ROLAND TR-909 BASS DRUM RECORDED THROUGH 13 DISTORTION UNITS from thegearfiend.com

This is something yummy to repost: the TR-909 bassdrum sampled through some distortion units:

I recorded a TR-909 Bass Drum through the following distortion units to compare and contrast the sounds.

1) Dunlop Fuzz Face
2) Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff with Top Boost
3) Maxon OD-9
4) Boss OS-2
5) Boss DS-1
6) Boss DS-2
7) Pro Co RAT
8) Tech 21 VT Bass
9) MXR Bass D.I. +
10) Electro-Harmonix English Muff'n
11) Moog Moogerfooger Lowpass Filter
12) Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Pi
13) Elektron SidStation

I like  this way of sampling because it involves both the Roland TR-909 and some BOSS pedals although I wish the guy had sampled it through 13 distortion units IN A ROW!! :)
Besides this, my favorite distortion comes from the Elektron SidStation: I love the SID background noise in action.

MORE INFO AND DOWNLOAD

Delfy Creations hand-made electronic musical contraptions

These guys from the UK develop some really nice hand-made synthesizers and effects.

We have a range of 'Delfy Originals' which we sell all the time, and we also sell one-off items, ranging from original circuits to circuit bent toys and instruments!

The boxes look great with those industrial-like cases and they're quite cheap, altought the SSVC-1 v2, my favorite, costs a little more than the others.

The SSVC-1 v2 consists of two parts, one being a circuit bent voice changer, and the other a squarewave oscillator circuit, using the same circuitry as the Delfy SS-1 with added features like a photoresistor you can use like a theremin!

The SS-1 is also worth checking, being the cheaper and most straightforward in use.

The SS-1 is the most popular of all our creations. It's very hands-on and easy to use, while also capable of a huge variety of squeals and squelches.

I'm sure these little tools are great for Industrial sounds! The guys should really send me one over for a review :)

http://www.delfycreations.com/

Alesis SR-16 Drummachine

I got an Alesis SR-16, cheaply, from E-bay. Something that makes me totally happy is that hitting the pads outputs distorted sounds. Lucky me, I got a self-circuit bending unit for the price of a faulty one!! This reminds me of a TR-909 I owned back in the nineties which had the hi-tom section broken and would output just a white noise, obeying to MIDI note-ons and offs... inspiring!



During my early years of music making I started to collaborate with an industrial/noise band called "Gennaio". They were four guitarists and an Alesis SR-16 as a drummer and my role should have been to replace the drummachine playing live with my Amiga computer.

The project never went too far but I had the chance to hear the SR-16 cold and reverberated sound in action and it sounded deeply industrial. This sentence from vintagesynth.com just confirms it:

No doubt the SR-16 is a powerful drum machine, but ultimately it also sounds like a drum machine. [...] But all those bumper stickers about drum machines having no soul just might be directed at the SR-16.

After a full day of use I compiled a list of useful instruments:

"Rock 1" Good toms
"Rock 2" Dirty kick
"Rock 3" Mid tom very good
"Rock 4" Low tom very good
"Rock 5" Nice reverb kick
"Rock 6" Good toms
"Rock 7" Cool crash
"Hard Rock 1" Nothing interesting
"Hard Rock 2" Kick and crash
"Hard Rock 3" Great snare!
"R&B 1" Forget it :)
"R&B 2" YAhn!
"R&B 3" Nice kick and snare!
"Funk 1" Crash ok
"Funk 2" Kick and rimshot
"Blues 1" All nice sounds
"Blues 2" Sparkling crash
"Rap 1" 808esque kick, tom 1 and 2 are some good noises
"Rap 2" Kick and snare
"Rap 3" kick ok, metallic snare, tom 3 very deep and dirty
"Techno 1" Besides the name, only a good snare here
"Techno 2" Good kick and great metallic snare!
"Techno 3" Tom 3 sounds powerful
"Reggae 1" ehm...
"Reggae 2" uhm...
"Jazz Rock 1" Snare ok but claps are better
"Jazz Rock 2" Tom and crash but like other banks basically
"Fusion 1" Good dry kick
"Fusion 2" Good toms
"New Age 1" Cutting open hat and good snare
"New Age 2" Kick and snare but like others
"Country 1" Leave it
"Country 2" Leave it
"Country 3" Leave...
"Country Rock" The sounds tends to repeat...
"Rockabilly" Good snare with reverb
"Jazz 1" Quiet stuff
"Jazz 2" You won't buy a unit for this
"Dixie" Dirty kick
"Polka" Quite useless
"Latin 1" Dry kick
"Latin 2" Repeated sounds
"Latin 3" Good Tom 1
"Latin 4" Nahh
"Latin 5" Claps have a strange snare, not bad
"Ballad 1" Snare with long reverb!
"Ballad 2" Again Claps have a disorted percussion
"Ballad 3" Another long snare
"Ballad 4" More long snare
"Ballad 5" Even longer snare and reverb on toms

With this unit I am definitely going to make some sample kits like:

• Alesis sampled into Amiga @ 8-BIT


• Alesis sampled thru BOSS Overdrive


• Alesis sampled thru Black Audio Destructor

Anyone interested in some fresh Industrial percussions should stay tuned...

