DIARY OF AN UNSIGNED
PRODUCER: CUTTING DUBS
It’s time to cut a dubplate. Nothing beats having your tune embedded in a slab of vinyl. Cut-
ting a dubplate is no longer a necessity – CD decks and Serato saw to that – but it’ll always
PROPACK FOR GARAGEBAND
be a pleasure.
Developer: Zero-G
This is the third dubplate I’ve had made. The fi rst was a slapdash affair mastered in an old
Price: £99.95
public toilet, which the sound engineer had converted into a studio. My mixdown was poor
and it showed in the fi nished product: weak bass and drums that lacked punch. The last
This is the world’s largest professional Apple Loop library, produced by the
one turned out a lot better, thanks in large part to Henry at Dubstudio in Bristol. Though I
reputable Zero-G. Its title might suggest that this product is GarageBand-
live and work closer to London than Bristol, I’ve had the good fortune to meet Henry and
only, but you can use these lovely loops with Logic Pro and other software. For
hear him explain the mastering / cutting process in person. Since I really like his approach
those that don’t know, Apple Loops is Apple’s answer to Propellerheads’ REX
to music I intend to keep sending business his way.
fi le player, and bloody brilliant it is too. This package contains over 11,000
Apple Loops. This is a great choice of loops for users of Apple’s GarageBand,
I’ve learnt it’s best to keep the mix pretty fl at and give the engineer instructions as to how
Soundtrack, Logic Pro 7, and Final Cut Pro (other than the native ones bundled
you want the track to sound. Of course, everyone wants their tune to be as loud as possible,
with Logic Pro and GarageBand). What does it offer? Massive size – over 9GB
but it requires a certain expertise to get the mixdown to sound right for vinyl, and it’s es-
of sounds – and professional quality. The samples were recorded in one of the
sential that the fi nal cut doesn’t cause the needle to skip.
world’s largest and most highly acclaimed suppliers to the pro audio industry.
Expect a diverse and varied range stemming from myriad musical styles and
This plate is going straight to my good friend DJ Pdex, who’s been kind enough to give me
cultures, and a pretty damn good price too.
positive feedback on some of my recent tunes. He assures me he’ll be smashing it out left,
right and centre at some forthcoming gigs in the Oxford and Essex areas. I’ll be lurking in
NB: All of the 11,000+ samples are also compatible with any programs that
the shadows with an excited feeling in my stomach waiting to hear the fi rst bars of my tune
can use samples in AIFF format. Styles range from house, drum & bass and
coming through the club system.
reggae to orchestral, ethnic, funk and jazz, in drums, percussion, vocals, musi-
cal loops and more.
Check out GLP’s music at www.myspace.com/djglp
THE LAST REAL DJ ALIVE SHOWS YOU HOW....
...to scratch samples into your tunes
If you want to scratch yourselves silly like DJ Premier, where he creates choruses with his
hands in the best of mid-nineties hip-hop, or like DJ Hype, or the Scratch Perverts, you have
two options: record your scratching live or get a program that will do it for you.
If you want to scratch live, the only realistic way to do this is with CD decks or DJ software
like Serato or Traktor Scratch. Record what you want to scratch into an audio fi le, burn it to
CD, pop it in your Pioneer CDJ-1000, connect the CD deck outputs to your DAW input and
record your scratching over your tune. Alternatively, and much more easily, simply load the
respective audio fi le into your Traktor Scratch or Serato player and do the same thing. It’s
not all about stereotypical scratching though – think outside the box. Why not do weird ed-
its in your tune by recording a whole song, then at signifi cant points hitting the stop button
on your deck to create crazy edits?
If you don’t have the luxury of these options, get some DJ software and scratch it using a
mouse or tracker pad. There are many different types, so just use Google “DJ scratch soft-
ware” for your answers; there are even free ones. If you want something really cool, head to
www.djay-software.com, for a product that works with iTunes and lets you scratch, chop
and spinback with your Mac trackpad.
www.kmag.co.uk
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