Spring reverb is here again! And here to celebrate it are a septet of sonic explorations of the vernal variety.
Special thanks to @electricthing, @monquixote, @pandanaut, @rosiusyves, and @Seadub for playing along and all who took part i the thread.
Players, please have your votes in by the end of day on May 15th!
Judging rules will be posted right below this one!
JUDGING RULES:
ALL VOTES MUST BE IN BY
END OF DAY
FRIDAY, MAY 15th!
Three simple rules:
ENJOY & GOOD LUCK!!!
Thanks to the King once again!
Feedback coming soon.
Yeah there is some really good stuff in here. Great mix of classic genre-conforming DnB, intellectual and experimental stuff, poppy stuff, and just plain weird stuff—sometimes all in the same track!
Indeed nice variety. Enjoyed my first listen. 
Really liked them!! Going for these as my favorites 
Track 2 - 3 points (Really vibey!)
Track 6 - 2 points
Track 3 - 1 point
Here’s my picks!
Track 6 - 3 points. Really clean and well done, nice usage of the birds. Well mixed, on top of that.
Track 5 - 1.5 points. I really like the vibe of this one, it’s pretty menacing, my only gripe is mixing - the aggressive bass comes on too loud IMO, and since it’s a bit of a droney sound, it takes up a lot of space in the mix. I think some refinement and modulation here would really take the track up a notch. Well done otherwise.
Track 1 - 1.5 points. Super clean track and well mixed. I am not sure what the spring hook is, I can’t tell if the samples are German, but either way very cool. I think this track could be elevated even further by adding more dynamic contrast between the front and back halves - for example, the back half could have added more shakers or cymbals to increase the intensity a little.
I guess I can’t add any more for risk of spoiling which track I am, but I have thoughts on all tracks and I think every one has something going for them.
If half points are not allowed let me know LOL
Track 4: 3 points: Frank Zappa goes DnB? Love it.
Track 2: 2 points: love how the stabs interact
Track 3: 1 point: experimental, sounddesign
Great playlist - thank you @KingDuppy for the sequencing and organizing this battle.
Track 2 – 3 points:
This track gives me really cool LTJ Bukem vibes. I especially enjoyed the water sounds, the pads, and the fact that it features at least two distinctive bass lines.
Track 6 – 2 points:
I also really enjoyed the final track on the playlist. It has a great atmosphere, and the chord progressions and arrangement work really well together.
Track 3 – 1 point:
This track gives me somewhat dub-inspired vibes. I like the bass lines and the overall atmosphere of the track.
Well done a short, but really high quality playlist.
3 points - Track 2 - Love the rain sounds, really awesome bass, just a really well put together D&B track
2 points - Track 6 - Another fantastic liquid D&B sound could easily have put this in first place.
1 point - Track 5 - Another super strong entry and great samples but mixing maybe not quite as on point as the others.
My votes and notes…
2 POINTS to TRACK 4
Number one with an effin’ bullet. Sorry for the profanity but yeah I just fucking love this one. Holy crap. I knew it would be tough to unseat as soon as I heard it. A- on concept, A+ on execution. I notice that some of the best songs in these battles tend to also be funny, like somehow instrumental music can have the jokes, and this one does that. It’s funny and smart and also heartfelt.
1.5 points to TRACK 6
Classic sound, well executed, and a good evocation of a spring day. This almost beat out Track 1 as the opener. Along with Track 2, this one felt like the music did the best job evoking the spring season (as opposed to the samples or other inspiration). Like, I think you could replace the bird sounds with an instrument and it would still feel like a song for spring. Very well done.
1.5 points to TRACK 2
Good energy. I really liked the rain SFX—here in north Jersey the spring always brings soaking rain so this felt very seasonal to me. I also liked the bass line. Funky but not overbearing. I also liked the major-key shift in the chorus, which helped support the seasonal spring feel of the whole thing.
On a second listen, I really like the subtle glitching on the rain SFX. Understated in just the right way. I wish the higher synth part was a little less smeary, though I assume that’s part of the aesthetic you were going for.
TRACK 3—Was me (duh)
.75 points to TRACK 1
Good sound. Perfect intro track. Choice snare programming, good groove, made me move my hips. Also very much enjoyed the bassline/chord progression. Fun vocal treatment (I have no idea what the words mean). Great sound design. Very tight and controlled. Makes me wish it had a bigger or more climactic finish . . . I’m picking up the end of winter here, but I didn’t quite feel like the spring herself was given enough stage time, musically. I agree with @pandanaut’s notes about the ending—with a little more work on the back half this is a standout track.
HT because I ran out of points to TRACK 5
Love this one too. Another mix of fun and menace. I like all the stop start action and the eery sense of time. Extremely enjoyable.
Which means the results are…
CHAMPION TITLE
belongs to @pandanaut / Magsilver
for track 2, “Springdark"
with 13 points!
2nd Place
goes to @electricthing
for track 6, “Spring has sprung”
with 10.5 points!
3rd place
goes to @monquixote
for track 4, “Rites of Jungle”
with 4.5 points!
