Breakbeats

From MadTracker Wiki

"Breakbeats" are the bits of drumming in the break of a song when nothing but drums and percussion are playing, hence "breakbeat" - - eg, The "Amen" break from "Amen Brother" by the Winstons being the king of the jungle breakbeats. Dig around to discover other "Breakbeats" too - not necessarily just drum breaks.

Much classic jungle DnB, Breakcore, Hiphop etc is made from these samples being chopped and mangled. Either use slices as individual notes or instruments or use the Offset command to chop with. A combination of Synchronised Samples and Synchronised offset command can be used to good effect if your sample loops in perfect time.

The actual pattern of kick, snare etc is up to you. There is no correct pattern. Play around, vary and keep it flowing.

You can layer one shot kicks and snares and other sounds to make them heavier and more to your taste. Try layering two different ones together to get a new one, like the "Tramen Break". EQing and compression etc will help too.

It certainly is possible to make your own breakbeats from oneshots (with a lot of layering and messing about) but again it's best to resample and then chop and arrange these as you would a normal sampled breakbeat. Remember to use "ghost snares" too in this case. These are quieter, different sounding variations on your main snare that hit just before and after your main snares to give feeling.

To get that classic jungle tamborine sound, again, you're best off sampling, and treat it as a breakbeat. Thinking in 16ths may help though.

---

That Amen Break: http://www.xampled.com/xampled/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break

That Tramen Break: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramen

Bizzy B's Breakbeat Choppage Forum: http://sampleoidz.co.uk/forum/index.php

Hatrixxx's Breakbeat Chopping Tutorial: http://breakbeat.hattrixx.co.uk/

Binaer Pilot's Using Offset Command in MT2 tutorial: http://www.binaerpilot.info/?p=tutorials&t=mt_offset