Espy

Workin on a patcher preset that takes advantage of some free Airwindows plugins. This is basically how I process my drums but in one plugin (but minus the glue compression at the end). It's a reference to the Mackie 1202 mixer which was quite popular in 90s/00s Drum and Bass/Jungle circles. But mine is not 100% faithfully copying it. I just like the overall vibe of that time period. Under Flavor, "Clipper/Exciter Amt." handles the clipping by ZOutputStage, which is basically a clipper. That gets tossed into Mackity, which is Airwindows' version of the Mackie 1202 mixer (and is what inspired my drum processing chain to begin with) and it's controlled by the "Intensity" dial. Tone is just handled by FL's stock transient designer. The attack will either strengthen or reduce the immediate transient while the release I found to expand the energy of some percussion if turned to the right, or tightens up the groove if turned to the left. EQ is self explanatory. Mids is a fairly gentle bell curve at around 630 Hz while Treble is a fairly gentle high shelf curve at 8700 Hz. The default position is at 12'o'clock which is flat/no frequency adjustments. I should say that all of them are minimally unaffected at 12'o'clock. That's more or less where I have my personal chain running at. Oh, and there's a button for a 6 dB gain reduction before the signal gets processed if the signal is coming in too hot. There's also a safety clipper after that acts as a way to protect from hearing damage as much as possible. It uses Airwindows ClipOnly2! Technically I could do it with FL's Waveshaper or putting a stock soft clipper or something else, but I think ClipOnly2 does it the best. But anyways, it can be bypassed if desired since maybe someone has their own clipper they want to use afterwards. I hope the UI design is okay too. I think it came out quite nicely Internally it's nothing too fancy. I might make some slight changes so I'll post audio examples later. Ima go nap

lol why are y'all telling a beginner with a limited budget to not get beginner gear that's priced towards those with a limited budget? It ain't as bad as you're saying.

Imma bump this. 1. I accidentally messed up my template and I don't have backups of it (oops), so I'm remaking it with some little changes to prepare for the upcoming FL 25 update (the mixer is getting a big update I think) 2. I discovered you can use Patcher with only instances of Fruity HTML NoteBook to specifically load up certain resources. It's super convenient and you don't need to go back and forth between browsers! It stays on the screen which is why it's convenient. In the below image, I can load up a reverb plugin to get these specific numbers in since I'm kinda bad at math and don't want to spend time opening up the calculator and doing it (it's not that difficult but it can get tedious). It can even load offline webpages if you tell it to look at a local file coded in HTML instead of directly on the web. This isn't my page but it's from one that I stumbled upon and have been using for a bit since it's so clean. Well, it loads in another webpage that isn't as clean so I kinda found the link to just the calculator and yoinked it and boom, it loads automatically. I might make a local version myself but I would have to dust off my coding skills. super convenient! Pls trust me 3. Trying to use sends more but Fruity Send is a bit confusing even though it's explained so simply. I get how it works but when I set it up, it wasn't working like how other people had it. I'll figure it out though, I'm probably misunderstanding something.

