Breakcore

Badgercrafts · Joined: Oct 28, 2006 Posts: 4 Location: UK

righto.
ive been interested in Breakcore (Artists like Venetian Snares,Droon etc.) and thought i should start making my own.
i heard Venetian Snares used Renoise so i went and got the Demo of it and played around with it. after a while i figured i was rubbish with it after producing one short song. (Download link Here if you want it)

it was a cavalcade of drums and a sample of a man shouting "DOORS DOORS GETCHA DOORS"
i'd give it about 7/10.

but i'd really love to start producing some real hardcore stuff.
i dont know much about Renoise,or trackers for that case.
i can only just about operate the Pattern Editor.

so if any of you could contribute some tips and tricks to help me on my way it'd be greatly appreciated.

Badgercrafts · Joined: Oct 28, 2006 Posts: 4 Location: UK

hello?
i would really love some answers.

Kassen · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 3:29 am Post subject:

Well, it's a hard question as is demonstrated time and time again by the recent crop of third generation breakcore.

For one thing trackers require quite a bit of experience and hard work to get good results. I still like doing it all manually in a wave editor best but it's loads and loads of work and I got bored with breakcore, mostly.

Anyway, the one semi-decent text on it can be found here;
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/May02/articles/paradinas.asp

Read the insert by Vsnares.

Also; practice, practice, practice and get to know your compressors and eq. Compression, EQ and mixing is hard, it's even harder to get distorted material to sound good on a big system.

majutsu · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject:

almost all trackers have a clear list of effects, and they are pretty standard.

the renoise site has tons of tutorials too.

but, really, the effects are there, the beats are there to use right in front of you. there are no secrets, just your dedication and creativity.

i have just decided over time that venetian snares (aaron) is just an amazing individual. you won't do it. you can get to squarepusher/aphex level a few months with a tracker on average. just play and take time.

slave to this · Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 12:46 am Post subject:

to think that a tracker is the only thing vsnares uses is quite silly. can you create breakcore with any old tracker? sure. get good enough and find your working style. you could make any type of music with any decent piece of software these days. it just takes a little time and getting to know your tools.

slave to this · Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 1:02 am Post subject:

by the way...i lost a lot of respect for breakcore over the years when i realized just how easy it was to create.....

**make a crazy patch or trigger system on whichever platform of choice....trigger a bunch of weird sounds at high tempo at different clock divisions....take what you recorded...cut/copy/paste the best parts into beats/bar format...loop.....add fx....automation...and you've got yourself a generic IDM/breakcore track.**

the genre has really lost its luster if you ask me. most of the stuff that those labels are signing these days is absolutely tripe if you ask me. meanwhile, 90% of them aside from warp and planet-mu are barely making ends meat when it comes to sales.

but don't listen to me or let me discourage you if this is your thing...there are plenty artists out there doing what they do well. i just don't really like a format of music that seems to be developing into more of a "i'm going to make a big sound collage and call it a song" genre.

Benjamin · Joined: Aug 15, 2006 Posts: 2 Location: Denmark

Hey, I'm new here so hello to all. Smile

I was just wondering what a tracker is...

blue hell · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:35 am Post subject:

majutsu · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:56 am Post subject:

slave to this · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 11:46 am Post subject:

the "silly" part of what i said is that i wouldn't believe trackers are his only sound design tools. i've heard from richard devine, a good friend of aaron's, that he uses much more than just "renoise."

majutsu · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:18 pm Post subject:

now, that's true. he uses cubase and soundforge. but before adding these tools, just renoise. and before renoise, octamed only, when he was good Wink

"Venetian Snares composes much of his music with trackers. Before he began to release his music commercially, he worked primarily with OctaMED on an Amiga 500[1]. At some point prior to 2000, he began using a PC and switched to the Windows port of OctaMED, MED Soundstudio[2]. Currently he is mainly working with Renoise[3]. A video of "Vache", a track from Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms, being played through Renoise is available on YouTube."

[1] refers to the isolate record interview
[2] to the sound on sound interview

slave to this · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:00 pm Post subject:

majutsu,

i still think he's making half of his music in a joking manner. sort of like aphex, but his music is not as good. i like winter in the belly of a snake :-/
btw, where in LA? its good to at least see some people down there not into what disco donnie prescribed to them at state palace theater every weekend.

majutsu · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:33 pm Post subject:

holy moly!!
Surprised

can't believe you know about state palace in new orleans. long before katrina it was taken down by a crack-house law for the drug dealing there. and now i had seriously doubted it came back after katrina. But a quick online search revealed that the monstrosity is back. good to see new orleans has correct rebuilding priorities. Rolling Eyes

It was a staple of the early to mid 90s though. enjoyed it several times. but i was actually was born and raised in D.C. and thought state palace was shallow and dorky from day one.

i'm now in north la/texas. there is nothing here but country. but i was into computer music before superstition records and early fsol, so i was pretty used to having no friends in my hobby even in D.C. So when everyone jumped on in 90-91 i didn't care, and when everyone left i didn't care. Very Happy

i'm used to being a lonely nerd. i prefer it that way. i got those skills down. Wink

nice to meet you though. it's cool to hear people who enjoy these sounds. it gives me great hope for the future.

Alexander · Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 11:32 am Post subject:

(squeezing in on topic.)

I am not really good at style or genre definitions and I really don't know any decent algorithm, I do know that imitating beat sequences of the above mentioned requires a bit more than just a tracker.
Maybe you could try and create a number of loops and cut them up to create more dense and complex loops, start layering and adding effects and practice with cut and paste techniques.

In a way it's close to drumming, you'll need to not only know tricks, but also develop a feel for rhythm structure.

But you won't need a drumkit for breakcore all it takes is time, a tracker, wave editor/recorder and a lot of good ideas!

good luck, hope any of this helps Wink

slave to this · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:25 am Post subject:

majutsu,

i used to live right outside the slidell area, if you know where that is--further past new orleans east.
i'm hoping donnie actually does his usual freebass nye party at the palace (i'm pretty sure that he still had one even last year). i'll be home from school and nye is my birthday so what the hell else am i going to do. haha, anyway, nice to meet you as well.

james

Kassen · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 12:13 pm Post subject:

Alexander · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:57 pm Post subject:

Kassen · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 6:13 pm Post subject:

I'll take all blame when the neighbours nock. Smile

Nick's soundfiles speak all for themselves; this is highly practical stuff, even if it's put in accedemic wordings and SC code. The actual results sound like realtime Square Pusher.

Are you putting the C to use in audio? I'm hacking up a tempo-informed shuffle algorithem myself right now in ChucK.

Alexander · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:12 am Post subject:

I chose C++ over max in school and the goal is writing my own externals, filters and other audio related programs.. it's still a long way to go, but I got time..

(There's rumors of a live coding event being organized, I'll make sure you know where and when!)

majutsu · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 3:53 pm Post subject:

i'm doing c++ right now as well. I'm also doing python and c too. actually my order was going to be python, c, c++ . For python i plan on using pysound.obj. what sound object are you using for c++? i know you can interface with c sound, but i was wondering if there was a library of sound objects people commonly use?

Kassen · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:55 pm Post subject:

Alexander · Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:40 am Post subject:

Kassen · Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 9:25 am Post subject:

That would be nice, yes. Keep me posted!

Wanna meet up again somewhere late next week? I'll be gone this weekend but I'm not 100% sure when I'll be back.

Alexander · Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:16 am Post subject:

we'll email after the weekend. Sure we got enough to talk about! Smile

Kassen · Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:42 am Post subject:

Yay, cool!