The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

If you’re into electronic music, you’ll recognize some of these machines that shaped early electronic music : Roland’s legendary trio of the TR-808, TR-909, the TB-303 (acid!) synthesizers.

Together with a selection of effects processors, Hobnox’s Audiotool allows you to produce tracks for free (much thanks to GeekNews for the heads up)

While Hobnox provides a video tutorial on the basics of using Audiotool and the virtual TR-909 and the TB-303, knowing how to use the equipment doesn’t translate proportionally to your ability to create music. I’m been fiddling with Audiotool for hours and I still can’t figure out how to create decent drum n’ bass beats.

The default drum n’ bass setup

I did create a simple 4/4 track which you can torture your ears with over here – a crappy example of tweaking the various knobs and buttons – I didn’t create enough patterns to substantially evolve the rhythms and basslines though.

Try out Audiotool.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
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Saiko – Cool Electronic Music Generator
10 Favourite Mods (Music, Not Games)
Tony-B Machine – Flash Toy for Creating Early 90’s Techno/Electro
Be Your Own One Man Band

Promotional wallpapers for Native Instruments, makers of the Traktor mixing software among others like the digital vinyl simulator Traktor Scratch. Been playing around with the LE (which unfortunately means Light Edition and not Limited Edition ) version of Traktor 3 that came with my recently purchased toy – a Numark Total Control MIDI controller.

© Native Instruments, Inc

Hopefully I can post some mixes up here to terrorize the eardrums in the near future

Download these wallpapers at Native Instruments.

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Links to Direct Downloads for Selected Annie Mac 5 Minutes Mixes
Produce Your Own Tracks with Orange Mixer

Digital dance music store XpressBeats.com is offering one free download of any MP3 in their store for everyone for a limited time only.

Register a free account, choose your MP3, enter the promo code RA at checkout and download!

My track of choice is the Si Begg remix of Alloy Mental’s self-titled EP on Skint Records. Heard the original and Chris Liebing remixes of this track being played in quite a few livesets from a few years back but Si Begg’s more funky breaks-inspired remix sounds a lot fresher Besides Xpressbeats is the only digital MP3 store that sells this track other than the official Skint Records digital store (down). I’ve checked out the other digital stores for dance music that I frequent such JunoDownload, DJDownload and Beatport but I never found this track for sale anywhere else so XpressBeats may be worth bookmarking for finding those rare digital versions of some dance tracks .

Saw this promotion in Resident Advisor’s newsletter (issue #0810.2 to be exact) but I’m not sure when this promo ends.

Download your free MP3 from XpressBeats today!

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
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The End Recommends You to Listen to Free Electronic Music
Tony-B Machine – Flash Toy for Creating Early 90’s Techno/Electro
Be Your Own One Man Band
Resident Advisor Podcasts – Quality Electronic Music Mixes

Today, I’ll be recommending some of my favourite mods. Not game modifications but digital music modules produced using tracker software and come in the extension (s3m, it, mod, etc). Most of these tracks were collected a few years back when I was a regular visitor of the The Mod Archive to listen to tracks featured on the weekly charts

Anyway, I present 10 of my favourite tracks from The Mod Archive that either stood the test of time (at least for me) or bring back memories of the good old days (especially the first track).

1. Crystal Hammer (crystalh.mod) – an upbeat little track with a groovy melody that kicks in at 1:55 mins. It also holds special significance as the first MOD in my collection and was first heard in the puzzle game Siege by Fallen Angel Industries.
2. Chromosphere (chromosp.s3m) – Another groovy track. Also from the above-mentioned games, Siege.
3. Ancient Stories 2 (aws_anc2.xm) – A beautiful track by the aptly named artist Awesome – I love the part that starts at 2:35 mins.
4. Tales of Magic (nightbeat-tales_of_magic.it) – Most of Nightbeat’s tracks are excellent but Tales of Magic is my absolute favourite of all.
5. Set U Free (Coral) (cb_setuf.xm) – Not sure if it’s a remake or remix of N-Trance’s Set You Free because the vocals sound very familiar.
6. Neverending Story (live.s3m) – Wraith’s “live” cover version of Limahl’s 80s hit NeverEnding Story from the movie of the same name.
7. class09 (class09.mod) – This track by maktone is one of the very few chiptunes in my collection.
8. dubieduw (dubieduw.mod) – Funky stuff, not to sure what genre this falls into though.
9. Victory is Ours! (c-viou.xm) – Some uplifting stuff by Szulu.
10. Last Hope (l_hope.it) – Nice catchy tune by Aymes but slightly repetitive towards the end.

You’ll need a player like XMPlay to listen to these tracks though. Recommendations of other good MODs are always welcome, of course.

Enjoy!

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Caught this one off Breaksblog.biz, my preferred site for quality drum & bass mixes on the monthly selections of free full-length tracks by big name artists and newcomers to the electronic scene by the London club The End.

Apart from the fourth selection of fine drum & bass featuring tracks like Calibre’s Right On, Lynx & Kemo’s Global Enemies and Martyn’s dubsteppy Shadowcasting in the monthly series known as Recommends, there’s a great deal of quality house, minimal and electro tracks (with the occassional smattering of funk and some totally uncategorizable stuff) in the other three compilations.

Here’s my picks for each compilation.

06) Marlow – Convoy – Dubsteppy stuff
10) Hipp-E feat. Lamont Moerhaus – Dance Wit Me – Chicago house
11) Jose James: Black Eyed Susan (IG Culture’s 4 Beat Refit)

01) Mlle Caro and Franck Garcia – Always You (Ben Watt Radio Edit) – Dreamy, melodic music
06) Fairmont – Fade and Saturate
08) Joel Mull – The Walk – The funky minimal side of Joel Mull – a very big difference from tracks like ISO1 produced before the ascendancy of minimal techno

01) Sébastien Tellier – Divine (Midnight Juggernauts Remix) – 80s sounding stuff (the good 80s stuff , that is)
02) Black Grass – Bless : Very retroish, smooth house
03) Inland Knights: Lay On Me
06) Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip – Look for the Woman (Zane Lowe Mix) – The new rap
10) Me & You – Sneaker Thief (Hint Remix) – Catchy, toe-tapping music.
11) Tiger Stripes – Beach Buggy (Motorcitysoul Ambient Remix)

01) Calibre – Mr Right On
02) Lynx feat. Kemo – Global Enemies
03) Seba & Krazy – Nebula
07) Martyn – Shadowcasting

Each track is encoded at 224 kbps for your enjoyment (the downside is that each selection of 10+ tracks comes in a 100+ MB zip file). Each collection also comes with a PDF with the artist profiles. Excellent stuff and highly recommended!

Download these tracks from The End. Free registration is required before downloading.

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Android Jones – Musical Art & Much More
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Takuya Kashiwada @ Under Water Bar Praha
Links to Direct Downloads for Selected Annie Mac 5 Minutes Mixes