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Archive for June, 2009

Kana Show 024 Free Download

This Week

featuring a fresh nasty from the vaults of Romart whose been quite a regular on the Kana Show over the last few weeks.  Always pushing the envelope, this guy is definitely one to watch for 2010!

Adding to the digital sonic destruction this week are two preview tools from Zubox.

To download click the little arrow on the right side of this player ::::>>>

Want more?

Keep an eye on Kana in the coming weeks for some indepth artists reviews.

On top of that we have the privelage of a follow up interview to our previous Feature Artist- Phobic Records head-honcho Richard Belsom.

Rich has been kind enough to prepare a mix exclusively for Kana readers, so be sure to get your hands on it as soon as its up!

…

Live recording – Round 24 of the Kana show on Kick106.

Tracklist:

01 Emmannuel – Show Time (Original mix) [Get Digital Music]
02 Kid Massive – 4k (Hugo Barritt remix) [Avanti]
03 Adam Beyer & Joel Mull – Forming Dies (Original mix) [Drumcode]
04 Sensitiva – Viola Tricolor (Original mix) [Secretsundaze]
05 Richie Santana & Plasmic Honey – To The Beat (Hugo Rizzo & Joal remix) [Land Of Voodoo Recordings]
06 Ramon Tapia – Drama King (Original mix) [Herzblut Recordings]
07 Geoffroy & Mugwump & Kolombo – Mindflexes (Original mix) [Cocoon Recordings]
08 Veitengruber – Bon Melange (Afrilounge remix) [8-Bit Records]
09 Umek – Pravim Haos (Original mix) [Cocoon Recordings]
10 Romart – Synthetic Bush Party (Droid mix) [Unreleased]
11 Zubox – Mampi Snare (Tool edit) [Unreleased]
12 Fergie – Exit People (Original mix) [Sixteenofive]
13 Daniel Kyo – Esferas (Original mix) [54 Music]
14 Dee Green – Ghost Break (Original mix) [Dataworx Digital]
15 Zubox – Dark Timo San (Tool edit) [Unreleased]
16 Flash Brothers – Palmito (Steve Angello remix) [Size Records]
17 Rondenion – Wave Amplitude (Original mix) [Rush Hour]

Please respect the artists and their music.

If you would like to have your track featured on a Kana Show you can do so by:

- Sending an email to info@okkana.com

- Find us on SoundCloud

- Upload your track straight to the Soundcloud dropbox on the top right hand side of this page or use your preferred file hosting site to upload and send to us directly.

Jun 18, 2009 | Kana Show | Leave A Comment »

Kana Show 023 Free Download

This week

featuring the usual forward thinking madness from Deepchild and some deeper melodic techno from Florian Meindl – if you like Florian’s tracks why not sign up to his newsletter here.

Also this week we close with a luscious progressive number from Fex – reminiscent of Cass & Slide in the early 2000’s, check it out, a serious musical journey.

Special mention this week goes to the delightful Eelke Kleijn remix of Russian Linesman’s classy new EP – Amsterdam Story out now on Manual Music – you can follow him on twitter here.

To download click the little arrow on the right side of this player ::::>>>

Want more?

If you want to track down more info on Deepchild be sure to head over to his website and keep an eye out for upcoming releases on Affin, Kaato Music and Breakout Audio.

Next week you can get your hands on his newest release on Anabatic Records (Stripjoint Mathematics) w/ remixes from Worthy and Jet Project…Check it out!

Live recording – Round 23 of the Kana show on Kick106

Tracklist:

01 Sona Sound – Nervous Breakdown (Inxec remix) [Phobic Records]
02 Butch – Nomad (Gabriel Ananda remix) [AFU Limited]
03 Mutant Clan – Outside (Original mix) [Sci-Tec]
04 District One – Dubcrystal (Julien Chaptal & Lauhaus remix) [100% Pure]
05 Moderat – Rusty Nail (Booka Shade remix) [BPitch Control]
06 Deepchild – Michigan (Original mix) [coming soon on Affin]
07 Russian Linesman – Amsterdam Story (Eelke Kleijn remix) [Manual Music Digital]
08 Marco Bailey – Muzika (Nic Fanciulli mix) [MB Elektronics]
09 Florian Meindl – Deep Driving (Original mix) [Unreleased]
10 Daniel Papini – No Haste (Original mix) [Great Stuff]
11 Rhythm Code – Radio Alert (Original mix) [Baroque Records]
12 Zade & Kayne Cross – Appearance of Daylight (Deepchild remix) [Love Hertz]
13 Rebekah – Out of Nowhere (Original mix) [Phobic Records]
14 Fex – Insomnia (Original mix) [Unreleased]

Please respect the artists and their music.

