He’s a really chill dude too. He came over with an amiga and played out of that. I think maybe he dats his breaks in the studio (or maybe thats just how they are best stored since the 90s) but he definitely has beats on floppy disk when he plays out, because he took one out and changed the break and was worried hed lost one until we found it again back stage. I guess its maybe a set up worked out from when jungle was more a thing every weekend at squats.
Definitely has a specific way of craft to his drum sound.
I prefer source directs sound and teebees drums though hehe. But a great deep producer that does get his drums right which is a PROBLEM today.
Okay so you know that thing of turning percussive sound into ‘clangs’, like fucking with the tail of a drum sound for example going into a plate verb - then using wave table distortion on top of that, like gradually automating it like you would a bitcrush or something like that, can lead some unique results
often overlooked as an effect imo
you probabloy know, it just popped out of my mind now
idk if i would call this a favourite, but i like this mixdown, pretty big and in your face, but each element seems to have its place and stand on it’s own.
damn this mix of this tune was only on the original single 12 and it sounds sooo much better than the CD version everyones heard, raw and mixdowny but so much weight
Damn, I like a lot of old Kromestar bits, his productions were a bit simpler (I mean fewer sounds), but they were as big as today. Also pure fun tunes as well.
As for my fav mixdowns (or rather sound design) here goes:
(I love this whole album)
This man is a wizard, just love this release, got that warm sound, and it’s wide but not too distracting, and when the breaks come in you hear the individual effects as well.
This goes off in a club, and when listening to it at home with headphones or speakers, the wide shuffley high freq content just adds subtle details, and the pads are nice and wide but not too distracting.
Had to add this last, just a whole lot of things happening with each soundtrack, Reitzell actually uses his own homemade instruments for some sounds as well.
I think every mixdown by my countryman DJ Fett Burger pisses me off
Doesnt make sense as a criticism but its like pretentiously mixed. Its warm and lofi but in an extreme way that utterly fucks up the phase of the whole track and drains all the impact out of everything. Little drum machine percs and disco bongos that just wetly plop around each other. Its not like a tough lofi memphis track with brickwalled red kicks and tape fuzzed snares, or a warm old raw house track. Its just like someone licking ur ear.
He probably masters from a tape machine or smth. It’s definitely a distinct calling card and it sounds full and warm, like an old under-compressed record would be, but I find it annoying to listen to.
But I am slightly annoyed that the most prolific fleshed out respectable underground dance music crew In Norway HAD to go for the 80s proto house/italo/disco aesthetic tho , its too norwegian.
Norwegian club shit outside EDM is an overload of fun loving, light, beach party vibes. Really nice, musical disco edits. Melodic tech house with depeche mode vocals. New wave synth bass riffs. Xylophones. No ear splitting garage shuffles, no violent intense drum beats, no samples from jamaican badmen, no DREAD, no swaggy hip hop feel, no cyberpunk future warfare vibes, no extreme chipmunk rave element, none of the UK slick coldness. Its like norwegians are too self conscious to ever view themselves as srs junglist soldiers doing gunfingers, or even german techno chinstrokers, theres always gotta be a big wink and nudge like “heh, we’re boogying to these synths, silly us”. Thats the vibe and Sex Tags seems like part of it even though they represent the rougher and tougher, more radical end of things. I like a fair few tunes from em and they seem very genuine but they do somewhat represent what irks me about norway at least from what ive heard. Actually writing this out I guess I don’t know sex tags that completely but a lot of what ive heard from em sounds too much like other norway stuff just with a raw analogue sound.
oh and they also do shit like this arent u clever he he he
imagine if a jungle producer just put out a loop called amen break by the winstons and released it on their label. They’d get booted from the jungle resistance high command immediately. Shit is serious in the UK.
, its too norwegian.
