My Phatty TE and moogerfoogers have been sitting around being twiddled and played on but I haven’t recorded anything of substance yet.
The main issue is in making drumbeats for them.
it’d be nice to have an old Roland drum machine, but that’s not in the funds right now.
I’ve been using Garage Band (eck) for a while and find myself only getting fed up with discovering the same things over and over. I’ve dabbled in Reason, only to become confused, but I’m willing to give it another try.
my work is usually drum n bass/electronic…ranging from smooth and relaxing to eratic.
Can anyone suggest some programs to look into for this type of music, whether they include Reason or not?
Hi there, i don’t really have much experience in making the type of music you are working on, but i would suggest that you give Ableton Live a try instead of Reason. I use it to progam drums/record my moog/bass/guitars/vocals etc.. and it’s very easy to use. It comes with a small but well formed drum program called ‘Impulse’ which is really pretty decent.
A lot of people use Live, like AFX, Autechre, Daft Punk, Luke Vibert etc.. And as well as being a great DAW it has amazing features for constructing lives sets.
Also here are a few suggestions for plugins that you might like to check out:
Toontrack EZDrummer - http://www.toontrack.com/ezdrummer.asp
This is the program i use for my own music, not sure how much use the base program would be for d’n’b, but the samples are excellent quality. It comes with a large library of midi files so you can flesh out ideas quickly and go back later to work on the drums. There are some excellent EZX expansions for it as well, the Claustrophobic kit might be of interest to you because it’s very low-fi sounding with great deal of options in the mixer section for distortion etc… Check out the audio samples and see what you think.
Sonic Charge MicroTonic - http://www.soniccharge.com/products
This might be of some use to you for electro sounds, it is a realtime drum synth (not sample based) which you can get all manner of craziness from. You can supposedly get some good TR-xxx like sounds from it but i have not really used it enough to know.
Hope that helps, i started out using Reason myself, but after i discovered Live i never looked back. Follow some of the tutorials built into the program and it all becomes clear pretty quickly. I think you’ll like it
ps: I have a small selection of TR-505/TR-707 samples somewhere that i can send you to use in Impulse. Shoot me a message with you e-mail address if you want them.
Absolutely! I have really eclectic tastes and mostly listen to non-electro music, but i have always liked RDJ. The Tuss record blows my mind, there are so many ideas going on in each song it almost gives you a headache.
Do you have the EP too? It’s called Confederation Trough, only has 4 songs (spread over 2 releases cd/vinyl) but none of them are on Rushup Edge. Amazing stuff!
No I don’t have Confederation Trough…I’ll have to give them a whirl.
So 2 tracks are on Vinyl and the other on CD? RDJ doesn’t make it easy hahaha.
God, Rushup Edge is so freakin’ good…The first 40 seconds of Synthacon 9 blew my mind…as does the rest of the album for that matter
I’ve been messing with Ableton Live…awesome, awesome stuff. I’m impressed at how intuitive the drum sampling/programming is.
Just about any audio interface you buy these days will come with Cubase LE or Abelton Live LE, either one will get you started with recording. Then you could add some hip drum sounds. I’m close to pulling the trigger on this library:
