Producing Breakcore, questions, tips and characteristics

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Producing Breakcore, questions, tips and characteristics

Postby M1A1 » Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:56 pm

Hello guys!

Lately, I'm learning how to make some complex IDM tracks. I tried to learning by myself some techiniques like complex drum programming on Ableton's Impulse by drawing notes on the sequencer, copy/pasting sample and etc. With my older material, I always made glitch and IDM tracks, but after hearing Doll Doll Doll and Rossz by Venetian Snares and some breakcore artists' albums, I decided to make breakcore, but by hearing, it's something difficult to make. I have some ideas in my head for songs, and this thread aren't like "how i du mak breaqcoreh?", it's more about the genre's sounds. So, here's the doubts:

1) Drum programming
The drum programming is my main difficulty in producing breakcore tracks. It's because sometimes the drum programming that I make sounds very random and annoying. Sometimes I try to make micro-editing on Ableton Live arrangement' view, but the drums sounds too dumb in a track, sounding too imprecise. Could anyone pass me any tips for me to improve this personal random thing of me, tips of improvement and etc?

2) DAW or Trackers?
Lately, I'm seriously considering starting to use trackers to compose, but I know nothing in this style of programming. Some people have advised me to do breakcore on Ableton Live, my main program of composition. I have also seen a nice tutorial for Reason, but Reason it's kind of hard for me.

So, I should start to use trackers or continue with Ableton Live?

3) Sounds and Characteristics
What struck me was the genre in general, especially the high distortion in the bands and the chaos that some artists can create in just one song. But, my main difficulty at present is to make a preset that synthesized music is strong, pumping and distorted. What synth would be great to do this kind of bass? I'm talking about some kind of Hoovers and Reese bass. Maybe an amp simulator would be good, like Ableton's AMP?

And, to finish, here's two tracks that I've made for practicing my ways on editing and drum programming. The first one is called Steelchair, It's a example of a 4/4 "medium-breakcore" that I was making.

http://soundcloud.com/the-industrialism ... pratices-2

The second is called Scenes Under An Car. A more noisy/gabber song for practice. Made with Renoise, a tracker that I need to know how to make a more faster breakcore song. CAUTION: The volume of this song are really loud, so turn the volume down... if you want. Here's the song:

http://soundcloud.com/the-industrialism ... actices-3/

Thanks!

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Postby divtech » Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:47 pm

I'll try my best to answer at least one specific point

If you want a really solid heavy aggressive sounding bass its not hard to get, what is more difficult is making sure it doesnt take over or conflict with your other sounds or vice versa

the simplest way i know of doing this is with some plugin or bass sound, distortion, a saturator and a limiter, sometimes i switch the order of saturation and distortion for differing effects but limiter and saturator in ableton will suffice.

aside from that there are a bunch of disto plugins you could find, ranging from the internal overdrive effect in ableton to my personal favorite, ohmicide.

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Postby M1A1 » Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:41 pm

Ohh, thanks divtech! I have Ohmicide here, but I didn't used this plugin in a track already. And about the drum programming, what kind of tip you can say?

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Postby brainslushie » Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:51 am

Gabber kicks and amen breaks.


Not being able to take anything seriously also helps.

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Postby Draegg » Wed May 04, 2011 10:45 am

Drum programming: This is actually the thing im good on, so i´ll try to give ya some tips. First thing: PRACTICE, slice an amen and arrange it back again, do that about 1500 times, you´ll learn a lot about slicing and how breaks are built. LISTEN, listen to stuff you like and try to recreate the breaks, im poor at this but if you have some sense of rythm you will eventually get it. HQ BREAKS, this is not a rule as such but it will make things gel better. There´s nothing more gutwrenching than to hear some 4CHANC0RE with a pisspoor amenbreak sampled through a lawnmover, try to find as high quality breaks and samples as possible, it will make the mix better and will sound better when you tweak it, distort it and resample it. Layering breaks with other samples (either drum or just weird stuff) can be very cool and rewarding, but as in everything dont overlayer then it will just be a wall of shit.



On your question about daw or tracker, if you already have ableton live and if i understood you, you know it pretty well, learn it inside out instead of learning a new program from scratch. Ableton live is so versatile and have many cool features so i say, keep on in ableton.



Sounds and char: Use ohmicide! For bass sounds, get a hold of Massive vst, that shit is the bomb! But you gotta be careful when distorting IMO too much just makes it unbearable and you actually loose power when overdistorting. AMP in ableton is pretty cool but use it sparingly, if you dont it will take over the track and make it into 4CHANC0RE (which sucks).



All in all. Practice makes perfect and if you just invest time in your music it will eventually pay off.

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