Ive been trying to create some breakcore/jungle tunes but I have a lot of trouble getting the sound right. I normal start with a breakbeat, chop it with 0900 commands, then I try to find a bass of some kind, if that turns out right I go on with keys/vocal, but normal I never get this far, I get to tired of my break that I just give up…
The other day I treid to create my own beat from scratch, the sound quality of that beat was much better, I dont understand way, but the groove/swing was awful. Then I tried to combine or layer as I think its called single hits on top of a break beat, this seams to be a the way to go, but damm this can get complicated, how many Bd/Sd/hi hats do you normally layer together to get the sound your after? , I find that 2-3 bd at the same time can give a nice hit but when I get beyond that it just goes crazy and I loose the “view” of it all, any tips or tricks on keeping the view ? or should I just stick to one layer and the render ? I unsure if I am overdoing the layering part because something is not right, all my tracks sounds like very bad mp3 even though my samples are from a sample cd = wav. I guess when you layer samples on top of each other the master spectrum could come in handy some way?
I’m no breakcore expert, but I can offer the following lateral advice:
Maybe the break thing isn’t for you, maybe you need to find your own percussive approach for the music you are attempting. Please post an example of your music without drums so I can better suggest an interesting angle. Better yet, and more original, have no drums at all.
But, like many of us here, if you want to conform to a style and obtain mastery of the pre-defined craft, then by all means seek out those who can do this style well, ask questions, search, and emulate.
I think breakcore or other genres that are heavily about cutting up drums more than anything else really do require a particular kind of individual. I know i’ve tried to do it a bunch of times but i just don’t have the patience for that kind of meticulous work when the end result doesn’t matter at all.
you sound like me, Its hard not to get frusturated when working on a track, many times I worked extensively on what I want it to sound like and close the program before I ever make another pattern.
But lets see, With any style of breakbeat music, remember this, when the greats gave us the Amen, the funky Drummer, and all the other shamelessly ripped loops we use today, they had a drumset, probably a typical 5 piece with a few cymbals. Don’t EVER let samples control you, its not samples that make the music great, its how they are used.
So, with breakbeats, actualy listen to how they work in other songs, don’t go crazy with the Kick and snare, let the hats and cymbals groove for you. simulate Flams, Parradiddles, Ghost notes, chokes, etc. I used to do jungle style stuff during my old Chiptune days, and my drum library was VERY limited, but I make it work for me. Be careful with your layering, with layering multiple samples on top of each other, you will have to tweak your EQ a lot more, and if it’s to bassy, don’t ever expect to play it on a large sound system. Renoise is an awesome program with enough tweaking, but it comes with patience, Jungle can require a lot of it, breakcore can require an EXTREME amount of it. If you don’t have patience with your music, theres always trance (or worse… EBM shudders)
