Of Recordings

There are a whole bunch of Buzz tracker machines, but Fuzzpilz UnwieldyTracker is so good I pretty much stopped using all the others. Its features are well-suited to beat slicing, among other things. Beat slicing involves chopping a drum loop into individual sounds and rearranging them to make a new beat. This tutorial will show you how.

We want to take a drum loop, fit it to our song tempo, re-arrange it to make a new beat, and apply different effects to different sounds. This example starts with a drum loop trimmed to 8 beats. If you don’t have one handy, you can use this one (right-click to save):

Example drum loop

UnwieldyTracker may not be included with your Buzz install. If not, go to Fuzzpilz site and install it first. Then we’re ready to go.

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I just got my hands on Abiku and Kid Camaro’s 7″ “Split.” I don’t really know anything about Abiku, but Kid Camaro is a friend (and, in fact, Aaron’s former roommate).

The A side belongs to Abiku, and “Regency” is the highlight. “Feel” and “Bobby” are shouty electro-punk that appear to be intentionally difficult to listen to. But if you’re going that route, you need to give the listener a reason to make the effort, and I must have missed it.

On Kid Camaro’s side, “Drop” is gorgeous and worth the price of admission by itself. Meticulously chopped breaks support 8-bit melodies. It’s both catchy and intricate. “Dusk” pairs more NES sounds with a drum and bass background.

You can get “Split” for four paltry dollars– that’s just 96 rubles!– direct from Automation Records. Or, if you’ve already sold the turntable, it’s also available from iTunes.

Here’s another Kid Camaro tune, a demo he made for my soft synth Mopis:

You can write your own blurb if you want; we’re leaving to get some pizza.