StudioNet SamplePack Competition January 2009's Page

All StudioNet members are invited to vote for their favorite track entered into this month’s competition
- Contestant must vote for one, ONLY ONE, of their peer’s track. Contestants cannot vote their own track
- Any member can vote ONLY ONE TIME for their favorite track
- Use the ‘Add a Comment’ box below to cast your vote. Type in the name of the Author of the track you most liked and briefly tell us why this was your favorite track (it is all about talking music!)

All contestants are invited to message TCWebtime with a brief ‘Making Of’ of your track (it is all about discussing Making Music!). These brief info will be added to this page ASAP:
- Samples used
- Equipment/Software used
- Techniques used to create your sounds and mix

Note: The first track in the playlist, from Alex, cannot be voted. Alex stepped down from the competition because he was key in organising it and he is also our MTM DVD Editor (End his track is a bit too good :0).

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Competition Mix: By Alex Holmes - Track 2.
Samples Used : CITRUSTREATS8EFLAT,606 Broken Beat, D-Beam Basehead, Bass Synths,
Drum Patterns 1-4
Software Setup: Logic Studio (EXS sampler and various Logic Plug-ins) + Vintage Warmer
and Ozone on Master

Intro: Citrus keys cut into tiny chunks then triggered repetitively with
delay to create intro.
Thick Pad: Bass note cut out and detuned to create thick pad.
Aditional sound: Another bass note cut out and distorted through Amp Simulator...
Rising synth noise: Another bass note pitched up and fed through Ring Modulator for rising synth noise
+: Various automated filter sweeps and MIDI programmed drum fills.

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Socrates Wore Sandals : By Astral Traveller - Track 3.
Samples Used : 606 Broken Beat, Drum Patterns 1 – 4, Bass Synths, ClaviaNord88Loop_2_E_Flat, Mid Synths.
The Task Brief : After manipulative auditioning of all the samples, I decided to formulate a Piano, Drums, Bass, Sliding Guitar, Synth and Bells contemporary composition. I wanted it to sound like real people had played it and to be as clean and concise as possible. I went for purity of sounds and simplicity of structures that expounded a resonant pleasantness to the ear with a juxtapositioned lugubrious over wash of spatial spaciousness.
Tools Employed : Sound Forge 9.0, Reason 3.0, Acid Pro 6.0, Waves and Sonitus Plug ins.

Sample Preparations : I loaded each sample into SF90, Up sampled everything to 24bit 88,200K in order to move the noise floors down and increase working resolution before any editing. Performed sample clean ups where required, removed any DC offsets and converted MP3 files to WAV. Spectrum Analysed all samples to check fundamentals and harmonics. Then edited and sliced up the samples into constituent elements.
DAW Manoeuvres : Decided that the Instrumentation and effectuations of the edited sample elements would be created from within RSN30 and recorded into SF90 on a track-by-track basis to make up the Socrates Wore Sandals song loops, each track would then be inserted into AP60 for arrangement, mixing and standard EQ and Compression processing. The final mixdown would then be recorded back into SF90 from AP60 @ 16bit 44.100K. Mastering of the final stereo mix was done inside SF90 using Sonitus EQ and Waves L3 Multimaximizer. Finally the 16bit 44.100K Master was encoded to MP3 @ 320Kbps and 192Kbps.
Reason Instrumentations : Drum patterns created in Redrum, Bass Synth created in NN-XT + Matrix, Slide Guitar patterns created in NN19 + Matrix + RV7000, Piano patterns created in NN-XT + Matrix, Bells created in NN-XT + Matrix, Synth patterns created in NN-XT + Matrix.
Reason FX and Processing : MClass EQ, MClass Compressor, MClass Maximizer, PH90 Phaser, DDL1 Digital Delay Line, CF101 Chorus / Flanger, UN16 Unison, RV7000 Advanced Reverb, Combinator Default Mastering Suite.
Acid Pro Processing : Sony Track EQs, Sonitus Track Compressors, Sonitus Bus EQs, Sonitus Bus Compressors.
Thanks,
Astral Traveller.

