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I've been wondering about the sort of sound where you know you're listening to a drum machine and it's crappy in a cool, fuzzy, fizzy lo-fi way.

That Primitive Radio Gods hit, "standing outside yada yada", is the most comercial example I can think of, but refence points for me would be the first Satchell album and the Twilight Singers album.

It sounds kind of like maybe overloading a porta-studio, but I doubt that's the standard method of getting the sound on commercial releases. I'm thinking cheap compressors hit too hard and/or maybe some distortion pedals set to break up on peaks. So how do ya do it, guys?

da Bear

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audiokid Thu, 01/04/2001 - 18:58

da Bear , glad to see you here.
Not sure the songs or sound your referring too, if I new that I could tell you more.

Samplers work good for designing sounds though.
low and high pass filters etc. and overdriving signals and adding gates maybe.

There are thousands of drum samples out there to draw from and manipulate.

One easy way to fine tune your quest is what year did the song or sound your looking for come out? All we do then is think of the gear that was out then.

or

It could be a synth with a fast attact and some pink noise added on the second voice.

Tell me more if you like.

audiokid

anonymous Tue, 01/09/2001 - 10:24

Shouldn't that be ...gone Fusion? :^) I just downloaded "Standing Outside a Phone Booth",
and it's a loop (well used), grunged up a bit, with a little room w/ predelay on it. Texture wise, it may have been done on a 16 or 12 bit sampler to degrade it a bit, and there are gobs ofplug-insthat can bit smash or subtly distort the loop without ruining it. Sure wish they'd looped it better - stumble every 4 bars. Catchy in dark way though...

anonymous Wed, 01/10/2001 - 23:49

waazzzuuuppp?!?

nice topic...

My 2c (not to different to the rest)... use heavyweight compression on the loops, drop the sample rate, add a bit of distortion or a lot, depends on what sound you're looking for.
Most important IMHO... use loops from real drummers... not machines! If you want to resequence the loop to get a more machine type sound, then recycle it

shouts to the ops for the cool forum...

phunk

anonymous Mon, 01/15/2001 - 04:17

A big WAAAHHHZZZUUUPPPPP!!!! back at y'all! ... please excuse the excesive use of the slang, I only got to see that 'Bud' ad here in South Africa last week and now EVERYONE is sayin' it ... if you can't beat 'em...

You using the Steinberg software? Pro's--> easy to use, interfaces with my sampler.../Con's?--> mono only (at this time)

I assume you spin? --> yeah, but my main interest is recording dance music, as I am originally a guitar player and drummer before taking to the decks.... I wish we could get acetates pressed in our country but sadly it is impossible... the cost to import one is also not a viable option
OK lo-fi beats that's the topic right?!?

The cheapest way I can think of doing this is to use your PeeCee "I do have a nice 667 mHz pentium III"
Look for a piece of freeware software called "Hammerhead Rythmn Station" I think you will find a link to it at synthzone.com. It is a simple drum pattern editor which lets you make and export your own loops... you can also import your own 'one-shot' samples to use in the loops. As far as Freeware goes, this is the best drum proggie I've come across on the PeeCee.

Your only problem might be - how do I sequence the loops? What are you using as a sequencer? Have you got ProTools? ... If not ... " what are you waiting for? "
Even the FREE Version would be sufficient for doin' this.

Your point about "hardware might simplify my workflow" is probably true... But you will find that you outgrow a cheap drum machine much faster than you will a program that you can constantly update with new sounds.

Last thing... you refered to your setup as '8 track analog' does that mean you don't use any midi gear?

Ok thats all 4 now.

phunkster

anonymous Mon, 01/15/2001 - 17:40

hello all,
ahhh, the quest for a cool sounding groove.
My current favorite piece of Software for this is WAVELAB. Although it is not a "groove" program per se, it works great.
What I do sometimes is, find a drum beat, maybe even sample it myself, import it into Wavelab then go nuts.
Chop it up, reverse it, offset the left and right, add EQ, add FX, insert silence or other found drum sounds...you name it. Then create and save several variations of the same thing.
WAVELAB also has a lot of other cool features, like CD burning.
I also have ACID, and frankly don't use it much, lots of people like it because it is easy to use. REBIRTH is another one, this is more of a dance type program, I have it but also, rarely use it. A freeware or demo of a REBIRTH style program is Fruity Loops, look
at http://www.fruityloops.com.
I for one am really into the VSTi's or virtual instruments, they integrate nicely with Cubase, and I believe there is a BIG future for softsynths.
Up next for me is a Virtual Sampler ;-).

Fun is Allowed !!!
simonsez