welcome to...

welcome to the collection

20Hz) to rip apart any dance floor, from booming subsonic dubby grooves to cutting-edge mid-range stacked filth perfect for jump-up, drumstep and neuro styles. Less frantic moods are catered for too, with lush pads, delicate keys and euphoric leads injecting the liquid vibes. It should be noted that some of the musical elements in the collection (including basslines and music loops) are designed from the ground up to work together in the case of double basslines that include a sub and mid layer, or musical loops that include a backing pad and detail loop. These are named appropriately, and can either be used together or split apart for solo use. As ever, the samples in this collection are programmed to kickstart songs straight out of the box, but D&B has always been about reinvention: if you want to get the most from this collection, get chopping, layering, and mangling particularly those lovely breakbeats to craft zounds of new sounds. Enjoy. The Producers

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Drum & Bass has been the single most requested collection weve not brought to market since Sample Magics inception more than six years ago. Why the wait? Quite simply, when we deliver, we want to deliver something special, with sounds that form a backbone to the best productions for years to come. Enter SM31, Drum & Bass Despite its tempo and characteristically intense sound, Drum & Bass can be intimate and introverted as well as big and brash. SM31 reflects the sheer range of sounds, rhythms, and emotions that make up the broad church of D&B. The most important elements in this collection are naturally the beats and bass sounds, and weve created a huge amount of material in both categories. Weve pushed the boat out to deliver stacks of original funkstyle breakbeats, full drum beats (with a range of variants) as well as a comprehensive library of single hits. Weve narrowed down the tempo groups to just two 170 and 174bpm to make studio life even easier. In the bass folder youll find enough bin-blitzing ballast (all tested down to

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ideas for inspiration

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(Bass) Drum & Bass

sometimes snare) accentuates the separation further still.

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A clearer picture

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Less is more

Despite the genres no-nonsense name, the truth is that getting the drum and bass to work together in D&B is as important as in other dance music genres and uses the same kinds of tricks, albeit often in a more emphatic way. One of the most common techniques is to allow the bassline to take the lower role in the frequency spectrum delivering the sub bass while the kick drum sits higher peaking at between 80-110Hz. This fat bass, skinny kick scenario dictates the choice of sounds as sub-heavy bass and bass-light kick (youll notice that many D&B kicks are surprisingly scanty in the low-end, making more of the lower-mids to provide a solid counterpoint whack to the bass whooomph.) To further separate the kick and bass, use a notch EQ to remove the low midrange where the kick is peaking in the bassline. Adding sidechain compression to the bass (routed to the kick and

Key decisions

How do you do detailed work on the kick and bass when theres a lot going on in the higher frequencies of a mix? One useful strategy is to strap a lowpass (high-cut) filter across the master bus. Lowering the cutoff frequency to 120-200Hz will help you focus on the bass frequencies alone. (Its a strategy that can be used in the opposite way too: if youve nailed the bass and want to concentrate on separating the synth and music parts then just low-cut the kick and bass). Remember to check all major mixing decisions with the filter bypassed as well.
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In a genre that relies so heavily on the bassline, the key of the track is unusually important dicatating where the sub bass frequencies peak. Choose a key thats too low and the bassline wont reproduce well on smaller systems, and go too high and it will interfere more with the kick. Making a track in a scale between F-A will make it easier to get a mix that works well over a variety of systems.
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Dont swamp a track (or your workflow) with stacks of soft synths and piles of plug-ins. Pick one of each of the fundamental tools (subtractive synth, sampler, EQ, compressor, filter and so on) and take the time to digest their manuals and get to grips with all of their features and nuances. Once you know a small set of tools inside-out you wont be caught short when a moment of inspiration strikes.
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Who snares, wins

Sub plus

Just using a sub tone as a bass on its own (usually a sine or similarly simple raw waveform) can sound too thin in a modern D&B track. Try layering it with one or more additional synth parts set an octave or more above to thicken it up and flesh out the mids and lower-mids. If these sounds have their own sub frequencies its often best to filter them out so they dont interfere with the main sub.

Toned drums

If you find that your drums dont sit together well, try altering their tuning. Drum sounds even hats and rides have their own discernible pitch, and tuning them to the same pitch will give you better sounding results.

D&B isnt all about the kick drum and bass: the snare plays a fundamental role too, offering the rhythmic counterpoint to the driving kick. Choosing the right snare sound (complementary to the kick AND the bass) is fundamental as is getting the right volume. A common mistake is to set the the snare too loud, which can have the effect of dragging the rhythm. Try stacking up snares to create one that doesnt peak so much in one area, but fills out the frequency spectrum more effectively.

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accessing the files

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170bpm 174bpm

credits
Collection created by Dom Purcell and Tim Cant Audio formatting by Chevy One Demos by Sharooz and The Producers Sample Magic online 1GB+ of free sounds, special offers, newsletter, wallpapers, downloads and our online store at: samplemagic.com Sample Magic network > twitter.com/samplemagic > facebook.com/samplemagic > youtube.com/user/samplemagic
Artwork by IWANT Design Limited Booklet layout by David Felton

Drum & Bass was created by

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Other Sample Magic releases

SM01/ SM02/ SM03/ SM04/ SM05/ SM06/ SM07/ SM08/ SM09/ SM10/ SM11/ SM12/ SM13/ SM14/ SM15/ SM16/ SM17/ SM18/ SM19/ SM20/ SM21/ SM22/ SM23/ SM24/ SM25/ SM26/ SM27/ SM28/ SM29/ SM30/ Funky House Grooves Breakbusters Transmission-X Electro-House Sunset Sessions Minimal & Tech-House Around the World in 80 Raves Nu-Rave Funky House Grooves 2 Tech-Funk Breaks Minimal Techno Progressive House Sunrise Sessions Tribal Tech-House Dubstep & Grime Deep Tech-House Soundtrack & Chill Ultimate FX Organic House Electro Tech-House Nu Disco Dubstep Deep House Indie-Dance Mainroom Anthems Techno Vintage House Chillwave Tech-House 2

Drum loops

Drum & Bass folder

Breaks loops

170bpm

174bpm

Shake & Tamb loops 170bpm

174bpm

Bass loops

170bpm

174bpm

Synth loops

170bpm

174bpm

Pads & Music loops

170bpm

174bpm

Sample Magic Presents

SMP01 Toolroom Records Samples SMP02 Paolo Mojo: Future Tech-House SMP03 Florian Meindl: Berlin Deep House SMP04 DJ Chus & Stereo Productions: 10 Years of Iberican Grooves SMP05 Hed Kandi: Disco House Samples SMP06 Thomas Schumacher: Berlin Techno SMP07 Stereo Productions Present: David Herreros Organic House Beats SMP08 Defected House Samples, by ATFC SMP09 Radio Slave

FX & FX loops

174bpm Kicks Snares & Claps Hats (open and closed) Cymbals Percussion Synth stabs

Drum hits

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