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Can I make and sequence sample breakbeat phrases?

Hi guys,
I’ve absolutely no idea what I’m doing but here goes.

What I’m trying to do
1) In old skool jungle/d&b, Amen break samples are sliced and remade into new phrases. As well as reordering the slices there might be affects added such as pitch/velocity changes, phrase reverse etc but all still fitting within the phrase length and bmp.
2) After making numerous phrases I want to set the phrases up in song length set sequences running in the background while I jam out via AUM.

For some reason I’m really against using a DAW for this as I’m wanting to do it ‘live’ in my chillout room.

This video is a great breakdown of what im trying to do.
https://youtu.be/wUQR798BXe8

How I do it doesn’t have to be remotely the same but I’m after a similar freedom to produce and mess around with phrase samples.

Where I’m up to
In the vid above the stuff he’s doing around the 7min mark is where I struggle with what software will work. I’m using Samplist to slice the breaks but then don’t have a way to make and mess with phrases.

Is there none DAW software where I can group and manipulate lots of samples for later use?

Playing it all back
Presuming I’ve have or can make my many individual sample phrases would a programmable sequencer be the right way to go in if so are certain ones more suited than others?

Off the non DAW options DrumPerfectPro seems to tick a lot of the boxes(?).

The inspiration
Here’s an (amazing) example of the feel I’m going for. I don’t want to play pads live (yet) and I’ll be synthing out but musically it’s what I’m aiming for.

https://youtu.be/r42-2bo5Vbg

A massive pre thanks for any replies, you guys and the forum have been of massive source of info and inspiration.
Keep up the good work everyone!

Comments

  • Do you have beatmaker 3?
    Over in the beatmaker forums is an amen break sample pack to get and use for BM3 - free and cool :)

  • edited June 2018

    You probably want Sector. It looks really complicated, but it produces this type of stuff out of the box with little setup required. And you can customize it to an absurd level of detail.

    SECTOR by Kymatica AB
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sector/id618095247?mt=8

    Just have to add...
    That guy in the video is amazing! B)

  • @david_2017 said:
    Do you have beatmaker 3?
    Over in the beatmaker forums is an amen break sample pack to get and use for BM3 - free and cool :)

    +1 for checking out the BM3 forum as well as this wonderful place. There’s some great jungle kits and patterns in the resources category.

  • http://kymatica.com/Software/Sector will likely melt your face, Indiana Jones style. http://kymatica.com/sector/manual/ This would be the "making good loops" part anyway. You'd have to export loops and load them into some DAW to string them together. Or just jam live in it and record the output for later use. It's real fun. There's also Audiobus remote triggers if you're interested.

    Or ReSlice by VirSyn
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reslice/id1187609531?mt=8 which works as an AU. The slices can be triggered via MIDI so you could use one of the Rozeta sequencers and have up to 8 sequences built to flip between different reconstructions. Or use multiple instances of both to have even more available. Rosetta sequences can also be triggered via midi.

    Come to think of it, rozeta rhythm triggering slices in Euclidean mayhem would almost certainly bring something new to the Amen table (alter?).

    Or using Cells, fill the whole screen with trigger notes. Make sure you use the 'main' slice you want to hear the most and then just set it free to wander around, triggering slices semi randomly. Or use two sequencers pointed at the same reslice instance. One is a simple sequence that just triggers the kick on the downbeats you want. The other is cells wandering around the rest of the slices. Not sure if it's possible to set a priority though (to make sure the kick wins).

  • Also check out GlitchBreaks by Alex Matheu
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glitchbreaks/id520451538?mt=8 Again, not for stringing them together but, like sector, it's so damn fun to do love you could just jam with it for a couple of minutes and capture it to a single audio file to load into AUM.

    You could also create a few of these long jam captures at the same BPM and load them all into AUM as file players. Then toggle track mutes to change it up while jamming. You could also use a rozeta sequencer set to a super slow speed to toggle those mutes automatically via midi learn.

