by djnarrative | 31 Dec, 2013 | The Reckorder Project
Happy New Years Eve everyone! Hope you have a magical one tonight wherever you be. As a way of a musical gift i thought id share a selection of 12 mostly newish Dj Narrative mixes from of a range of genres for before or after the celebrations. Some tell a story, some are done in a day, and there's a couple of cool recent compilations, one of which contains my first release, and all are free downloads 1. A downtempo cinematic electronica one -http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zu8f19be6mmwm7c 2. A mixaday downtempo one - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/602505/Mixaday%201%20-%20Downtempo%20Mix%201%20%288th%20Oct%202013%29%20%28128kps%29.mp3 3. A mixaday breaks one - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/602505/Mixaday%203%20-%20Breaks%20Mix%20%2810th%20Oct%202013%29%20128.mp3 4. A mixaday techno one - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/602505/Mixaday%202%20-%20Techno%20Mix%20%289th%20Oct%202013%29%20128.mp3 5. A mixaday deep jungle one - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/602505/Mixaday%204%20-%20Deep%20Jungle%20%26%20Dnb%20Mix%20%2813th%20Oct%202013%29%20128.mp3 6. Dj Narrative Rhubarb Radio Show 1 (Zazen - Fear & Love Part 2).mp3 - http://www.mediafire.com/?2bvigq1u875blbe 7. Dj Narrative Rhubarb Radio Show 2 (Alone A Love Story & The Creative).mp3 - http://www.mediafire.com/?wjw1cf13cdjcmih 8. Dj Narrative Rhubarb Radio Show 3 (The Dj & The Tao & Live at Shambhala).mp3 - http://www.mediafire.com/?5d506llx50ja166 9. Beta Birmingham's 12 track Champagne Socialism Album of Remixes > https://soundcloud.com/.../sets/beta-004-champagne-socialism And 10. UK Glitch Hop's 25 track album of free downloads >http://ukglitchhop.bandcamp.com/ ----------------------- I've got a 6 track ep for free download from next month via my soundcloud account, and a new radio show starting in feb via the...
by djnarrative | 12 Apr, 2013 | The Reckorder Project
After a week of sorting 25, 000 records and 20, 000 samples into playlists i hopped back onto Ableton to knock together a deep dubsteppy track. It started with some Taiko drums, and ended with some samples from a documentary about how the criminal justice bill and thatcherism affected the unity of the rave scene. There's so much about on the social networks at the mo on Magaret Thatcher's recent death for obvious reason. The track started with just wanted to explore making a deep dubstep style track, but then i thought it would be interesting to juxta pose a few of the samples that id saved a while back from a documentary called the summer of love about raves in 88. The raves were a great step forward for unity in my book, and even addressed the growing violence in football so were initially welcomed by the police. After the cjb everything changed for the worse, and in an ideal world an evolved government would have in my opinion looked to enable the raves to grow into safe spaces, and build on the many positives they held before the criminals started to scavenge. When the violent gangs started taking over the festivals for their own monetary gain the whole scene changed, and the cjb shut down any attempt to revive the positive side. In my view there is a parallel between the capitalist rich conservative & the bully boy type gang, with both opting out of personal gain, with little to no awareness or thought to the whole. Ironically, one seems to be born out of the other,...
by djnarrative | 25 Dec, 2012 | The Reckorder Project
Wishing anyone who reads this a very merry xmas. Here are 12 mixes and an album of remixes that i posted on one of my other sites. Hope you enjoy them and have a great...
by djnarrative | 10 Mar, 2012 | Reckorder Tutorials
This month's tutorials feature a great breakbeat masterclass from Tommy D (Ctrlz Z/Skism) and a wicked free analyser which has really helped define that solid kick and the snare starting point, as well as mixing the kick and the bass so they sit well together. Following last months tutorials, and in particular the information about getting that kick and snare sitting in their rightful place, i went searching for a better analyser. I was using abletons built in one but i really wanted something bigger and more versatile. After trying out a fair few demos of favoured one like Roger Nichols Xl Inspector and Blue cat I found Voxengo Span. This is a free audio analyser thats not only nice and clear but also allows you to view 2 channels at once (e.g the kick and the bass) After watching this tutorial on how to use it (dont be put off by the fact its trance production like i was - its easily the best how to ive found for span) i was then able to really produce my tracks and deal with any of the issues of conflicting frequencies that i was facing previously As a starter dish, i would also like to put forward one of the best masterclasses i have seen. Tommy D from Ctrl Z/Skism offering up a very thorough, honest and engaging walkhrough of how he remixed the freestylers track - Ruffneck. How it relates to Span analyser is that I remember when i first watched this it covered really well how to get those phat kicks and punchy snares hitting at the right...
by djnarrative | 5 Apr, 2011 | Reckorder Tutorials
So our first studio session of 2011 was with the hugely talented Mike Freear of Alphadrive fame and was a thoroughly enjoyable and very productive few weeks in the studio which resulted in the aforementioned Slamboree. Things are looking like they will be getting increasingly more hectic in pushing forward with Slambo, but i wanted to drop a short post about a few of the things i learnt in the studio as this was one of the main ideas for the site and initial reckorder project. As i mentioned in first slamboree post - the music and set came together incredibly quickly within the first 3 days and that was largely a result from using existing material, working creatively with loop manipulation, and having a set goal to make tracks that could be adapt to live musicians with minimal rehearsal. Our 2 ways of working were really different with Mike on a laptop and acid pro and me on a ableton with various midi controllers. I'd also been getting heavily into sound design and synthesis and Mike was a ninja at manipulating loops. Regardless of the difference of approach the first thing that was essential to workflow was to : Maintain a well organised library This seems like such an obvious thing to say, but its amazing how out of control and therefore unusable libraries can become. Like a well groomed music collection, It can take days or even weeks of listening, naming and editing samples, sounds and patches, and getting rid of all the sounds that just aren't up to scratch for whatever reason. Both of us have...
by djnarrative | 5 Nov, 2010 | Reckorder Tutorials
Sidechaining was something that used to confuse me but then i saw an early video by Tom Cosm who simplified the process nicely. Basically sidechaining is using one audio source to trigger a compressor on another audio source or in more simple terms, it is normally used for making room for the kick to punch through as the kick and the bass occupy similar frequencies. This can be done by manually drawing in volume changes so each time the kick hits the bass is lowered, or more easily this can be done using a compressor with a side chain function. Abletons compressor has a side chain built in or if you use another sequencer here's a nice free one. He's since posted a more specific video which evolves the process further so to keep things nice and simple here it is. An earlier video i had bookmarked is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tv7gAi2OKY and when using cubase Sx i had this youtube video bookmarked which have been useful in the past. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHfN9yeuoew&feature=related Hope thats useful and any comments or tips please let us know in the comments below...