Metallic noises with AKAI S900

Hot nights have become cold and now are slowly fading to freezing. I'm not used to the new season yet so it's too early to compose music. Sampling safaris are the right activity. Like an ant at the beginning of the autumn I am storing new samples to be used during the winter...

Today I spent a nice evening in front of my AKAI S900, a sampler widely known and appreciated for its metallic timbre, dumping via MIDI a few metallic sounds.




Playing them back at different pitches with weird looping points creates some new raw materials.

A good denoising stage was required to remove the sampler background noise and to obtain some usable audio textures that I am going to share.

DOWNLOAD

Building an Analog drum module

I just received everything I need to build my own Analog Drum Module:



Someone managed to convince me that by doing this I will be a even cooler musician, so here I am...digging on resistors, diodes, wires and meaningless boards!



The module is a DS7 Drum Synce (DC860)and the smaller one is a simple Gate To Trigger Converter.

The DS7 Drum Synce (DC860) is a little analog percussion synthesizer from the 80's made by CORON. This drumsynth was dedicaced to drummers : the DS7 was fixed on the border of a drum to be played/triggered by hitting the drum.

The DS7 contain a VCO +VCA chain. The VCO is modulated by a cheesy LFO and a simple decay envelope trigged by the piezzo cell pulse. The cell work as a pressure/hit sensor. It can be replaced by a jack to be used with any kind of trigg pulses or even gates. In this case the "decay" pot become a "Release" pot ... The VCA is directly controled by the envelope. The LFO can drive the VCO from slow modulation to hi-speed to produce FM like sounds.

I needed some new analog raw meat for the distortion chain... let's see how long it takes to build it :)

Some Kickdrum samples with PAiA modules

The blog has been dormant for a while due to personal music production priorities. However I am collecting stuff from people sending me suggestions so I plan to post a little more from now on.

My friend Furio loves analog modular systems. He builds his own modules from kits often modding them to suit his needs. We've been talking about the employ of such machinery into modern industrial music and the end was that he should have done a few samples for the blog, so here we are with some Modular Kickdrums.

This is how the chain has been set up:


PAiA 9720 Dual VCO / MODULATION

Dark Side SSM2044 VCF/VCO

A-132-3 Dual linear/exponential VCA

The results are some clean and punchy kicks, ready to be slaughtered with the most inhuman distortion techniques!

Il modulatore è praticamente un inviluppo AR con attenuatore, settabile via switch in modalità LFO che modula in continuo un VCO. L'Attacco corto, da l'effetto dell'impatto e il Relese più lungo, la sensazione di coda della vibrazione di membrana e corpo della cassa.

L'onda modulata è filtrata in un VCF SSM2044 per aggiungere carattere, dinamica e risonanza. Dal VCF ho passato il suono in un VCA in tecnologia CEM usato per aggiungere ulteriore carattere e regolare la preamplificazione, prima di entrare nei Pre e Convertitori ADC AKM standard/onboard della scheda audio (ultra low jitter) RME HDSP2496.

I suoni son stati prima Campionati in un unico file e poi frammentati i campionamenti in questi file distribuiti, su SO GNU/Linux e Editor Audio FOSS, via server audio JACK@ALSA che permette controllare e sapere di non aver avuto perdite di dati nel flusso audio.

The sounds have been sampled in pristine quality with a high resolution audio server and here they are provided in both 32/96 and 24/44.1 formats.

DOWNLOAD

HASK Sampled feedbacks

My friend Hask Haskore is into Techno and Schranz since ages. His small studio is crammed with cool analog stuff and one day I asked him to make a few industrial samples for my blog.



There are many industrial things that can be done with his hardware:

Jomox X-Base 09
Akai XE8
Yamaha TX81-Z
Spectral Audio Neptune
Elka EM-44
Aria AR-525
Zoom 9150
Zoom 2100
Alesis 3630 Compressor
Boss OD-2r Turbo Overdrive
Boss Flanger BF-3

...so more posts are planned...

But what best to begin with than a bounce of crazy feedbacks?

All the samples came with a exaustive explaination on how they were obtained:

Feedbacks 1,2,3,4: Alesis 3630 Dual Channel Compressor/Limiter with gate with manipulation of Threshold and Ratio and filtered on the Neptune Spectral Audio Analog Synthesizer.

