DnB Weekend: With releases due to drop on respected labels such as DJ Marky's Innerground Records, Hype's legendary Playaz imprint and the deep 'n' dirty Utopia Music, 2014 is shaping up to be a breakthrough year for UK-based DnB trio Chromatic.
They've previously released tracks on Formation Records, BTK's label Dutty Audio and Lossless Music, gaining DJ and radio support from select spinners like Huw Stephens, Friction, Marky, Hype, London Elektricity and Calyx & TeeBee.
Joe from Chromatic has constructed an exclusive drum & bass track - Buzzsaw - in Ableton Live 9, demonstrating how Computer Music software and samples can be used for pro-quality DnB.
We asked Joe to tell us more about the making of Buzzsaw: "In this project, I've combined a lot of the techniques we use as Chromatic: drum layering, bass splitting, processing chains, sends/returns, resampling and basic mastering. I've tried to keep the track count down to a minimum, as often it's the more stripped-back tunes that sound clear and loud over a big club PA. We've already tested Buzzsaw over a Funktion One soundsystem and it sounds huge!
"Some of the plugin counts are a little high in this session. We'd usually render and resample lots of elements during the creative process, but here I wanted to keep most of the original sounds in place so you can mute and unmute each plugin and hear the exact effect each is having on the source signal. The Stems folder contains the drum, mid and sub channels as audio files, so you can use these instead if the project maxes out your computer's CPU."
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