Hey just want to quickly give my personal insight into sampling. Been doing it a lot and having fun with it lately! What is sampling? Simply put, it's taking portions of other songs and using them to make something new out of it. Back then before computers and digital files became more accessible, the method was to walk into a record shop and pick out a record that catches your eye. This causes it to be quite controversial with the main argument being that you didn't make the source material; someone else did. It's popularly used in genres like hip hop and EDM, but it's also been used in elsewhere. Yes even in rock, jazz and orchestral pieces. Yes, sample libraries count. A company had to record instruments individually in little snippets so they can be played back and programmed via MIDI through a dedicated player, such as Kontakt. Sample libraries help make it more accessible if you don't have the means to have certain instruments on hand and they're less controversial. (This is all oversimplified.) This is different than remixing, which is taking basically the entirety of a song and changing it without making it too unrecognizable from the source. Nowadays, royalty free sample packs and sample libraries have since become a more accessible, legal alternative to the old way of sampling other songs. (Not that the latter still isn't done.) You can find them basically anywhere, but some of the biggest services would be Splice, Loopmasters, Noiiz, Bandlab, and Landr. Remember: ROYALTY FREE if you want the least headaches. I've ran across some "free" sample packs before where they include a contract that says they're not royalty free despite being free to download. There are also services such as Tracklib that allow an easier method to not just find samples from other songs (which are legally provided by the rightsholders) but to also license them for commercial use directly on the platform. Another alternative would be to make it yourself or pay another musician/service to remake it for you so you can have something that sounds similar to what you want to sample, but the audio you're working with is more like a legal cover that you have the rights to. I won't cover that here, but you can watch this video which covers the overall process as well as how to change it to something different to what you want to do: I will focus on sample packs here rather than sample libraries. Sampling tips One of the ways to stand out from the genre that you're working with is to actually pick samples from sample packs that aren't your primary genre. It's fine though to have some sample packs of what you mainly want to create, but you'll just end up literally sounding like everyone else since it's an obvious choice for everyone. For example, I mainly work with Drum and Bass, so of course I have some specifically made for it mostly for drums and percussions, but otherwise most of the musical and vocal samples I have are from genres like House, R&B, Reggae, Jazz, Trance, and Dubstep, to name a few. They're also wildly from different time periods (as far back as the early 1990s and up to this year) and from different publishers. The sample you start with and what you do with it will dictate where the song will go. You don't need to think about it too hard. Just vibe along with it and before you know it a full tree will be grown. Know when to scrap what you're working on if it's not hitting right. For me, that's about after 10 minutes. If I can't get it sounding "good" in 10 minutes, then I erase the whole thing. Knowing when to stop adding more is key too. The more you add, the messier it can get. Does it really need a crash cymbal? Or does it need a guitar melody when you've got 2 other melodies playing already at the same time? Sometimes, all you need is something like 4 tracks (without automations) and no more. Sampling demonstration To show you my process for sampling, we're going to make a quick loop. I've chosen this one since it sounds good to my ears. It's this fairly straightforward jazzy piano loop: https://splice.com/sounds/sample/e0a8e5003899e2ed8ff0918f501961e00c6af194a730d1da9a4b86a83890e65b Firstly I'm going to make sure it's in time. I typically work between 168 BPM to 175 BPM, but this sample is 88 BPM. This isn't much work since if you divide Drum and Bass tempos in half, you get within the same range and it makes it easy to work with. (Sometimes, I don't stretch it and instead repeat it but it depends on the sample.) For me, I like stretching it directly on what FL Studio calls the Playlist, but typically you'd want to do this in some sort of sampler (in FL Studio, it would be done in Edison then dragged into SliceX or onto the playlist... or you can just skip Edison if you want). I'm not doing it for this one because just look at how close this is to where I want the end of the loop to be (circled in red): easy peasy! I've also went and normalized the audio, then dropped it down by 6 dB to hear it better but also make sure it wasn't too loud, then made sure the time stretching mode was set to "Auto" and the pitch was reset to the default "0 cents" position. With the pitch reset, I set the pitch down by 3 semitones. I then chopped and looped two specific parts of the loop. Note that it will click! This is because the waveform has to abruptly jump from a different position to the next point, which would be in the center. There are two ways around this, at least in FL Studio anyways. Seen in the image above, we can change the Declicking mode to "bleed" or we can just go and do volume fades (which I chose to do since it sounded cool and gave it a bit of tension). This is what we're left with now! 2025-April-6 2 chop loop 1.mp3 I personally can't continue unless I'm able to hear some sort of drum rhythm, so I'm going to quickly add some percussions (no kick and snare yet) Oh, the sounds that don't have a Splice link don't have a way to preview the sounds individually, and I can't share the files here. But, I will say what the name of the pack is. These came from EST Studios - Monrroe Drum & Bass. 2025-April-6 2 chop loop percussion.mp3 I normally ignore the key that's provided on the sample (if there's one at all) since it may be incorrect to begin with or what I end up using would fall under a different key instead. Instead, I pay attention to the BPM labeled on it. It helps me to know how I should approach the sample since some can be time stretched easily or it'd just be better to chop it as-is. Thankfully this one was correctly labeled, so 3 semitones down would mean we're now in D# Minor. Mind you that I don't have perfect pitch, so... just to verify with mixed in key. Looking good so far Now I'm going to double the length of the loop so we have more to work with. Since this is essentially dance music, remember that it will be loopy by nature. I added the strings from this disco demo. https://splice.com/sounds/sample/dc2d0229d5ca5ceaf9a04348d941c6134de450e3f6754283c6f9966771c28384 then I added some flanger, trance gate, and EQ to it to help fill in some space and add some more rhythm. 2025-April-6 2 disco strings.mp3 I also found this riser FX from a "Future Rave Anthems" sample pack (sorry I don't know the exact name, it just has the name "Future Rave Anthems"), cut it short (it's way longer than what I used from it) and gave it a nice fade out. 2025-April-6 2 riser fx.mp3 Now, I got carried away here (whoops)! So I can't share audio file results for each change. I added a kick and snare pattern. It's about as basic as Drum and Bass patterns go. I layered a cymbal on the snare hits for more personality! I added the rides from a jazz drums sample pack (Loopmasters Felix Walden Jazz Drums) to add more energy and movement for the drums at the drop. I added a nice bassline with 3xOsc and added some saturation on it to make it stand out a bit more. I copied the bassline MIDI to a synth. Added a phaser and a tremolo effect, some EQ and used that as a sort of variation of the sampled disco strings from earlier. I added vocals that I thought sounded purrrfect with the vibe here. The rides from earlier gave this gritty, almost rain-like texture so coming across some vocals that talked about being in the rain and it fit in key (after adjusting the pitch a bit) was fantastic. These vocals came from Loopmasters Lovers Rock Reggae pack. Finally, added some transition FX (one from a 90s UK Garage pack and the other from a pack called "Ear Candy FX") and some various quick processing and we've got this: 2025-April-6 2 demo fin.mp3 And, here's what the project looks like now: All-in-all, this took about just over an hour of my time (well that's if you take away me drafting this and getting distracted the project info says I've been working on this for 3 hours). From here I would continue on organizing and labeling everything then arranging the bulk of it fully. I personally like making Drum and Bass songs that are between 5 - 7 minutes long, so right now it's basically a demo. It's in a great position to become a full song and that's all because I started with one sample from a sample pack that was not necessarily marketed for Drum and Bass and just let it vibe into the final result. I didn't go in thinking "I'm going to turn this into a sad song and make it feel like you're standing in the rain" it just sort of happened. Remember that there's so many things I could've done with that first piano sample. I could've swapped the stereo field, reversed it, added a ton of modulation effects on it immediately, and so on. The possibilities are endless! If you have more questions, comments, or anything else then feel free to leave them below.

