Drum n' Bass Battle #1 (Get Animated) New Compilation Mix by DJ Enzyme!

No, I agree… My ears don’t really register mixing and mastering on self published music. If its on Apple music, then it stands out.

Its the guerrilla nature of home production.

Mix is done, but its a little rough round the edges. Its actually the most difficult mix I’ve recorded in years, so there is that… clattered the blend around the 12:30 mark so apologies to the people that made those tracks! And some tracks are very short so had to fudge a bit to get round it. :slight_smile:

I’ll leave it to @BLKrbbt to share as I didn’t even enter this battle.

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No please don’t.

I don’t like how Ozone makes things sound. My tracks are all made how I want them to sound with any limiting added in the output chain.

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Don’t fret fella, I’m super interested to see what you pulled off with such wide variety of styles, I’m sure none of us could do any better, I’m definitely not much of a DJ myself, I can do a bit of scratching and beat juggling but full mixes are way outside my remit and skill set so thanks for taking the time to do it for us :+1::pray:

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Nothing fancy, just end to end blends. I used to be heavily into scratching too, but as I’ve got older I started to appreciate long smooth mixes more. I think its called segue mixing or something like that. Of course it depends what sort of music you’re into as well :slight_smile:

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Just to be clear, I’m not going to touch the tracks when I get them.

Don’t worry.

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I really appreciate it.

Once I get home, I’ll add it to the playlist and add a link to the top of this thread.

I really appreciate it!

Here is the mix! I just got it uploaded and it will be in the top of the thread.

I enabled Downloads so people can take it with them to the gym.

Big ups to @djenzyme. He did a great job highlighting all the great talent from the battle.

To be honest, you get a little desensitized to the music in the middle of it, and having a re-listen, you can really appreciate how good we all are at making music.

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You know what, I am still learnig how to produce, and I was wondering what you don’t like about Ozone? This is just so I can learn! I don’t quite know yet, one way or the other.

I appreciate it.

Lots of people love it and I’m a total n00b so don’t take anything I say as advice from the master.

I had elements and I found the AI mode made everything sound really harsh. Just the pure limiting applied by hand was fine but I was never really satisfied with it. I got Fabfilter L2 instead and I really love it although I probably don’t understand half of it.

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I see what you mean… The auto EQ’ing does have a heavy hand with the highs… I usually would adjust the curves a bit and brickwall below 20, but I was using it to get the loudness right for posting online, which it helps.

I have fabfilter on my ipad, and i want to start going back and forth to master, but I’m not using drambo yet, or my ipad in general, until I get up on Maschine first.

But because of our convo, I just went ahead and bought Youlean Loudness Meter to try to replace what ozone does, since I like how cruchy some of my satuation sounds that Ozone tames a bit and swaps with highs.

I will say, though we may be noobs, just the fact you have an opinion, and the fact we had this conversation means that we are mastering better than what normally is out there.

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Just listened to the mix and was blown away.

Awesome work chap!

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Very kind of you to say so, I made train tracks a couple of times though! :slightly_smiling_face:

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Great job everyone! Lots of good submissions. I didn’t finish mine in time but am having fun working on it nonetheless

That mix is just so cool! Thank you @djenzyme

Yoo! Here is my track breakdown:

My first DnB track + my first online battle.

Sample sources:

Process:

  1. First, I separated the stems of all the sources with Demucs
  2. Imported all the goodies into the Dirtywave M8 and start to jam
  3. Not knowing how to make a DnB track, I ‘recreated’ this Ned Rush jungle tutorial for Ableton but for the M8. Basically, set up triggers between each break on the 1/16 note, set the default to “repeat”, and covered the bars to taste. I think I probably could have ‘chilled’ the beats out a little more, they seem a bit distracting?
  4. Once I was happy with the song, I exported the stems and sent it into Ableton where I could properly mix and master it. I have no clue if I butchered the master, as again, I have never done a DnB track before.

Some of the voice samples I used typical old school manipulations on, like speed + pitch shifting (like the singing ‘groans’). And the other, more legible voices I auto-tuned to match the pitch of the bass.

I’m aware that the bassline is very not-typical for this genre. Instead of long half/whole notes, its a hip-hop stab. But I just went with what I thought would be fun.

I was interested in trying to tell a story, which I want to try to do more in my music. Here, its about a teenage girl’s crush so powerful that she’s able to summon this ‘groaning’ demon that comes through in the chorus.

I was conflicted with the song length. I made it really short mostly cause I knew this was a battle and I didn’t want to exhaust listener’s time. Otherwise, I’d probably double it to let it breath.

Anyways, I had a blast making the music, listening to playlists, and following the convo here. I definitely learned a bunch and would appreciate feedback. I hope to get inspired with future battles!

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Can anyone recommend a good source of drum and bass breaks I can use for the next challenge?

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Look no further: https://rhythm-lab.com/breakbeats/

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You know, I never did understand GitHub.

How do you use demucs? Is there a file you download?

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