Feedback 5: Boss Turbo Overdrive OD-2r thorough Neptune and reverberated with Aria AR-525 Stereo Spring Reverb Unit.

Feedbacks 6,7,10: Zoom 9150 Valve DSP thorough Neptune plus additional feedback from Boss Turbo Overdrive OD-2r and reverberated with Aria AR-525 Stereo Spring Reverb Unit

Feedback 8,9: Same as 6-7-10 with no reverb but compression.

Something worth mentioning here is that since all sweeps are live performed he ran our of...hands... and had to borrow one from his father to tweak three knobs simultaneously. I like when doing music becomes a family affair :)

DOWNLOAD

HESED Industrial sample-kit

Claudio Hesed is a true analog freak, maybe even more than me! He's into tekno and electro since ages and composes his music using the Atari ST. An Italian citizen but moved to Germany years ago: a choice I should have done too...

Live pa and Producer of Electro,Experimental,Hip-hop,Tekno,Hardcore and much more.
Start to make and study music with 8 years old playing guitar in 1997 first contact with electronic music (ambient,electro), in 1998 start djing and producing with hardware. 2000 start to collect all atari machine possible ;-).
2004 start to work for Magix (music&video software) and learnt about mastering. Also making Sound Design for video, spot, theather and more.
Founder of Analog Tecne Model records label.

He makes some weird and unusual sample kits for Prokits.co.uk mainly from circuitsbend machine.

I asked him to send me some Industrial sounds and what I finally got is a beautiful set of DRM syncussion (HDB/Vermona) sampled through Metasonix R53 Vacuum-Tube Waveshaper which he agreed to publish on my blog!

DRM Filtered Kit

70 Samples recorded from analog devices.

45 Drum - 12 Snares - 8 Claps - 4 Hihat - 1 Special

The samples are coming out of a DRM syncussion (HDB/Vermona)
and filtered with Metasonix R53 Vacuum-Tube Waveshaper modul.

So download the kit and say THANX to Claudio!

DOWNLOAD

More sample kits from HESED

JoMoX percussions through Black Audio Destructor samples

The Black Audio Destructor (BAD!) does exactly what its name suggests: destroys audio! Anything fed is reduced to shreds.

The mode switch selects between Crunch mode, Saturated mode and Tone mode. In every mode the audio is distorted and ground up at a frequency selected by the frequency knob, Selecting Crunch mode with the switch in the upwards position gives a spluttering crunchy distorted sound that can sound like anything from an old fuzz pedal with a nearly dead battery, to a mixing desk with every light running in the red. In Saturated mode with the switch in the central position you get a much more intense effect, where the input signal and the effect signal start to blend into one mighty noise. In this mode you can get brutally saturated and distorted synth like tones running at the frequency of the input signal. The final mode is the Tone mode with the switch in the downward position. In this mode the box starts playing a constant tone at certain settings, with the input signal interacting with the tone in bizarre ways. With an input signal as a sweeping synth waveform we have managed to get pseudo ring modulator tones in this mode.

To test its full potential I needed something with a fierce output, something analog that can withstand this degree of audio degradation. A JoMoX X-Base 09 would be perfect!



So I borrowed the one from my friend Hask and started to experiment with snares, kickdrums and different layerings of them together, to see where how far the boundaries of harshness were.

The result is a unique and huge collection of Industrial hits, suitable for Powernoise, Techno, and maybe some hard EBM.

DOWNLOAD

My BLACK AUDIO DESTRUCTOR is on its way!

This nice piece of hardware from Circuitsbenders should be at my door in a day or two! I expect to spend all my weekend using it to process harsh percussions out of a JoMoX X-Base09!

Essentially this small black box eats audio alive, then chews it up and spits it out in what can only be described as a deeply offensive manner. Basically its a wrong'un! The box can create a wide range of bitcrushing style, gating, distortion and synthlike frequency effects with an intensity that can be anything from a gentle thin crunch to a terrifying wall of unstoppable noise.

"...a terrifying wall of unstoppable noise." ...YESS!!

Sampled feedbacks and larsens pt.1

Feedback is a creative key widely used in industrial music. I always find exciting to real-time feedback signals from and to various analog devices!



Its beauty remains intact also in the digital domain where further processing is possible. My friend Giulius spoke me about his hobby of sampling larsens and timestretching them until a total disturbing resonance is achieved. In a few days a DVD with four gigabytes of sampled stuff was spinning in my drive.

It's taking a while to select the worst out of it but I really think it's worth doing because the resulting material is really nice and will be useful.

Here is part 1 (11mb):

DOWNLOAD

My Thoughts about pedal FXs

Since a very long time I own the pictured pedals and now plan to get a few more to eventually circuit-bend them.



