@Lemmy - great, really enyojed it!

 

Thank you @Lemmy for your artistic contribution to the sound. It's like a vacation for the ears. Finally, some strange, new, vibrant soundscapes. Just before the end, at the 6-minute mark, there's a surprising development leading to the finale with a masterful composition.

 

thank you

 

In the previous fnc @johnmusichead mused the idea of idea of 160bpm breakbeats behind my submission... having never actually done a song with breakbeats, 14 seemed like a good time to start... albeit I now realize I already fucked it up since this is only 150bpm, ah well.

I wanted to keep it simple and short, getting some form of a complete state was more important to me than flushing out ideas. "'Finish' first, finesse later" has been much more productive than 'dick around with this 8 bar loop for 3 months.' Now it only takes 2 1/2 months! Anywho... here is my first foray into.. hmm.. jungle? drum n bass? I dunno, this isn't my wheelhouse... something breakbeaty.

https://samply.app/p/bbuJdRUigQaPyPg9z7cs

 

Is this like fully mastered or just a bit of limiting?dont mind me geeking out, anyway i saw a dnld button so i clicked
Love the track! It has that thing, you can remember it sort of thing, if that makes any sense.

 

Mostly limiting. It isn't even mixed, I just paralleled all the drum loops and slices through the same slammed compressor and reverb channels. I plan to now make pass 2 and flesh some bits out. . particularly the middle/transitions bit, so would have been wasted time to try to make it prettier now. Right before exporting I slapped an eq and a limiter plugin on main and picked two presets to 'open' up the sound as a bit and set the meters to -1db. But that's about it. No 'intentional' mastering was done. Just a make it loud pass.

Yeah, by all means dl if you wish. Cool to hear ya dig. It does make sense because while I was writing it I became pretty sure I was ripping off something I must have heard at some point in time... or I am my own time traveler. I'm going with the later until proven otherwise.

 

I mean, even if you ripped something it still came out fresh, wierdly i was listening to Photek just before i clicked the link, and it was not far off from the feel, that raw dnb thing.
watch?v=Jugxd_RL4ZA&list=PLsqB7ljSBkue6tJLKXzaimJQBx1ALlfH7&index=6

I personally wouldn´t change anything, i mean i just woke up and had to play the track, i´m binging on the dnb atm, but still. I think the end of a track is making it loopable somehow, transition is calming it really feels like a good energy loop. Mixing can be tricky when something is already slapping as is tho.

If you manage to go back in the 90´s or 00´s again, try bringing some vintage synths and i see pokemon cards are doing good nowdays!

 

I don't want to change much... mainly want to play with the section just past "do you wanna hear the playback?".. add 8 more bars and dig into the bass line more, expand the idea a bit then get back to the organ, work out the flourishes toward the end a little better. But yeah, don't want to change the opening or closing 8, I too like the looping feel. Really just want to get funky on that baseline and couple background flourishes, maybe a little polish on some transitions. And cut the trail at the end, as then it will line up for looping w/o interuption.

Yeah, mixing is.. uh.. well, I already suck at mixing and this is... just on the drums.. um.. 15? 20? different sources not including the actual slices.. so uh.. yeah... raw it is!!

POGs are next, I can feel it... gonna go all in, get the drop before the other time travelers.

 

Last edited: Sep 24, 2025 at 9:47 PM

@reticular New version up. Containing none of the changes I previously mentioned because none of them worked. Outright removed the middle bass.

Also ran different settings on export. Reduced mud a bit. Took off some vocal reverb. Few subtle changes here and there that I think mostly fix what I was, uh.. fixating.. on.

I dub this the 'reticular was right' version. It loops if you dl and play on your own system (samply introduces a 1 sec lag, least for me).. the changes that were made are subtle and the additions fully leaning into the eternal return meta...

https://samply.app/p/bbuJdRUigQaPyPg9z7cs

 

I still dont get how one can never make dnb or breakbeat and one day just start b(m)aking nasty slapping hard tracks, i want to wake up one day like that. @Usr4321

I mean i´m glad a got a revision named, i had a sense there might be more in the track than initially thought, which most of the time can be, but i never manage to fix my own tracks, i just do too much. This sounds good tho, plenty of difference but the same ballpark in my opinion.
Have you ever used Toneboosters Sibalance?(free)

I think you deserve to start #15, due date is tomorrow, would you be up for it?

 

Last edited: Sep 25, 2025 at 7:17 PM

this mix is meh i rushed through it and the lyrics asre disjointed. ce la vie

 

very poppy....is that your voice? Ilike it.

 

yarrr i posted that right before i ran off to do some errands, namely get coffee and buy weed. here is a little more detail now that im caffeinated.

'tis indeed me singing, the most recent songs on the soundcloud with meris in the title all have me singing, been trying to practice more at it. thanks Capitan!

speaking of meris i was complaining about the mix cause i didn't really blend the reverb in as well as i think i could have, its just a giant blob of reverb which sounds cool but i could have reigned it in a little ideally. or like attempted too, i didn't even do that i just ran a bunch of tracks through various settings on the meris mercury x i recently acquired and then went with it.

the vocals on the first part are using orange vocoder and the second part use vocal synth as well as a dry layer. i used the keyboard midi and ran it to the vocoders to control them.

god i love coffee. the picture reminded of playing stalker. it didn't really come across in any meaningful way but that was my inspiration. good pic. kinda had to rush through finishing this one cause ive been working on other stuff more but the due date was about up so here it is!

 

As a somebody who has done all stalkers including dead air and anomaly mods...

Anyway, i also like it, now that´s two. Lyrics sort of remind me of my recent study of personality disorders, it sounds like it could have been written thru that prism. Still fresh..

That one?

