So you've got some guitar amps laying around that don't get use anymore because your head is always in the computer building beats ... use them for the beat creation process! Just like you'd use Amplitube or Trash, REAL guitar amps are the pinnacle of crunchified dirty sounds. And what takes dirty processing in a fabulous fashion? Beats.

First off, we need to make sure some fundamentals are understood when sending signals out to guitar amps. What do you plug into a guitar amp? (more...)

I remember when I first started out in music production not having a single clue how samples and loops were constructed. I was like "how do people produce these sounds?!" One the goals for this blog is to help people learn production techniques and to give away production material (loops, samples, kits, etc). My first post on audio loops was under producing "electro loops". I decided to go a more generic route and produce basic, backbone type loops for this post.

The great thing about creating loops for the purpose of loop production, is you can start from ANYWHERE! I had produced a set of loops about 3 years ago that were alright, but not spectacular. I decided to load up a loop from that collection into Native Instruments Kontakt 2 and slice the loop for individual hits. Kontakt makes this relatively simple. I always start by sequencing a click track with the hihat-like sound. Then I play the beats with M-Audio's Trigger Finger. Here's the result:

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Ever since Mimi and I went to Miami I've been loving that electro sound. Hearing it in the clubs was tight! So I thought, why not make an electro-ish beat? Cool. Then I thought, instead of relying on drum samples in things like Stylus RMX, make the beat out of Logic's own synths (ES1, ES2)! Below is a sample of the full beat (with a bassline using Vanguard).

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