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Competition Mix: By Jason Gray aka jace - Track 8.
Equipment used: Sonar 8 / Ableton / Camel Phat

First : I organised some of the Orig.... samples until i got a rough song, the Drums where Individualy Arranged, and pitched up and down, i also forged a tougher kick and snare by layering a couple of instances each slightly different, i also used: Camel phat - camel Space Effect, on some of the percussive hits , this gave rise to some new and intersting Drum sounds and drum delays.
Midi Conversion And sampler : I Also used the Cakewalk Sonar v-vocal to extract the midi pattens from the Competition sample pack/audio samples, these where then sent back into ableton, and small sections of the original samples where added to ableton sampler, then with a bit of shuffling and editing of this existing midi only,I layed out a new Midi arrangement, but I did not add any midi that was not already their.
Sections : I went through these processes about three time, i then took the best sections from each song version and put them together to make an entirly new song, added a bit more modulation, reverb and delay via camel space once again.
Basically: i just mashed, manipulated, pitched, re-sampled and layered to get my end result.

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Competition Mix: By Morr - Track 10.
Equipment used: Reason / Soundforge / Recycle

Approach: Well, took the bits from the sample pack, created a DnB loop by cutting up the samples and layered the beats. Took the melodies and chopped those up and added some heavy delayz. That's it really.

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Unwaltzing: By Shuffling Strangefoot - Track 11
Samples used: 606 Broken Beat, Bass Synths, Drum Patterns 1-4, Lead Synths 1 - 2, Mid Synths, Rather Large Trance Hook (I think)
Software: Logic Pro 8 plus native plugins, Kontakt 3, Soundhack PitchDelay+, Crysonic Spectraphy LE, Rob Papen Predator FX
Right, I woke up at 8 this morning and got an email saying this competition was closing tonight, so I thought I'd give it a go for my own sense of discipline, otherwise I might have kicked myself. So, forgive me if it's a little short, but I've got a massive headache, and now it's over, I'm going to go and relax.
I used 2 instances of Kontakt with multiple outputs, and created instruments based on loops of the samples or spliced beats. To create reversed parts, I just exported small clips, imported them as aiffs and reversed them.
The 5/4 beat is because it was the idea I woke up with. :)
If you want to know anymore, please give me a nudge or something.

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ROUGH ME UP! By TC Webtime - Track 12
Samples used: 606 Broken Beat - Bass Synths - Rather Large Trance Hook
Software Setup: Logic Studio (Logic Plugs: EQ/Verb/Etc...) - Kontakt, Guitar Rig, Kombinat, Volcano - Vintage Warmer & Ozone on Stereo Out

I mangled the above 3 samples into about 8 different sounds.
Intro FX: section of "Rather Large Trance Hook" - EQ work and created a filter setup in Volcano to morph the sound into a bubbly escalating thing.
Intro Pad: "Rather Large Trance Hook" - EQ to tame the sound and kill off the top end I didn't need in this case. Created a filter setup in Volcano to get the long-constant base 'woooo' sound under the moving pattern and to get rid of mid-low range that I didn't want
Intro Noise-Beat: "606 Broken Beat" - Sample in Kontakt and sliced it up then edited slices/pitch to get this glitchy rhythm pulsating special FX. Added some saturation in Kombinat then some EQ. Hint of reverb. Plenty of automation to get the sound twisted as it sounds now. For the middle section these sounds keep going but with different pitch and FX treatment to get different sounds out of it with a bit more body.
Main Beat: "606 Broken Beat". Had two tracks going on in parallel, one less edited and one where sections of the beat have been twisted/reversed/FXed/etc Plus some EQ, distorsion, etc...
Bass: "Bass Synths" mangled into the growling bass sound you hear in the track. Pitched down, EQ'ed, Compressed and Guitar Rig processing.
High Pitch FX: "Rather Large Trance Hook" Pitched up, compressed.
Evil voices: "606 Broken Beat". Two different tracks of this to alternate. Beat sample mangled into evil liquid organic scratching sound for the ending. (EQ, Compression, Reverb, Saturation, Filters, automation...)
+ Automation, compression, limiting here and there.

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