Yamaha RX-11 Samples

Hey everyone. I wanted to give away something awesome to the production enthusiasts that follow me on my facebook page.  Pictured above is one of my vintage drum machines, the Yamaha RX-11.  The RX-11 was of the first 8-bit sample based drum machine and considered a super modern piece of equipment back in the early 80′s. It was famously used in Sade’s “Sweetest Taboo”.  I recently gathered my favorite drum machines, the RX-11 being one of them, and recorded each sample in 48k, 24bit.  It’s worthwhile to note that my Berl B2 Bomber was used as the analog to digital converter in the recording process – so these samples are super high quality.   Each sample is separated and named so you can easily plug them into your sampler or pop em into your arrangement timeline.  Just a little thank you for being awesome!

You can download them here
Enjoy the samples.

R

Action Remix

If you were a kid in the 90s and ever got luice at your 7th grade dance chances are you were doing it to this record. Such a smash. Jillionaire and I remixed the ting as a teaser for our up coming release “Hey”. If you’ve been living in another galaxy for the past 2 years you may not know that Jillionaire has been melting faces all over the planet (literally) alongside Diplo and Walshy Fire in Major Lazer. He also used to train dogs, ran 16 restaurants at once and makes awesome fried rice. Swag.

MNDR: Feed Me Diamonds Remix

The more I heard the original version of Feed Me Diamonds the more I loved MNDR’s voice. It’s like Ronnie Spector on steroids. I really wanted to remix the record  in a way that showcased her amazing vocal performance but completely diverted away from the original production.  As I played the piano along to her vocal I realized that production is going to need more real instruments.  Aside from having to play all the instruments (except the string section) on the record what really made this a fun project was that this was the first remix I’ve done that had no electronic aspect to it at all and that I would be mixing it using analog equipment rather than kept within the Pro Tools session.

 Since my idea was to make the remix sound like MNDR hopping in a time machine back to 1967, I kept most of the instrumentation and gear selection as vintage as I can – from using a ’67 Telecaster for the guitars to a 70′s Ludwig drum set. For mixing I heavily employed some vintage Neve 1081′s and Chandler TG-1 compressor based on the TG-1 compressor that was used in Abbey Road back in the 60′s and 70′s.

Marching Snare V-EQ4 Settings

Happy Winter 2013 everyone. I was mixing a record I had produced and one of the elements that the artist requested to have in the track was a “marching band snare” like the one made famous by Major Lazer’s Pon De Floor. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last 4 years you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve probably also noticed a lot more Pop oriented dance records have been using some type of variation of this type of snare as either their main drum pattern or during a drop transition. Not that I think it’s a bad thing I happen to love it. In recent independent dance records I’ve heard, more often than not the producer will simply chop up the Pon De Floor sample and create a whole new pattern. As cool as that may be, if you are a more ambitious producer who likes to sequence their own drums I have something that may help you out: EQ Settings for a great sounding marching band type snare that will sit nicely in your mix.

Here is an example taken straight from the song I was mixing. All parts of the mix have been removed except snare, kick and a white noise filter effect:

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In case you’re curious the snare sound I used to sequence the pattern was from Native Instruments Abbey Road 70′s Drums sound bank and the EQ settings are for Wave’s V-EQ4 which model the Neve 1081. The EQ is tailored so that the low end of the snare doesn’t interfere with your kick and there is just enough mid-range to accommodate a vocal.

You can download the settings HERE and feel free to let me know what you think.

Shredding On a Washing Machine

This kid could make some real loot if he took his washer into the subway

Mindblown

sorry

Merry Christmas!

New Year, New Site, Nu Shooz

Nice to see you again Interwebz. Happy to see you survived the apocalypse.  After a super long time I finally have the newest website on the planet. My old server that I had since like 1893 was bought and sold so many times that whoever became the new owner, I guess, forgot they even owned it.  I along with a ton of other people who owned sites on that server lost ability to access our sites, #internetproblemz, and it became almost impossible to transfer my domain to a more reliable host.  But after 39 years and a lot of long distance phone calls here we are.

In the time I’ve been away I’ve started up my production company Sevensound Recording Co. and built our studio  in the East Village, NYC.  I’ve been busy producing  a lot of great artists including NYC’s own Cherie Lily and Cazwell. Speaking of Cherie Lily, I’ll be DJing her EP release party along with MNDR, who just melted David Letterman’s face 0ff a couple of days ago on live TV, and Vjuan Allure one of my favorite DJ’s. The party is also going to be hosted Andrew W.K.  So if you’re not at that party then I guess you didn’t survive the apocalypse.

K bye.