@Ice Princess Silky <3 It's on Steam! Maybe yes, but I got up from a nap and remembered that there's some mild swearing, though it's not directed at anybody. And, there's one game that has a risque title but there aren't actually any adult themes present. Most of the game titles are just meant to be bizarre, intentionally confusing or strange. Just thought you should be aware of that.

There's a game called "The Beginner's Guide" which is really difficult to talk about without spoiling it. I'm not sure if it's underrated-underrated, but I don't hear much people talking about it, understandably so. It's made and narrated by Davey Wreden, one of the primary people who made The Stanley Parable (if anyone knows that game, it's very fun and nonsensical and was one of the first "game gets very meta" games before other games started doing it) but is very different in tone. Actually, he was the one who made the original mod for it, which first got popular before he was urged to turn it into a full game (and later it got re-launched as "The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe" which is actually the same game but with more randomness). Random fun fact: he's the brother of a fairly popular streamer and content creator named DougDoug. They're both walking simulators but The Beginner's Guide is a much more serious experience and is difficult to really talk about without spoiling it for people who haven't played it. Like, you gotta experience the game yourself and come to your own thoughts. It's definitely not for everyone, though I recommend it especially for anyone who likes doing anything super creative. I've heard some people call it pretentious but I personally never got the feeling of that. The premise of it is literally someone who was enthusiastic and wanted to share someone else's work with other people. Basically, Davey (the narrator) compiled a bunch of games together by someone he knew named Coda and put it onto Steam for people to play. The reason? He wants Coda to make games again since they were very odd and abstract; very different from what's out there to play. Coda never published them onto the internet and only shared them with some people he knew (Davey being at least one of them) or kept them to himself. The timeline given is 2008 - 2011, with Davey saying he met Coda in 2009 who stopped game development in 2011. You as a player just walk around and listen to Davey's thoughts and interpretations of Coda's works, where he's hoping people will spread the word and it will eventually get to Coda. There's SO MUCH more to it than that but then talking about it literally spoils the point of the game. I think @Ice Princess Silky <3 would like this one as it covers some very interesting topics, especially around creative and personal ones. It's one of those things that really got me thinking hard about stuff. Spoiler alert: Seriously, it's really good layers of "...wow" especially if you like narratives and anything thought provoking.

(paraphrasing) Some guy: "The company doesn't tell us how to do things like using the typing keyboard as a piano keyboard, and we can't even snap scales with it, very terrible." The manual which can be accessed at any time:

BABSCon drama is kinda...

Writing all of that out was the most doozy I've ever doozy'd

I guess just liquid dnb. Anyone else into these styles? Some examples of what I mean: Nu:Tone - Millie's Theme D.Kay & Lee - Manipulate The Universe DJ Marky & XRS - LK Calibre & Zero Tolerance - One Word Calibre - Think On Intense - Natural Progression Jazz Cartel - Blue Haze 4hero ft. Imani Uzuri - 9 by 9 (Marcus Intalex & ST Files remix) Lady Blackbird - Collage (Calibre remix) High Contrast - Twilight's Last Gleaming LTJ Bukem - Rhodes To Freedom Peter Nice Trio - Harp Of Gold PFM - The Rough With The Smooth Makoto & Kabuki ft. Deeizm - Look Of Love Keeno - Communications DJ Marky & Makoto ft. Deeizm - Free Random Movement - Goblin Jazz Banquet DJ Patife ft. Cleveland Watkiss - Overjoyed Lenzman - Ever So Slightly Calibre - Up In Smoke Calibre - Latin 2000 Artificial Intelligence - Soul Good (Stress Level & TC1 remix) Solid Principles - Sunshine Funkula Calibre - Mr Right On

I was 17 when I was allowed to get my first phone, a Motorola. In uhh... 2019 Cuz I graduated high school. What about you?