Does Anyone Here Make Neurofunk &/Or Darkstep?

Really gettin into these genres, anyone have any renoise specific tips for these genres?

I’m struggling to learn how to make the sounds still a bit but drum and bass wise i try alot towards neurofunk/darkstep. It’s pretty hard though i think.
All i can really say is that its harder to make the bass sounds than anything else. i usually put the bpm around 175-185 bpm and use renoises native mpReverb on tracks alot, its a great sounding reverb for the genre i think. play alot with the filters in renoise too on the basslines, with automations on the cutoff.

What are considered good examples of this neurofunk/darkstep? Excuse my ignorance, but I’m interested to know :)

circa 97+ drum n bass.

optical, ed rush, dillinja, matrix, rhyme tyme, bad company, loxy, konflict, c4c…

and technical itch.

Aaah, good old liquid basses… Never knew it had a name of its own. :)

Happy Milkshake Man, search the forum for “how to liquid bass” and you’re halfway there, I suppose :)

neurofunk is dnb with live-ish drums yes? none better than Macc & dgoHn and that palaver.

phace and nymfo are good neurofunk producers, generally theres alot of reverb on the drums to make them sound liveish, but its not played live generally. or sampled by a drummer.

some points you might want to keep in mind are:
using alot of mpReverb to create a dark atmosphere.
Play alot with minor chords / scales for an evil atmosphere.
Make a crazy automated bassline. filtered and resampled untill filter and resample are the only words you can speak.
Generally they use 2 kicks to create a nice bounce to the drum patern, for example one more clicky one and oen bassier one. alot of blacksun empire tracks have this effect where the kicks just seem to rattle away.

Darkstep is alot about a thick atmosphere in my mind, very evil music. Besides that in most, but not all darkstep theres modulated reece basses.
Also a drivign driving drumline that really gets you going mental is often a good asset of tunesi n this genre.

Correct me if i’m wrong though please im still exploring myself aswell. :)

I’m not really into the whole ‘letterboxing’ of genres as there are always examples of them just mulching into each other anyway. I guess it does help when you go to your local vinyl store and don’t want to be handed a load of jump-up!

I make, listen to, and mix quite a bit of the neuro/dark stuff though although I don’t aim to make any specific sub-genre, but like a lot of BSE, Telemetrik, Phace, Spor, along with a lot more of the dark stuff like Current Value, Panacea, Proket, DJ Hidden, The Sect and of course Raiden - a lot of it is techno oriented nowadays too - think that’s referred to as ‘techstep’ isnt it?

p.s. might be able to give you some of my DSP chains if you like the sound of them, although I don’t really re-use them as each song is always a new approach for me. In-Terfear and P1ck m3 Up are ones I liked the bass work on, but they could be better…

That’s not Techstep, which is much older, more like your original dark '96 stuff by Ed Rush, Tech Itch etc etc. Very similar to Darkstep, often but not always with the simple 2-step beat. Rarely using real drum sounds but rather relying on techy noises to make the beats.

Agree with your early consideration of Neurofunk though. Basically it was Techstep but Funked up a bit, especially around the basslines. Think Teebee and Subtitles stuff for good examples.

A friend of mine who plays and writes this stuff a lot more than I do these days seems to refer to the new, almost techno stuff, like the people you name later. Personally I always think of this as Technoid DnB.

Pigeonholes may be annoying but they can also be useful…

hiho :)

neurofunk is stuff like (spor, calyx & teebee, phace, Ed Rush & Optical…)

the most complitcated style in drum&bass :D

I don’t really have any tips but I know a site that has Q&A for Nosia. Noisia gives out some tips and stuff on how to produce their songs, which is on dogsonacid.com.
Also saw a good tutorial on make a nasty bassline but it was on reason.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGX7sTtIVko
But if you had a good synth and know what your doing I bet you can do the same.

i would be interested in some of your dsp chains if your willing to share :D

Hi guys. New member to the forum and to renoise! I’m a massive darkstep fan (favourite artists are undoubtably black sun empire) and that’s always what I’ve tried to produce for the last 4 or so months, never to any great success… but I think I’ve finally found the DAW of my dreams in Renoise, so it’ll definitely be the first DAW I purchase.

I was wondering if I could get any advice? Mostly on some free VST’s (I have some; but i’m interested in knowing which one is the best!) I can use for basslines (admittedly I can’t afford to purchase something like Massive and I’m not cheap enough to pirate it) and how to get my drum samples sounding better… right now they sound a little too liquid’ish… and any other advice you can give me! Thanks!

the styles in question (tech-step / neurofunk) define the most beautiful d&b ever been produced.
too bad it’s all gone since almost a decade.

getting those basses done isn’t too easy. you gotta EQ/filter, distort, automate, bounce, EQ/filter, distort, layer, bounce, distort, etc. until you got what you’re looking for.

my fav dnb tunes in one mix:
http://www.dnb-sets.de/?set=150078
(should also clarify what kind of dnb this thread is actually about)

hmm ? neurofunk is still there and more complicated than ever !

small neurofunk mix
and anonther one :)

Sometimes I can’t I can’t even label the sub-genre for dnb b/c there is a lot of dnb that just does not fit that sub category and sounds very nice. I’ve been listening to some Russian Dnb artist that seem to develop different styles. For example recpeptor- girls track. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkgtc5P7Lls&feature=related

I was watching a video of how sub focus does his breaks. He automates the volume in a rhythmic manner to give it some groove. Maybe you can use lfo on breaks.

Looks quite a tasty mix, missing a bit of Teebee though ;)

Neuro is still being made, techstep less so. Seems most people are going to the techno (Technoid?) styles these days though…

ok, you certainly got a point there.
but neurofunk today != neurofunk a decade ago, stylistically.

you practically said it yourself already, it’s way more “complicated” and less minimalistic nowadays.
i totally loved the simplicity and minimalism of “yesterday’s” tunes of that genre. they had more drive, groove and didn’t appear overly hectic or obtrusively spectacular.

so therefore, that kind of dnb i am referring to is unfortunately dead.
simply compare the content of your with my mix and it should be clear what i mean. it’s not just different tunes, it’s stylistically a different approach.

thank`s for this, now i understand how you mean it :)

i listen to jungle/drum&bass since 1994 and i still have a lot of mixtapes & cds from this time, so i know what youre talking about.
during 2000-2004 (if i remember right), drum&bass became more and more “in your face” which was a very bad thing as each tune sounds like the other.

for me, 2008 was the rebirth of neurofunk with the anatomy album from calyx&teebee. today there are a lot of interesting neurofunk tunes and the “wtf, how was this done” feeling is back again :)
which ive missed for a long time, which was also the reason why ive started to listen to drum&bass.

i have to agree that a lot of old drum&bass stuff has more soul and vibe!

@Happy MilkShake Man’s original question…A resounding yessssssssssss!!

I do!! Its been long hard work, howver, finally completed a track I am happy with, check it out its in my sig…

My advice is, if you want to master nuerofunk, you must live and breathe it for some time.

Find artists or even just one, your favorite, and analyze the %^&**&^%$% out of their tracks and arrangement…why does it sound that way…what are the charcteristics of the frequency ranges etc…then get to work!!

Enjoy,
Tarek