 

Last edited: Sep 25, 2025 at 9:22 PM

ahhh that is... disturbingly insightful of you haha, about the personality disorder part. yes, most of- if not all of my lyrics are written through that prism, ive def been diagnosed with one in the past. yet medication helps a ton which its not supposed to if it was a straight personality disorder as far as i understand it, so who knows whats actually wrong. regardless something is up with my head always has been since i was a kid. so it goes! it can help with music until it doesnt i guess.

i mostly just played stalker anomaly on the warfare mode, such a good game. the orange vocoder i used is by zynaptiq, found on sister site. cpu hungry but sounds cool to me!

 

@macros mk2 Nice. Dig the flow/rhythm. Nice pitch bend placement. Flow into and on from the baseline uh.. chiefs kiss mannerism here.. or something.

@reticular Ok, you got me.. I confess... technically this was my second go. Some weeks back I did an exercise building all the 'loops' from scratch. I guess when I think 'breakbeat' I think starting with an existing loop to manipulate rather than one shots. So.. maybe more accurate, first dnb track?

https://samply.app/p/QUkbJYXHFITfeFGJOjot

That has the first 'write it all from scratch' noodling. Fnc 14 is my first crack at taking existing break loops and using those as the basis to craft new patterns. Tried to redo the first effort, hence why both have the same organish sound, but I quickly abandoned that for something new overall.

I haven't used Sibalance.. hardly have touched anything deess related, mostly because the idea of even coming close to finishing things is sort of a new phenomenon.

Drum reverb and levels went untouched. The missing 'oomph' is because I lowered the buss volume so it wasn't clipping at channel + removal of a mid heavy eq. In a final mix I too would want the thud back... but in order to achieve that (and the clarity of v2) I would need to properly mix it. The drums atm are all coming off two channels... so, bit of setup work needed just to get it into 'mix stage.' Also, I have no idea what I'm doing regarding mixing.. so there is that.

And sure, I think I sorta have an idea for 15.

 

@Usr4321 - the torch is yours, #15 ahead! Hopefully others wont mind, even tho i already prepared the lottery wheel.

btw - cant open the link?
p.s. would you be down to share the unmastered file too? I just wanna see if i can clip it.. into oblivion.
Finishing a track is a mt.Everest..

I mean it is really specific, these kinds of details are "too much" for most of the people but it is what makes the track cut into our memory, details, ear candy, mixing, nothing wrong in not being good at it or learning and i´m for sure not saying i can do better.
That sibalance is great for the paralell, for avoiding having rough cymbals etc., sort of like soothe.

I know the buss was distorting, i´m not saying that it should remain, but you get my point, that round thud was the first thing i heard, straight up 90´s drity sound. (This is when you take a break from production and get ocd on other people´s material...)

@macros mk2 - the only thing i´m pissed about anomaly is that exo with the seva helmet that cannot be obtained...i´m into armors..you know how it goes.
Oh, well, my brain does pretty good "pattern recognition", you dont wanna be me either..i mean, kids copy their suroundings, the problem is if it goes for a too long... and loosing trust.

 

Last edited: Sep 26, 2025 at 12:48 AM

@reticular oops- it was on private, link is now public. Yeah, I totally know which distortion characteristic you meant... I was just saying that how it was achieved in the first case was a mix of overdriving the buss and heavy eq, but that the better way will be clipping the drums isolated on their own tracks so enough headroom remains to get both the distortion and a little bit more of the hats, percs, and other mid-highs that got lost in that cut. Atm it's 40 different loops/slices on one track, 10 on another with 4-6 generally playing at any moment between those two tracks (they're all in drum racks). Those need to get separated out more so like is with like for eq.

Yeah, I can put an unmastered up. I should probably actually record the synths... I've just been realtime exporting.

 

@Usr4321 Drum racks, i rarely use them to be honest..but also i dont make dnb with a ton of samples, it takes some work i know but yeah, headroom also "exposes" the quality of the samples, there´s no more fighting, everything gets upfront, it is like a rubiks cube all of a sudden...change this one for something better, this one too and suddenly you´re into a different universe altogether.
Can you duplicate drum racks, mute sections depending on the amount of top end/low end, solve it that way?

Do you hear how that drum "boom" plays along with the snare noise/tail in the beggining of fnc 14?It is like they are almost talking, question answer dynamics...hot/cold, than it stops, and than it makes you question again with more sounds in the background, that´s what i´m hearing. (philosopher..)

Also repent.mp3 is a material, one more and you´re into small EP land. It´s the idea that works well.
p.s. exsample of hard clipping the drums, of all the kits i have maybe 2-3 of them can survive being clipped like this, what i´m nicely(hopefully) trying to say, theres bunch of stuff in the v1 to not loose while pulling back..somehow ofcorse.
https://pixeldrain.com/u/62Mb3YaE

 

@reticular

Drum racks are easily the most powerful device in ableton. 'Drum Racks' isn't so great a name for them these days given what they turned in to. All the routing can be done in the drum rack itself, though I tend not to do that unless using it as a superior drummer bridge or something... the lack of vertical landscape for the device pane is still a pain point.

v3 uploaded to the breakbeat link.

Did I sort all the tracks and make a well a prepared project I could just drop into any engineers lap and they'd be fine with how its laid out? Ha! fuck no. I just drove the shit out of everything (and cleaned up some errant frequencies and noise that was cluttering things). It was always going to come back to the '1996 Pontiac Firebird with a dual 12 box and a basswedge in the trunk being driven by a guy wearing a patrol cap' boom. I just needed to make sure I could get the ting heard as well. The distortion is back and it now correctly seamlessly loops (just not on samply cause they add a pause on loop).

 

Last edited: Sep 26, 2025 at 8:11 AM