If you would like to have your track featured on a Kana Show you can do so by:

- Sending an email to info@okkana.com

- Find us on SoundCloud

- Upload your track straight to the Soundcloud dropbox on the top right hand side of this page or use your preferred file hosting site to upload and send to us directly.

Jun 10, 2009 | Kana Show | Leave A Comment »

The secret to swing and why you can’t produce without it!

How come my tracks don’t sound like a commercial release?

Part 2 – : Swing!

Swing? Isn’t that a style of music developed in America circa 1930? Well, yes it was. But the swing I’m referring to is the shuffle or groove of your track, that more ‘human’ groove that sounds realistic and ‘more pleasing’ to our ears.

Ever wondered why that rhythm you are trying to write sounds ‘robotic’ and ‘cold’? Its more than likely because every hit in your drum pattern or every note in your sequence has been quantized to a rigid grid. This quantization is unnatural since we are not robots and it is practically impossible to play a drum pattern live in perfect quantized periods.

The fact is, our hearing has evolved to ‘expect’ certain things. Yes thats right, our ear-brain connection has certain elements it looks for inorder to help process the audible information it receives, which means it expects things to be out of time (slightly)!

What swing do you mean:

So what does this all have to do with swing? Well, swing (shuffle, groove, humanization) or whatever name you wish to give it, is essentially a process by which you can ‘push’ a desired range of ‘hits’ out of this perfect, quantized alignment. In part, creating a more ‘human’ feel to the groove you were trying to create. Suddenly, things will sound less ’sterile’, have more ‘warmth’ and just ‘glue together in the mix’ much more effectively. Don’t take my word for it, read on and give it a try for yourself!

As usual, this article will focus on Kana’s DAW of choice, Ableton Live. At the end of the post you can find links to using swing in other DAW’s like Cubase or Logic etc.

Creating your own swing:

One of the best ways to achieve a more natural sounding, self-programmed, drum loop or musical sequence is to play the part manually (on a midi keyboard or drumpads) with the Global Quantize set to None.  This means all the notes will essentially land exactly where/when you hit them.
The big advantage to this being you have essentially applied your own personal level of swing to the notes by playing them yourself – instead of drawing the notes in with the mouse!  Getting it right the first time can be quite tough, so its a good idea t oset yourself up for a continuous recording session where you can make multiple takes and choose the best one at the end.
Setting up multiple takes in Live is quite simple, just set your loop region to the size and zone you wish to work in (this is the resizable bar at the top of the arrangement view).  Make sure overdub (OVR- at the top near the play button)  is turned on – this will allow any patterns to be layed down continuously until you hit stop.  Now, just continue to play again and again until you think you nailed the feel you want.   This way you can then expand (stretch out) the looped part to reveal all your attempts and choose the best version.

Once you have chosen your favourite groove, simply move the loop range to encompass only that section and play it over and over whilst you listen to each individual sound.  The chances are that at least a handful of hits will appear too early or too late, when you hear them zoom right down to the individual notes and adjust them to suit.
To move notes without ’snapping’ to the grid, click and hold the note, press and hold the ‘Apple’ key, then move the note to the exact place you want it, then drop the note & release the ‘Apple’ key.  You will notice the placement is no longer restricted to the quantize grid and you can make really small adjustments to just gently drag the note closer to the timing you really like.  Easy as that, Bam!

Adding swing to pre-recorded loops:

All decent DAW’s will allow you to impart some sort of swing or groove function onto your chosen pre-recorded loops or midi clips.  Some programs allow a very complex groove to be copied, including timing  and volume of each hit (velocity if dealing with midi notes), and then applied to any source imaginable.  This feature was implemented in Live 8 but first we will cover how to get simliar results in Live 7.

Swing in Live 7:

You can use the built in swing/groove setting to add a little more movement to an otherwise set pace.
In Live 7, you are restricted to using the more formulated quantized groove settings.  The “0″ between the metronome and the 4/4 notation at the top left of the project window is your global swing amount.  From 0-99, you can impart more or less swing to all clips that have their Clip Control groove setting to anything other than None –  options include 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32.   You can get some pretty nice subtle movement with a clip groove setting of 1/16 and a global groove setting of 40-50.
Have a play with it and go Extreme! By pushing things to the limits we learn how to tame the beast and achieve the sound and control we really want!