  • @syrupcore Good ideas that I will try. B)

  • wimwim
    edited June 2018

    Amen to Sector! Love that app!

    But honestly, this is so BM3 also. Slice the loop up and save it to pads. While saving to pads, tell it to create a pattern. This will add a pattern with one note for each slice, arranged one after another so that when you play that pattern through, the whole loop plays. You can then create variations on that pattern to alter it to your heart’s content.

    And, since each hit is now a pad, you can mess with the envelopes, saturation, start point, etc, etc, and add as many built-in IAA and AU FX to each individual pad as you like. Add swing, slow down, speed up, reverse, stutter whatever the hell you want to do. ... Layer up samples ... even make a synth out of a slice.

    As for organizing your samples, BM3 is also excellent. You can tag them, organize into folders, save each sliced loop as a bank for instant recall....

    BM3 ain’t my DAW of choice, but to me it’s the perfect fit for what you say you want to do if Sector doesn’t work out.

  • EDBEDB
    edited June 2018

    The vids make Sector sound like a lot of garbled unrythmic mess.

    Then I bought it and.....

    Oh sheeeeeeeet! It’s foooking amazing!

    Loaded one of their Amen breaks and was seriously head banging within minutes.

    If the devs are on here they should make demo vids using an amen. For me what jungle/d&b is trying to do with a sample perfectly demos the features - play slices in a specific order but throw some randomness and effects on these certain parts. Exactly as he’s doing in that priduction vid but so much easier.

    I’m lucky you guys saw the connection cause I didn’t from the current vids and would have missed out. Lack of experience I’m hoping.

    Big thanks to everyone cause I think I’ll still try the other suggestions later down the road. BM3 especially sounds like it does the exact version I want, just atm I don’t want to workflow that way. For now it’s a fresh morning and Sector’s about to get smashed all day! :)

    Re extending Sector
    I bought DrumPerfectPro before this post went live waiting for moderation.
    Can these two talk to each other in some way to combo the freestyle elements they both have?
    It’s like I can nearly see what they could do but can’t quite see it clearly.

    Again, huge thanks guys, really helpful

  • 100 points for the photo. :)

    Sorry I missed this earlier but you can use MIDI to control Sector as well. You can see the possibilities in the PRJ -> MIDI Config screen.

    The sequencer in Sector is really helpful in grounding the chaos. You can pre determine different sectors to trigger at certain intervals. You can, for instance, set it so that the kick always triggers on the down beats. Just make sure the kick Sector is connected to lots of other sectors. That way, after triggering the kick via the sequencer, anything can happen.

    You could use a Rozeta sequencer in AUM to do the same. That is, not sequence entire flips of the Amen break but just trigger kicks or snares where you know you want them. Then let Sector do it’s thing from there. The benefit here is that you can easily trigger different AUM sequences via MIDI note while your jamming. You can also trigger up to 4 different internal Sector sequences via MIDI. The combo would give you a lot of wiggle room to improvise and jam.

    Also consider loading Sector with a single wave file that is the Amen break twice in a row. That would allow you to set the same section of the break with different effects like one reversed kick and one normal kick. Since you can use the sequencer to lock in a certain rhythm you could also load in a version of the break that is the main loop and then, say, 3 kicks and 3 snares spaced evenly. With that you can have several different kick and snare mangled variations to jump to.

  • @syrupcore exactly what I was thinking! Great to know I was thinking along the right tracks. Baby steps for now and you've definitely given me a solid target to work to.
    Nice one

  • EDBEDB
    edited June 2018

    Perfect Sector demo from discchord...using an amen :)

  • Sector tip: If you want to chop up the break and rearrange it more traditionally (as opposed to making it jump around based on probabilities) check out the sequence screen (the one with the grid of dots in the middle as opposed to the string art spider web screen).

    The sequence screen is also handy if you have stuff jumping all over the place on the spider web screen but you still want to keep certain beats anchored, eg. override the jumps and always hit a snare on 2 and 4. Seems like a lot of tutorials such as the one above neglect this screen.

