop you like, take a copy of the effect commands from the tutorial and start playing around with them...

---

basics.rns.zip
Description:	a boring loop used to show some basic renoise choppin'	Download (listen)
Filename:	basics.rns.zip
Filesize:	194.9 KB
Downloaded:	961 Time(s)

---

[DTQ]

What is the difference between a tracker and a standard sequencer + sampler excepted the vertical time representation?
I love to learn new software but aren't the tracker a relic from the past?

[DTQ]

In fact, it use the same extension (.rns) than Reason... What are his advantage over the Proplerhead superstar?

[k.e.p.]

take one of theese snare-rolls for example:
in a standard sequencer you would have to do something like: zoom into the waveform, select the part you want to retrig, make a new region out of that, copy that region several times and hope everything sounds the way you want it or you'll have to start again.
in a tracker you would have to select your snare event, type something like "0E02" and you're done!!(maybe you want to change that to "0E03" and see if it sounds better this way.)
and you can do this using loops, no slicing or isolating and assigning various samples to different notes is needed, because you can do it all "on the fly", having total control over every sample-playback parameter.

a tracker surely isn't the one tool which can replace all other applications, but especially when it comes to this kind of drum programming, i think it's the fastest solution.

[Tettenkop]

jinji, your help is very usefull and very much appreciated!
thanks

[mosc]

I'm not a tracker user but I have tried out a demo version of Ableton Live. It seems like Live is another program that is designed for making these kinds of dance tracks. Am I wrong; is Live sort of a modern tracker?

[Kassen]

[DTQ]

phmmm...
Really interresting...
I'll try renoise on my next track...

[k.e.p.]

Hey, DickTheQuick!

I just listened to your tracks. Big up!! I'll definitely give them a second listening later, but "un futur rapproché" was really fun to listen to
And it seems like you don't need a tracker at all, because you found yourseld a really suitable way of doing your music. ok, maybe you could be faster with a tracker (maybe not...) or get some additional inspiration out of it...
just beeing curious: what was your way of doing these tracks, what stuff did you use?

[DTQ]

i work a lot with fruity loop and cubase + soft synth (<<absynth 3 for un futur rapproché>>).

My tracks often begin with a mental image + a technical challenge except <<for un futur rapproché >>. For this one i wanted to do a trash-drill and bass-emo track.

[Kassen]