Futurists

Deadmau5 is huge on the progressive house scene. There are plenty of songs and remixes out there that were either produced by Deadmau5 (and he has a bunch of them) or by someone trying to sound like him.

a while back Deadmau5 released Project 56, a series of 56 ideas, melodies, clips and grooves that he originally created as a compilation project for people with short attention spans. In the end he decided to stick the whole series online so that people could download them for free and to, as he indicates, “exploit these tracks in any way your evil heart desires”. His only request is that if you do use them in a production, give him some credit for doing so.

so… why not! 56 clips of interesting ideas by one of the biggest names in the business, available for free download. Is at least worth checking out.

last year I posted something about how I first got into electronic music; one of the songs I mentioned was this one, Information Society’s Running (Instrumental Version). I thought I’d elaborate on that post here, simply because I feel Information Society’s instrumental version of Running was a truly groundbreaking song. I still remember hearing this song in Toronto during the 80s and being quite blown away by it – there was nothing much like it at the time. I also remember subsequently hearing the “true” version of the song (with lyrics) and being horribly underwhelmed. To my young mind, the magic of the song was lost once they started singing overtop of it.

I’m wondering if Information Society (or someone else) were to make a version of this today, how well it would perform in the clubs. It would need a better drum kit – a deeper kick, some better compression, and some cymbal sweeps – and a more thorough bass sound, but with a little work I think this song could bring people to the floor in clubs today. Heck, it probably could right now, as it stands.

this may of course be one of those cases that my own sentimental value of this song outweighs its true value – I’d appreciate any feedback on that! And speaking of nostalgia… what the heck is with the clothes Information Society is wearing on their album cover? If we bring back classic dance tunes from the 80s, let’s not bring that part back as well…

here is a very interesting video about what is likely the world’s most popular breakbeat (when you hear it, you’ll know it immediately). Popular in techno, hip hop and jungle, the Amen Break is a 40 year old breakbeat that was first featured in a tune by The Winstons called Amen, Brother, the little known B-side track on the Winstons’ Grammy Award winning hit Color Him Father.

while the Amen Break is not as widely used now as it was in the 90s it certainly played an essential role in the development of modern electronic music (and, when sliced apart and sped up, pretty much kicked off drum ‘n bass), and for that it holds a special place in the hearts of many, including myself.

most producers probably already know this, but KVR is a great site for free (and some paid) VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins. I’ve downloaded several for Ableton Live, and they’ve been very helpful for creating techno and trance music (yes I’ve still been working on that song – it’s a progressive (dark) trance track called Phantom and it’s almost done! I mean it)! On the plugin search page you can search for all sorts of different VSTs – drum kits, samples, effects, and so on – for Mac, Windows or Linux, and you can specify how much you want to pay to download them (some cost, some are free).

I’m especially fond of this side chain compressor plugin that you can download from some random site in Japan for Windows and Mac. The site looks totally dodgy when you get there, but I haven’t had any issues with the plugin (of course you’ll want to run virus scans on anything you download, just in case). It’s probably not as necessary as it used to be due to the fact that Ableton Live 8 now includes a side chain compressor, but this one is pretty simple to use once you download it (Ableton’s is not), and effective. Perhaps I’ll make a short tutorial about how to use it in a future post.