Almost perfect but not quite:

The only unfortunate oversight here is that a truly magic groove has not only sounds occuring slightly out of time, but also at varying volumes.  To do this you will have to put in the hard work by manually adjusting the volume of each sound in the Envelope Volume window.  Granted, this is not a precise science since dropping the volume of a hat after a snare will reduce the volume of the snares tail as well, but hopefully you will not be relying on a sampled audio drum loop as  the main focus of your track.  That way you can get away with little adjustments like this.

Live 8 and beyond:

Live 8 has really stepped up and taken this one major step further by incorporating a full groove library which also allows you to extract the groove from other songs/sample loops and apply it to your own parts.  Here is a tutorial video by Jesper at Airbasemusic.com which will run you through the process.

Some links to ways of imparting your desired groove in the other major players like Cubase, Logic Pro, Sonar, Fruity Loops.

Summary:

An often overlooked element of developing producers is the significance of real world performing. Digital is great, but it removes some of the human element, and its this human element that we have evolved with, hence what we perceive as pleasing.
Working with the swing of your individual parts will impart a finer glue to all your sounds, it will give room for other sound to be heard in the mix and suddenly get your booty shaking when you couldn’t explain why it wasn’t before.
If you got to the end of this article I truly hope you’ve found some value and managed to improve the sound/feel of your tracks.  After all that is what it was written for.
Have anything to add? Your comments are always welcome, just click the article heading if you are on the main page and scroll to the bottom to “Reply” to this post.
Good vibes & happy producing,
Adam & the Kana crew.

EDIT:

One fairly cruical element to swing which I some how forgot to mention is the use of Track Delays.  This little bad-boy makes some jobs a dream by just slightly moving a whole tracks’ audio forward or backwards by anything from 1 millisecond upwards.

You can find it on the right hand side of the arrangement screen if you select the small circled D on the far bottom right.

Jun 09, 2009 | Music Theory & Production | Leave A Comment »

Kana Show 022 Free Download

Kickin it to the wall this week with two new thumpers from Rich Jones and Romart, things get pretty downright nasty!!  Pushin it all the way through to the last second with Vortechral’s way-out-there acid rendition, hope to see you at the finish line!

To download click the little arrow on the right side of this player ::::>>>

01 Cevin Fisher – Let’s do it again (Original mix) [Audiolab Music]
02 David Phillips – Minimo (Original mix) [Global Ritmico]
03 Rich Jones – Bring it Back (Original mix) [Unreleased]
04 Dan Curtain – Tromp (Original mix) [Dust Science]
05 Oliver Klein & Peter Juergens – Der Spatz Auf Dem Dach (Original mix) [Kling Klong]
06 Romart – Tribal & Error (Romart Sticks & Stuckas mix) [Unreleased]
07 Andrea Bertolini – Speedmaster (Robin Hirte remix) [Stereo Seven Plus]
08 Onirika – Verukio Morning (Original mix) [LDU Records]
09 Kaiserdisco – Sandalia (Original mix) [My Best Friend]
10 Pierce & Jerl – Amourette (Original mix) [Get Digital Music]
11 Benny Rodrigues & Kapuchon – The Finger (DJ Emerson Concentrate remix) [Spinclub Recordings]
12 Gabe – Sea Monster (Original mix) [Sprout]
13 Mark Mendes & Mike Jacinto – Relic (Original mix) [Starter Records]
14 Monoloc – Mogue (Original mix) [Smallroom Music]
15 Andrea Bertolini – Speedmaster (Topspin remix) [Stereo Seven Plus]
16 Vortechtral – In the Beginning There Was Acid (Original mix) [Techment Records]

Please respect the artists and their music.

If you would like to have your track featured on a Kana Show you can do so by:

- Sending an email to info@okkana.com

- Find us on SoundCloud

- Upload your track straight to the Soundcloud dropbox on the top right hand side of this page.

Jun 02, 2009 | Kana Show | Leave A Comment »

Make your social networking easier with Twhirl & Ping.fm

twitter_logo

Just a quick post tonight to share a neat little application I’ve been using to make my twittering, facebooking etc etc all the more simpler.

Twhirl allows me to link in myspace and facebook through the Ping.FM service and posts all my tweets right onto my facebook status as well as myspace (status or microblog) and of course my main twitter page. They are both free services of course and mean I don’t have to open up 3 different websites to post information to my networks.

There’s many more services you can add to Ping.FM like youtube accounts, bebo, linkedin etc, so you can really get things consolidated. The only drawback is you are duplicating the information onto each site, so things can get a bit monotonous if people are following you on more than one profile.

Check them both out, I promise you it will make life that little bit easier for you.

….And of course, if you really want to follow me you can do that too:  Adam on twitter

Jun 01, 2009 | Tips and Tricks | Leave A Comment »