  • @1nsomniak Literally just come from doing that to check the forums :D

    Top two rows are to keep the original sample looping, kinda as my internal metronome for the amen while I practice. The last two rows have certain beats set to ‘on’ to keep my main rhythm/beat points intact and the ‘off’ spots are where the crazy fun happens.

    Probably not optimal so any streamlining tips v much welcome ;)

    Such a good app

  • EDBEDB
    edited June 2018

    I like how this gives a bars 1, 2, 3, 4 structure to working with it. Probably obvious but I didn’t see it at first with the vids like you say.

  • That tracker video brings back memories of sitting in front of FT2 creating countless of amen breaks. But that old tracker didn’t have any slicers and whatnot. Towards the end of the video, he moves the marker to the right of the notes and puts a pitch command on that track, in the tracker window, pitching the notes down. In most trackers you had a command for offsetting the sample start, this is what you used to slice and dice drum loops. No visual feedback, was all about finding the right numbers for each note/trig & the sample start-point. You can do this in SunVox for iOS, but you really need a computer if you wanna get good at it without getting a stroke. A proper tracker UI is hard to beat when it comes to ..umm beats...

    Sector is my go-to for any loop madness these days tho:-)

  • Perfect Sector demo vid from discchord...using an amen :)

    https://youtu.be/5mPJ_Z1SGl0

  • EDBEDB
    edited June 2018

    .

  • edited June 2018

    @ChrisG said:
    But that old tracker didn’t have any slicers and whatnot.

    Slicers schmicers! We didn't need that. Hardcore tracker users would use the 9xx (sample offset) command to roll our own slicers with a bit of trial and error. I've chopped my share of Amen breaks this way >:)

    Kids have it so easy these days, with their slicers and 0-crossing detection etc.

  • @brambos said:

    @ChrisG said:
    But that old tracker didn’t have any slicers and whatnot.

    Kids have it so easy these days, with their slicers and 0-crossing detection etc.

    I know right!? Are we getting...old? Yup!:(:)

    Moving over to MIDI land, Propellerheads ReCycle was a life saver, it also felt like voodoo the first time trying it, after years of jotting down nrs in a command line lol.
    I’m still just using my ears when I need to loop something, old habits die hard I guess:-)

  • @brambos said:

    @ChrisG said:
    But that old tracker didn’t have any slicers and whatnot.

    Slicers schmicers! We didn't need that. Hardcore tracker users would use the 9xx (sample offset) command to roll our own slicers with a bit of trial and error. I've chopped my share of Amen breaks this way >:)

    Kids have it so easy these days, with their slicers and 0-crossing detection etc.

    After a few hours of trying to slice and splice actual tape, I was ready to slice my wrists. :D

  • @CracklePot said:

    @brambos said:

    @ChrisG said:
    But that old tracker didn’t have any slicers and whatnot.

    Slicers schmicers! We didn't need that. Hardcore tracker users would use the 9xx (sample offset) command to roll our own slicers with a bit of trial and error. I've chopped my share of Amen breaks this way >:)

    Kids have it so easy these days, with their slicers and 0-crossing detection etc.

    After a few hours of trying to slice and splice actual tape, I was ready to slice my wrists. :D

    :D

    Analog slicing. Doesn't get more oldschool than that! :p

  • @CracklePot @brambos
    Can I still hang with you guys if I only waited patiently to pause the tape on the radio? :#

  • @EDB said:
    @CracklePot @brambos
    Can I still hang with you guys if I only waited patiently to pause the tape on the radio? :#

    Only if you used a separate mono recorder placed next to the radio speaker! No boom boxes allowed! :D

    Just kidding, you can hang with me anytime. B)

  • @CracklePot said:
    Only if you used a separate mono recorder placed next to the radio speaker! No boom boxes allowed! :D

    Yep, with buttons as big as a beta max’, both thumbs and that little body lift with the toes to get the fkrs down :s

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