Back in the nineties, during my livesets, I used them to pimp a bit the audio output of my Amiga computer and they worked great, apart from a unbelievable background noise!

I see now a lot of interest about these old-school distortion pedals, BOSS or any other brand. This is maybe for these very strong points:

• They are cheap and sometimes even free, as lot of people get rid of them easily


• They are modular


• They can be Circuit-bent


• They are analog


• There are many of them, of many brands and many different effects


• They sound harsh, very good for industrial music

Plus there are many already circuit-bent units for sell on the net or E-bay.

So my opinion is that this machines will have a new life since they can be described as the analog plug-ins for the future!

KORG MS-20 Industrial Sounds

I'm borrowing a KORG MS-20 from my friends Armageddon Project. They're focusing more and more on just digital music so they felt like I would really employ it more than them so since two years the unit is in my studio.



This machine really needs no introduction as it is one of the most wanted analog vintage synthesizers of all times!

Even if I own a full MIDI2CV interface from Kenton the main use in my studio is as a filter, wired to a send of the mixer.

Another good use for it is for sound research and sampling safaris: here is a collection of Industrial Sounds in .WAV format done with it and with further analog processing.

DOWNLOAD

AKAI S900 as a Granular Synthesizer

The AKAI S900 is a wonderful machine for Industrial Music due to its harsh and powerful sounding 12bit AD-DA converters, so good I even run a BLOG about it!

During the last years I've been using it deeply in my productions and I've being experimenting the weirdest ways to employ it: from a distortion effect unit to a drum module.

Recently I've done an experiment with granular synthesis, small sampled waveforms looped to obtain a continuos sound.



I chopped some waveforms from my Roland SH-09 samplekit and MIDI dumped them into the AKAI S900. Usually I care about samples dimension as the S900 has only 720kB of unexpandable memory but sample waveforms, or "grains", are so small in size there's really no worry.

The waveforms sound quite close to the real SH-09, even when layering together the squarewave + SUBOSC the result is similar. What starts to go crazy is when I hit two different keys, blending two sounds at different pitches: the AKAI poliphony starts to show its limits so the harshness is guaranteed.

Being the SH-09 a typical techno machine the resulting sounds are quite oldschoolish but the screaming effects are of course totally different: here it's the AKAI S900 character showing off.

Of course this kind of experiment can be done with any waveform or with any sampler.

Here's a downloadable archive with the floppy .IMG for the lucky friends that own an AKAI S900 and the waveforms in .WAV format for anyone who wants to experiment with SH-09 waveforms with Kontakt or whatever.

DOWNLOAD

MAM WARP 9 Midi Analog Filter

An analog filter is a Swiss knife in the studio. It's useful for anything beyond filtering. The best use for me, however, is as distortion and saturation unit.

I've chased the WARP 9 for quite a long time, with the Sherman Filterbank being not exactly affordable I needed a valid alternative, fully MIDI capable.



The Warp 9 is completely 110% MIDI driven. Every single knob and function has its own Continuous Controller assigned and it's also possible to send information with note pitch and velocity. This it's possible to copy the score from a track and have the cutoff or other parameter dancing in sync with it. Not easy to explain, but the results are really interesting!

A Cubase MIDI panel for MAM WARP 9 is also available for free, letting the user manage the device nearly as if it was a VST plugin!



I'm quite loving this piece of hardware, it took a while before I was able to understand it fully but the results I'm getting now are satisfactory. The only disappointment is that it doesn't self-oscillate, so it cannot be used to produce percussions.

Two Delay units used to make stereo a Spring Reverb

I'm the lucky owner of a vintage Eagle Products Spring Reverb. It must be quite a rare device as Google knows nothing about it. Its sound is very typical but the possible settings are nearly zero.



Another weakness is that it's mono and since reverbs are used to widen the stereo image this makes it unusable to mix a song.

In my rack two Digital Delays that I had for free from friends were collecting dust: a Roland SDE-1000 and a Roland GP-8. Same brand, so they should sound similar...this is perfect for what I had in mind...




Phasers, Flangers, Reverbs, Echoes are always delays with different settings. In fact with about 20ms of delay and a bit of feedback a delay becomes a sort of reverb. With this in mind I ran a splitted cable out of the spring reverb so to feed the same mono signal into the two delay units configured as reverbs but with slightly different delay times. The resulting signals going back to the mixer were pan-potted to about 90%. Here I should have worried a little about phase correlation problems when processing low frequency material but I just didn't mind since I always center anything below 150hz when finalizing for vinyl.

Finally, I shaped the L+R return with a little EQ and the result is a lovely stereo effect!


Ingredients:

• Eagle Products Vintage Analog Spring Reverb


• Roland SDE-1000 Digital Delay


• Roland GP-8 Guitar Effect Processor