Drum programming/ Jungle/ Aphex Twin

[sezare56]

Besides I’m not a super cool French dude with a wild sense of adventure and probably great hair and probably a nice (motor)cycle too

[LyingDalai]

Lately I have found that the blank little corners are great spots for conditional trigs.
Take a solid groove, and for instance add low velocity ghost notes, some with retrig, on the snare and hats… You get an ever changing loop constantly rebalancing the groove…

I really had fun with that on my last track (poorly mixed on the OP-1).
If you can pay attention to the AR only, you’ll see what I mean

[darenager]

@LyingDalai good point, in this type of scenario it can be great. Nice track too!

[Cornish1999]

Wow on that standalone tracker!!!

[DoS]

I’ve seen something similar at the Avignon Festival (but mostly with pianos…).

[Supercolor_T-120]

Not as intricate as a tracker, but a lot of jungle/d &b was made on MPCs by mashing buttons with note roll on. You could assign pad pressure to filter cutoff, mash some pads, set the roll rate to a different value and then mash some more on top of what you just later down.

A Boss DR-660 (which is basically like a tiny, stripped down 90s MPC sequencer in a plastic box with no sampling - Linn even had a hand in designing the OS and it shows) sequencing an external sampler was a sort of budget version of this, too. Supposedly that’s how at least some of the early Squarepusher stuff was done.

[Stazma]

Resurecting this thread as I’ve done a drum kit out of one of the upload from Aphex on Soundcloud.
I made a video to explain the whole thing. You will find all the links in the description

Feel free to ask some questions in the chatroom during the premiere tomorow at 18:00 !

Aphex Twin Casio RZ1 Kit for Ableton Live - Stazma Friday Tips

[Unifono]

Nice video

How To Make Crazy Drums like Aphex Twin

[Octagonist]

@Unifono

I think it’s a bit easier to work with funk breaks, since even chopped up they contain a bit of the groove the real drummer played originally.

I think it was said upthread already… don’t make straight one-shots. Start your sample cuts at the sound you mainly want, but cut after 1/8th or 3/16ths (or longer) so you get the flams, ghost notes, extra hats and so on in the sample. For hats and bongos, make the initial cut on an off-beat, or an off-16th, so your sample starts with the quiet, de-emphasised hit, and leave the sample long enough it includes a louder one. When you arrange these “irregular” pieces into a groove, you get new rhythms and emphases.

And then, as also said upthread, retrig and FX to hell. I’m always amazed how many effects Aphex and Squarepusher apply to their drum edits. They don’t just make these great drum “songs”, they process, resample and re-texture the tone to hell, to mark transitions and changes of mood. Delightful, and so detailed.

[re5et]

Ned rush has done some nice aphex / breaks videos and offers ableton projects on his patreon

Plus his approach in making videos is very watchable/listenable … he’s still on my list of influencers that don’t infuriate me ( it’s very small )

I don’t personally like the ‘random tool box stumbling down the stairs’ style of beats … but I’m old.

[Microtribe]

Agreed, Been following Ned for a very long time, his old Reason videos were where I started. He’s not an ‘influencer’ just some bloke that likes making noise, and can be bothered to make videos. His albums are good too.

[jdaddyaz]

Aphex Twin - Xtal - hardware only cover/recreation

[Supercolor_T-120]

@panelist

Not as intricate as a tracker, but a lot of jungle/d &b was made on MPCs by mashing buttons with note roll on. You could assign pad pressure to filter cutoff, mash some pads, set the roll rate to a different value and then mash some more on top of what you just later down. With tasteful editing you could get great results

Quoting this again 4 years later because I recently put together a really breaks-heavy EP and this is exactly how I did all of it. Ntot so much using roll, though, mostly quantized finger drumming for the actual chopped breaks and unquantized finger drumming for everything else.