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Underground > Radio & Music >

HEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPP.

Fiction Suit Five

20:27 / 01.11.01

I need help, Barbeloids. I want to be Fatboy Slim/ The Chemical Brothers. Urgently. I've bought a shit hot PC, and blown money money money on software; acid, logic, cakewalk etc. None of it does what I want; simply sample looped drum beats, bass lines yadayada and play interesting sounds, via a keyboard, on top. I still haven't recorded a daaaaaaaaamned thing. I ONLY WANNA PLAY MUSIC USING SAMPLES ON MY GODDAMMMM PC!!!! Please:

A. Recommend software packages, combinations, anything.
B. Burn disks for me; I promise I'll pay the programmers if I can use the GODDAAAAM software the way I want to...

HEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPP.

Please.

04:44 / 02.11.01

Here's a few suggestions:
1. Collaborate
2. Re-build one of your favourite 'tunes', yourself, from the ground up
3. Cover an old Mowtown song - I'd love to hear a sympathetic version of the Jackson 5's "I want you Back"
4 . Take (more?) drugs

Rollo Kim, on location

16:17 / 02.11.01

It's what you do with the stuff that counts. If you can't loop audio in a toy-program like ACID [which does all the work for you if you play around with it for long enough] then what ya gonna do?!

I have a CD crammed with software - Vegas is best for looping audio, plus loads of plug-in FX.

Mail me off board for swaps if you're still stuck.

[ 02-11-2001: Message edited by: Rollo ]

18:33 / 02.11.01

learn about midi and get a keyboard -- isnt that how it's done? or get an 808 drum machine, that does all the sampling/beabuilding/song creation known to man.

The Sinister Haiku Bureau

09:46 / 03.11.01

Ooohkay: not sure how much of this is directly relevant to your situation, but my preffered music software is listed below. A friend of mine gave me a slightly-less-than-legal CD of much of the best music software out there (at the time at least), so I've played around with a lot of it, and this is what I like, though I'm far from an expert, and I'm coming from an lofi-experimentalist-techno-punk perspective, so I'm probably not using any of the software to it's full capability, more just as a means to create drum loops, stick them together, and record guitars and vox on top...:
1 Making Waves: which is quite cool as far as sticking midi and waves together.
2 Saw 32 which is pretty good for importing samples, sticking them together, and recording stuff...

But I personally really like the following, all freeware stuff:

Hammerhead and Moonfish, which create drum loops and allow you to stick them together, by a guy called Bram Bos, and Stomper, a drum sound creator program, by some guy called Zap. all available from HERE: http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/apps.shtml

theres other stuff there too I haven't tried yet though...

I hope something there helps, or at least is slightly interesting, or fun, for a while....

Ronald Thomas Clontle

09:46 / 03.11.01

quote:Originally posted by agapanthus:

3. Cover an old Mowtown song - I'd love to hear a sympathetic version of the Jackson 5's "I want you Back"

see: Jay-Z's "IZZO (H.O.V.A.)"

recommendations: don't try to sound like Chemical Brothers or Fatboy Slim. Try to sound as much like you as you possibly can. because that will very likely make people like your music a hell of lot more than being a pale imitation of someone else.

I have a KORG sampler, and an AKAI sampler. the AKAI is easier to use, but the KORG is excellent, just complex. I like KORG rhythm synths too.

I've never used computers to make music. In fact, I'm moving away from the electronic stuff altogether, really.

09:46 / 03.11.01

I'm feeling you, FSF. I tried programming stuff, but it just wasn't the same as continually hitting things with sticks. That's drumming, everyone.

I am a ludite. A ludite with profound respect for producers. When I myself tried I got very frustrated and didn't accomplish much.

That said, I recommend just spending hours/days/weeks messing with breaks and building your own beats. This is a fantastic (in fact, the only)starting point for the funk. Too many programmers just use bog standard, dull as fuck rhythms. I hate bad drum programing with a passion.

Devise your own techniques for drum programming, and build your tunes from there. The drum will always be the most important instrument (well, alongside the human voice).

Oh: Turn your drums up in the mix! That's right: high up in the mix! EQ them nicely! Then work on some pretty sub-bass.

Fiction Suit Five

18:03 / 06.11.01

Thanks indeed for the advice all, especially Mr. Haiku.

Yep; I can do loops in Acid, and reasonable they sound too, but surely there's more to it than just sampling. What about good old fashioned playing? Surely somebody somewhere must have written software where you can play synth-noises/plug ins/samples on top of looped beats, without recourse to expensive hardware?

22:12 / 06.11.01

Well, depending on your point of view, there's either LOADS more or not a lot. Try taking a drum loop, chopping it into 16 equal size bits, and fucking around with the order. That'll give you some pretty mighty breaks. Bram Bos' TUAREG does this amongst its other uber-sequencing functions. Remix agogo.

In fact, Tuareg does what you just described. Sampled loops with programmed synth bits. And it's free, well, the FREE version is free. Also recommended: Orion Pro - it's like a cheap version of Reason.

I'm too pissed to elaborate and need sleep, but can post later with more tips.

23:19 / 06.11.01

Look up MOD files, MOD players, and MOD editors on a search engine. You should get a lot of free stuff. It's how we used to make music in the old days when BBSes were the thing.

18:37 / 07.11.01

Well, ACID will play a wav file of just about any length over looped beats of various other lengths.
Which is nice, when you want to lay down a guitar track over drum loops.