Welcome to another issue of Technolite

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In todays newsletter:

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1. Site Updates

2. Quick News

3. Free Loops

4. Video Tutorial.

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1. Large Updates.

For those of you who asked for them, I have made up a Sonar page. With long videos on Sonar 6 and Sonar 7. They can be checked out on the following link: Sonar.

I have also uploaded some interviews with some top profile DJs. Ferry Costen, Pete Tong and Tiesto. The Ferry video sound is of poor qualioty and it does fluctuate throughout the interview. The interviews are quite long and give an idea about how these DJs set up sets etc. They can be found at the following link: DJ interviews.

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2. Quick News

For those of you into Reason. You should of heard by now that Reason 4 has come out. Reviewed in Music Magazines it has got 9/10. Why not 10? Well they state number 4 is an evolution rather than a revolution, while still leaving out various things that people have asked for (modifiable key commands, audio track support etc). The main buzz on the grapevine is 2 things. 1. Thor. This is a bonkersly good synth that kicks anything that you may of heard on this earth as it can actually emulate any type of synth that you ask it to do. 2.RPG- An Arpeggiator that is screaming "I will be on every dance tune from Christmas onwards". A huge range of options. For example- The hold button which generates the arpeggio from the last note even though lifted until you press another key. Or a button that calls up the arpeggio only when multi keys are pressed.

Stay tuned for videos to come.

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3. 10 Free Loops

Over my holiday I knocked up some cool (I hope) beats for you. They are numbered like so: Beat22125. This means it is beat number 22, with tempo of 125. They are in zip format, MP3 and are compressed to 582k. The link is here:

http://www.make-top-techno-songs.com/Beats.zip

What you need to do is copy the link into your web browser, press enter and then "save" to an area on your hardrive. Unzip, then open up something like Audacity, then open one of the beats. Edit it if needed (usually a blank space at the start), then if needed export it off as a WAV.

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4. Video Tutorial.

Last issue we were chatting about extra commands that can be used to alter sound samples. Well now we have some samples sowhat on earth can we do with them? I have just prepared a video on how to use the holiday beats :) and it can be found here: Tutorial.

The link will open in a separate window. This video doesn't contain any voice narration, but contains some prompts that can be paused if you need to read them.

What I will do here though is explain what is going on, rather than writing it all in the video as it would just take too long to do.

First off we load into the sequencer our beat (you may hear a thud when I click on the sample, that is the beat being played if you left mouse click it once - like a preview). I place the beat (by pressing space bar to record) onto line 00. Now the beat is actually 32 bars long so I only want to play around with it so I put a D command on line 31 to loop it back to the start (so 00 to 31 is 32 lines or 32 bars). When I play the tune I look at the sample as well. This is to make sure that it is playing correctly. I notice that the start of the loop is empty so it is highlighted and deleted by pressing delete.

I want to play around with the loop to I fire it off at various intervals at the end and put a bar inbetween them. This drops the sound by 75% instantly so it is a smoothe cut off. This is done by pressing Caps Lock. I then use E93. This repeats the start of the sample by three times. So it sounds like a small roll. I know that the loop is 32 bars long but if you listen to it carefully it is really one loop played twice. With this in mind I can add some other notes close together (if they were added with spaces the timing would be well out and sound silly). Having higher notes sounds quite good and gives the beat a little kick.

Next I add the same loop to the next column. This is used in some ways to strengthen the sound or to add effects. What I used is E11. This jumps the sample out of time and forms a phaser effect. E11 can only be used with the same sample playing at the same note.

The baseline is from my favourite ASynth which we have used on countless occasions. It was just a small little line that I made up in a minute or so. I listened to the beat first, let it repeat and then tried to hum a baseline with it. That one worked at short notice. It also has some delay attached to it. This can be done by pressing on FX, going to the track which the baseline is being played on and then finding stero delay in the effects section and altering it to suit your taste.

Next we load up another sample beat. This is the same tempo so we don't have to worry about that. Because all the beats have been based on the same simple format, the same tempos all work together. So now our beat sounds fuller with extra percussion. What I then did was to add E92, then E93, E96 and E97.

Eh?

Remember that the E9 command repeats the sample on that specific line at a certain speed. We saw before that E93 was used to repeat the sample 3 times. So why can't we use E9 a few times and bunch it up going quicker (2) to slower (7)? And that is what happened. The sample on those lines are being repeated from quick to slow. It is just another use of the E9 command.

The main thing to think about is to practise and to experiment. Re-view the video and look at everything again. re-read the notes and view the video. What can go wrong as long as you regulary save your work?

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