Full track titles and artists have been updated in the playlist.
Thanks so much to everyone for playing and listening!
Stay tuned for the next Drum & Bass/Jungle Battle Mission Brief,
landing THIS WEEKEND!
In the meantime, feel free to keep the thread going with your (constructive!) feedback, track breakdowns, struggles, goals, alternate takes, abandoned sketches, and whatnot.
-KD
Wow. Thank you all for the feedback. This is legit the first time my music ever gets taken seriously so it feels like a nice bit of validation. 
Here’s my remaining two track notes!
Track 3: i think they’re real ambition here and I did like the vibe. Main piece of feedback for me is the mixing - basically the dueling breaks are pretty cool, but then when the actual kick / snares hit around the midpoint, they’re a bit quieter than the other drums. I feel like some small changes on that front would pay off big time.
Track 4: absolutely insane in the brain. This a purely subjective note, but I personally can’t stand chiptuney square waves for some reason, they sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. Honestly? I’d replace the square wave, and add some stutter / glitch FX, and you’re getting into Squarepusher territory IMO. Don’t know if I missed an obvious spring connection?
So glad to hear that!
Thanks! Yeah, I made the whole thing on the Digitakt and I didn’t have the comp set right on those last patterns. Ran out of time to fix before the deadline was up. I had trouble coming up with an ending and I think you can tell the second half doesn’t have the same polish as the first. I’ll keep working.
It’s a cover of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, ala SID it would seem. Sixfiveeightone Sid Stravinsky!
Aaaarrrghh bass in my mix 
(track 5)…
I used my Octatrack and recorded everything live, unmuting tracks, fading, effects… and mixing levels of course.
I think I might have tried 30 times before settling on this version. Really enjoyed the process but the mix was all over the place in a single track recording.
Congrats @pandanaut
Yeeeeh, 2nd place. Thanks, guys.
I started late. I could not get the track really musically interesting though I like the sound. I agree with @monquixote 's comment.
I made a drumpart in Live inspired by Liquid DnB. Exported into MC-707. With FL Studio Speech I made parts of the lyrics of You make me feel so young’ (F.Sinatra). Take5 for a pad and 2 bassparts.
Exported into Live. Arranged, made the pad a shorter stab with dubdelay. Recorded Blofeld and Take 5. Exported everything into MC-707 again to use the MFX filter, Scatter and other fx. Recorded those versions into Live.
Sampled the Reed Bunting’s video into SP 404 mk2 and pitched it down.
Thanks @KingDuppy and all beatmakers for a pleasant ride. You can call my track Spring has sprung.
As @KingDuppy says it’s a cover of Glorification of the Chosen one by Stravinsky from the Rite of Spring. Otherwise known as the bit with the dinosaurs from Fantasia.
Not an easy connection to make I guess 
The mixing comments make sense if you guys have been working directly on Octa or Digitakt. Mine was Maschine+ into MPC Live 3 like the previous one, which is sort of a “cheat” when you think about it (i.e. DAW-lite machines versus single instruments).
The main melody/stabs were taken from one of the Maschine kits, but heavily modified both in terms of sample selection and processing. I retuned them to make them fit into the scale, the interaction between stabs was very much was I aimed for and I’m glad it paid off. The bassline was a pretty standard Monark preset.
I would like to integrate DN2 and/or MD into the next one, but it’s kinda hard to justify the effort unless I’m looking for a specific aesthetic direction.
Props for the Stravinsky cover! I am too ignorant to have noticed that unfortunately, never really been into classical music.
Finally, the rain was the only obvious theme I could think of in terms of spring. We’ve basically not had spring here in Canada this year, cold and miserable and raining all the time. I’m tired boss.
Congrats to @pandanaut , @electricthing and @monquixote . Well deserved.
My track was the first one (which is an honor in itself to be first). Thank you @KingDuppy and @pandanaut for your points. I appreciate your nice words but also your criticism regarding the energy at the end of the track.
I took the vocal parts from this track.
The vocal track is taken from an old song by a famous actor/singer in Germany (Manfred Krug). He was popular in East Germany, criticized the government, was banned from working and was then allowed to migrate to West Germany. After this he also got popular in West Germany (as an actor). Especially in East Germany he was also known as a Jazz singer and this 1972 song celebrates spring.
The sampled lyrics in German mean " When it gets green outside, all I can think of is love." and
“It comes over me and breaks my heart”. There is some delay on it and I changed the pitch a bit.
To be really honest, I was very sure, that nobody would understand this relationship between the vocals and spring (which is completely ok).
My track was done in Ableton Live. I used Vital for the Wob-sound and tried to make a call&response baseline. The string patch was stock Ableton - I couldn’t come up with anything better. The short lead phrase was done with Wavetable. I finally used T-Racks One as a mastering/limiter plugin (got a whole bunch of IK Multimedia plugins for almost no money and I try to get used to them).
I also sampled Rite of Spring in my track so it was already in my head. But I’m sure Mr Caruso, my high school music teacher, would be proud that he was able to teach me at least something.