Sadly, I’m probably going to have to duck out of this battle. I’ve come up with some bad results and finally realised I’m setting myself up to fail in the environment I’m working in. I have to fix that before I can do any more actual music making (this is nothing new, I’ve needed to do this for the past 10 years).
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I mean, there really isn’t any fails in this, but I understand completely.
I’m struggling myself lately. Too much sample chopping, since I just got the Maschine, and not enough making just music.
I think I’m going to just host some battles and refocus on making tracks for myself.
The problem I’m having is that I’m wrestling with samples, AND making music, so they both suffer. Instead of going with what I want to do, I’m making things for other people, and I’m not ready for that yet. Still learning.
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Actually, in all honesty, it’s Jamuary that messed me up. Too much pressure to put out too much this month.
I make a lot, but I need sometimes 2-3 days before I make something. Just a lot on my plate with school and all starting up.
I have a feeling that in a couple weeks, I’ll be back at full power.
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I mean, I was like “I gotta put something out, so I don’t miss a day!”
Instead of “Oh shit. I can’t believe I made this! I can’t wait to put this out.”
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I’ll never do jamuary. Way too much pressure, and a day isn’t enough to do anything meaningful anyway. I guess it works for some, especially people who tend to “jam” rather than writing full tracks, or people who want to have consistent content for social media, but I’d definitely go mad if I ever tried to do it.
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I know. I called at the beginning that I would get like this.
Not that there’s much distinction between me jamming and making tracks.
You’re smarter about it. I just have a condition that makes impulse control and compulsion difficult to manage.
Didn’t you make some albums? I hope to get to that point in a year or two.
Just dug out my Microkorg for some bassssss duties
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Oh mate I am just overflowing with impulse and compulsion. Quite honestly, I do believe that if I wasn’t, I would probably have done a lot more with my music by now. I work very sporadically and a flit between genres and styles all the time. I’ve had four different aliases in the last 5 years!
I’ve done a few EPs, and I even had some proper dnb label releases a while back. Managed to get a tune out on Renegade Hardware in the final VA LP before they closed down. Shortly after that I got bored of the “scene” and the politics and took some time out.
My process now is geared towards me actually finishing stuff, which means if I spend more than one session on a new idea, I don’t allow myself to start anything new until it’s finished. Before working like that, I just had years and years worth of unfinished ideas with nothing to show for it.
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I’m still happy to mix the results, I did mess it up pretty badly last time though. For the sake of consistency, I would need tracks that are around 4 minutes or longer (or maybe keep this in mind for future battles).
I seem to be in a dry spell of music making, I thought I would have made some over the xmas season but didn’t. I find it difficult when other things are occupying my brain 
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I think I need to do this. I am juggling between a couple battles.
That’s sweet of you. Once the playlist is up, take a look at it. Everyone loved the last one, but I don’t want you to feel obligated.
I don’t want anyone to feel obligated about any aspect of this except theme and deadline.
I’m wondering if it might be worth tweaking your workflow a little bit.
Can you alternate between the chopping and the making?
I’m not sure if that’s more the natural workflow of the Machine+ but with the Tracker or Bitwig I’ll put a couple of samples in and they do a bit of playing before I decide whatever samples I might need.
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This is exactly what I mean.
Between the battles and new gear, it’s been all sample’s lately.
I need to pivot to playing synths or sequencing one shots, and not hunt through preexisting music for pieces to use for a bit.
But I think it’s knowing I have to get back to samples before a deadline that’s really messing me up because it’s always on my mind.
I just want to not do that for a week or two and see what I come up with.
It’s probably not sampling but deadlines.
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Track DONE!!
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So I’m working on a track that I might submit instead. And I’m using the Maschine instead of the 404. And just to show what I learned, Im going to describe the process to use time stretching to match the sample to a faster tempo.
I find it fascinating.
So I recorded the sample into Maschine using the ext inputs. It makes a sample plug-in.
I tap tempo to get the approximate tempo, and check it by loading the audio into a pattern with it playing with the metronome. (120 bpm)
I then change the plug in from sampler to audio, giving me time stretch. I change the tempo to the tempo of the drum loop I’m using. (174 bpm)
It speeds up the audio in the audio plug-in a bit to beat match, but it’s still slow.
So the audio sample is 256 bars long, in the menu. If you adjust it down, you speed up the tempo of the audio in the audio plug-in. Since it’s an even number, I went with dividing by 4 and subtracting 64 from 256.
So it squishes the audio into 192 measures, raising the tempo. I could go more, but it starts introducing artifacts.
Now all of this is keeping the original pitch, so it’s sped up but not chipmunk. The Maschine does this really well.
And the sample is now more in line with drum and bass.
Then I resample internally to switch it back to a sampler plug-in and now I have a sample I can chop up.
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Pretty much done with my track. I just don’t have the experience on how to mix it to sound good but I’ll try as much as I can and will send it thru in the next couple of days.
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Drumlogue arrived today and I’ll probably use it for both the DNB and Hip Hop battles. 
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I’m looking forward to it.
Mixing gets easier the more you do it.
I would say, listen in headphones and make sure nothing is louder than the rest. If an element is standing out too much.
It will be great, I’m sure.
I’ve heard good things. Or I should say, I hope to hear good things.
Jeez. I’m really into making this new track work.
I think I placed the samples better.
I’m adding bass now, and get this….
I was trying a bunch of note length variations. And I couldn’t get it to sound right.
Finally I locked it into place. Fuckin quarter notes the whole time. I mean they are a bar long, so whole notes I should say, but the bpm is so fast, they go by like quarter notes compared to the sample.
It’s all over the place, but way better track. Everything is on a downbeat I’m pretty sure.
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