Robot Drums emulating Propellerhead Figure - Point Blank

This is a pretty cool idea; the folks over at Point Blank have put together a video showing you how to create a rack in Ableton Live that gives you a Propellerhead Figure style of drum sequencing. This is a cool way of finding some inspiration and creativity when coming up with drum patterns. Check out the video below.



"http://www.pointblankonline.net/courses/ableton-live-courses.php to check out our range of online Ableton Course where you can learn more techniques like this. Please get in touch with a course advisor at advice@pointblankonline.net if you want to find out more.

In this tutorial Danny J Lewis shows you how to create a rack that emulates the mechanics behind the way the drum patterns switch in the recently released 'Figure' app. 

Please subscribe to our channel to make sure you don't miss future exclusive tutorials from Point Blank Online school."

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Free 1GB+ sample pack from Loopmasters

To celebrate LoopMasters releasing their 100th artist series sample pack they have teamed up with Computer Music magazine to offer their Facebook fans a free 1GB+ sample library featuring samples found in every artist series pack from LoopMasters.

You can download the free sample pack from the Computer Music Facebook page here.

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Akai Pro show of their new MPC softwear

As some of you know Akai (who are responsible for the legendary MPC samplers) earlier this year announced a handful of new products. Among these was the very interesting looking MPC fly (an iOS app developed by Retronyms), the MPC Renaissance and the MPC Studio. The Renaissance and Studio are both midi controllers designed to be used in conjunction with Akai's new MPC software (Sort of like Native Instruments Machine).

Until now we were somewhat kept in the dark about this software but Akai have just released a video overview of the MPC software and I have to say, it looks pretty impressive.

One thing that isn't quite clear though is whether you need the controllers to use the soft wear or whether you could use the soft wear on it's own with another controller. If this is possible then this could be a very affordable solution for beginners to music making and live performances. Coupling the MPC software with a dirt cheap pad controller (say the Korg NanoPad) could be a very convenient compromise for some people. Even though this would be a pretty cool feature I'm not going to be holding my breath.

Anyway, here's the video from Akai.

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New music now up on the site

Here's a link to my new release, it's a house track that I've been working on for a film project that a friend of mine is doing. Hopefully the finished film will be up on the internet sometime soon but until then you can get the music from the Voltage-Controlled music page.

The link in the right-hand sidebar that says 'music' now redirects to "music.voltage-controlled.com" instead of "music.dan303.com". It's still the same site but I thought that I'd change the domain to work better with the flow of the site. I've also changed the banner on the music page to match the one on the main site.

It's been a while since I've done any house music but I'm quite pleased how this one's come out. I can't wait to see how the finished film looks and hopefully the music will work well. I've also uploaded a remix that I did; it has sort of a moombahton feel to it.

It's free to listen to the tracks online but if you want to put them on your iPod and feel like donating a little cash to Voltage-Controlled.com then you can buy both tracks for just £1.99. Check it out, I've embedded the music player below.

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Native Instruments Maschine Tutorial - Using Saturator on 808 Kick Drum Bassline - Point Blank

"http://www.pointblankonline.net/native-instruments---maschine.php In this tutorial Danny J Lewis shows you how to use a saturator to bring life to an 808 kick drum bassline with Native Instruments' Machine"

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Updates and news April 2012

Just a quick update to let you guys know that I'm working on a Refill for all you Reason users out there. The Refill will contain lots of multi-sampled instruments for the NN-XT sampler and maybe a few custom Subtractor and Combinator patches. This is a work in progress so I don't know when it's going to actually hit the site but I'm aiming for 2GB worth of samples for you guys to enjoy. So far I've taken samples from the MicroKorg, the Korg R3 and the Korg AG-10 sound module. I'm still waiting on the delivery of my new camera connection kit for the iPad (my old one broke) and then I can sample some iPad synths as well.

More news on this soon.

-Dan.

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Creating a dub siren in Ableton Live - Point Blank

Everyone loves a dub siren. Here's a video from Point Blank that shows you how to create a siren of your own using Ableton. If you don't use Ableton, the basic principle will work for pretty much any DAW or synth that you have.

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