Drum Programming on the OT

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Fellow Elektronauts,

What is the best practise for creating really groovy drum breaks like Amon Tobin style on the Octatrack ?

I have been sampling lot of classic breaks and exporting them as 1 -2 bar loops from Ableton into Octatrack and then playing around with slicing them.

But I feel I am not getting the desired result and sexiness :slight_smile: I would get with MIDI…if I was using Ableton’s Sampler…

But then I love the spontaneity of Octatrack and the non destructive audio slicing with FX and Retriggering.

Any advice fellow Elektronauts ?

Thanks !

#2

I’ve tried this for a long time, on the computer as well as on the OT. I absolutely love Amon and lots of his drums blow me away. Concerning glitch effects and slicing of break beats I think the OT is the perfect choice. His drums sound so big sometimes even if they come from classic breaks. I think key techniques for those big sounding drums are heavy compression and especially layering. However it’s difficult to tell when his beats are programmed and when he takes whole loops. On his older jazzier stuff there are a lot of long fills and even drum solos. I think this can’t be programmed in this detail, he sampled and used whole sections. What he also does very often is to layer various breaks on top of each other. He anyway says in many interviews, that all his drums are midi programmed slices.
For me 4 ton mantis features the most massive and groovy drums I’ve ever heard.

1 Like
#3

Yeah, I have also read his interviews where he talks about putting all the samples on his Akai sampler then importing them into Cubase and resampling again.

I am trying out Recycle, seems a better way to achieve this and chop up samples before I bring them to OT.

#4

He also mentioned heavy use of filters and resampling.I’d love to know which beats are programmed entirely and which are just whole loops from records. Anyway, great artist.
This might be handy achieving those kind of breaks.

1 Like
#5

Thanks checking it out. Here is a very informative older interview of Amon

1 Like
#6

Hears a great thread about the video Unifono posted
It’s a really cool way to set up breaks on the OT.
Complicated, tedious to set up, and tricky to understand, but once you do, it’s fantastic.:elot::heart:

https://www.elektronauts.com/t/octatrack-64-breakbeat-x-16-slices-megabreak-of-doom/337

1 Like
#7

Layering for sure,
What I have been trying, I just got my octatrack mind you, has been to sequence a top line or a glitchy percussive line in the octatrack and then playing in kicks and snares on my mpc with the pads. Best of both worlds!
It helps for the feel to have some parts played in, then adjust the micro timing in the octatrack to match the groove!

#8

I had the S6000 for a while and was triggering it via my MnM. I can totally see how that sampler lent it self well to Amon Tobin style drums. It has a very tight clean sound and darn easy to use, massive storage and the screen was killer sitting above the MnM.
I had an external CF card reader 8GB.
I recently sold it to shore up some cash for the MD UW.
A decision I already regret but I got the S6K for $125.00 bucks so I made a few on the deal. My favorite album is Out from Out where. When I try to dissect his music in my head or if I ever came close to some of sounds he makes, I imagine he used a combination of signal hits and short loops detuned up or down reversed or alternating tones of External filtering and perhaps a little in the Akai.
Perhaps he even replayed and resampled as he went just filling up the sampler with shit he might not even use in the end.
If you were to set aside a week to build up an 80 sample drum Program on the S6K you could have a great base for later jamming. I know in one SOS interview he talks about how much of vibe killer it is to sit down and build drum programs but its a crucial part of the process. I know for me it was exciting tedious at the same time. You can hear where some drum hits have not tails and others are loops that fade in and out via filters or Amp ENVs. I think a no rules approach explains the weird combination of sounds he mashes together. It works or it doesn’t. Im sure some of his approach can be recreated on the Octatrack if you lay down sequenced single his with mangled loops overtop or just resample again and again till something works.
I’m sure allot of edits came later as well perhaps even in the 11th hour maybe on the big mixing desk? Amon probably works his beats to the point of exhaustion. No pain no gain and don`t be afraid to make mistakes because thats when interesting things happen. To be honest as much as I love his work I find it very hit and miss which leads me to think he really just works hard and pushes hard and throws away allot of what does not work.
A pretty vibe driven approach not to mention his years of experience.
Thats my 2 cents if it of any help.

#9

Twisted Tools S-layer might be worth checking out…
Then make chains or just individual hits, S-layer is all the swearwords amazing.

#10

Many of Amon Tobin’s extended drum solos are entirely sampled from breaks and are not programed in MIDI. He uses heavy compression from hardware compressors. Listen to some of Buddy’s Rich’s drum solos and you’ll recognize some of his breaks. Check out http://www.whosampled.com/Amon-Tobin/ to see how he flip’s the original samples.

He uses this exact drum break in one of his songs.
Buddy Rich’s Mercy Mercy Mercy

More so than being a drum programmer, Amon Tobin is is unusually excellent in selecting good sources from which to sample (He admits to not being a musician and not knowing any music theory). For example his song Slowly takes its main melody from the intro of this reggae song.

Listen to all the great jazz drummer (Rich, Krupa, Jones, Art, Roach) and take snippets from their drum solos and use Octatrack beat matching or pre-timestretch them to use in the crossfader breakbeat trick. It’s extremely difficult (IMO impossible) if your not a drummer to replicate the subtle snare rolls, hi-hat accents, asymmetric time signatures etc. in pure MIDI programming and having it sound as natural and organic as a sample of a professional jazz drummer.

2 Likes
#11

Good suggestion to experiment.

#12

Thanks for your input Noby, yes I have red that SOS interview…I think its a fully and trial and error approach initially and preparation of the breaks in 4/4 timed to metronome.