MPC finger drumming on the chill jungle tip

Here's a new one, on the chill side. Props to all the MPC finger drummers out there. So much fun!!

Really awesome video my man! Even with subtitles saying what you're doing, and I really like the style! Great sound coming out of that, I really want to hear more. The one thing I don't want to ask is how long it took you to set up that program, but for me it would take days maybe weeks to do that. Anyways, great video, highly recommended for anyone looking for new ideas as well.

Thanks for the comment Sm0keydaBear! Making that program was very labor intensive!!
Cheers!

You are an animal bro! im watching all your videos on youtube now haha

I've been checking your videos, very cool. This is the shit that got me into electronic music way back in the mid 90's…

Inspired me to chop up some breaks and give it a go, nothing consistent enough to show the world yet. Dropping the second snare an eight note earlier (on the and of the 3rd beat) really changes the flow. I was just jamming out and trying fills I've managed to work out a fill that makes the measure end an 8th note earlier and still sound right.

keep the videos coming man!

Hell yeah. Legit!

How do you manage to get your playing so tight? Do you do this stuff a lot? Do you do practice exercises? I love live dnb/jungle, and play on a drumkit, but I can never get my timing tight enough. My finger drumming is just terrible

Thanks all for the feedback! I've been a rock / funk drummer since I was a kid, and got into Jungle in the 90's. MANY years of drumming along to mixtapes in the car (destroying dashboards!) and Djing oldschool jungle for so long must have added up to a lot of practice. I bought the MPC - my first drum machine - about 8 months ago for some hip hop work, but immediately started doing jungle with it. Junglist at heart I guess, but I do work on the patterns a lot and placement of the drums. Most of the work on these videos goes into the sample chopping...

If anyone is interested, I do a live radio show stream every Monday night (7-9pm eastern time) on jungletrain.net Oldschool jungle mix with live MPC drumming and original tunes. Feel free to check it out

innovine, keep drumming man, you'll get it

Dope stuff man. Not surprised to hear you have a proper drumming background. You're murdering 140-160 bpm live, respect.

I'm not a huge Jungle/D&B guy but I do like it. (I'm a huge Jamaican music fan so the history of Jungle is dope to me). I will definitely check out your stream and will pass it along to my friends who are major Jungle/D&B heads.

I dig the beetle.

Digging that spinscott, takes me way back to my secondary school days

Great stuff!

you should do an mpc dnb album or EP, that would be dope! i dont really listen to it at all, but i would def listen to that. i really like the drum patterns of dnb.

another really cool thing would be if you did a youtube video tha kind of broke down what you put on each pad/how you layered them. even one for that video would be dope! i would love to hear more about how it is broken down because dnb i so crazy to me with how different it is from hip hop.

are there any artists you would recomend that make similar sounding dnb to your video? i like really chill type dnb, i just dont know anything about it at all. or even some hip hop influenced dnb music?

keep it up man! really diggin this!

Do you ever get any RSI or worry about RSI from finger drumming?

damien907, thanks for the comments! I am working on a 2 track picture disc, hoping to release in the next few months along with an 11 track EP with this style of music. Also, as soon as I get a new mic I will try to do a tutorial that discusses the chopping and layering of these beats.
Really glad to help you find some artists in this genre! The music on my MPC videos is influenced almost exclusively by 1994-1996 jungle, and here are 11 of my favorite tracks that I spin regularly on my radio show, in no particular order. Some are chill, others are heavy, but this should get you into some great artists! (most can be found on youtube, and can be purchased on vinyl at Discogs or as downloads)

Lemon D - I Can't Stop [1996]
Aquarius - Drift To The Center [1995]
Shogun - Nautilus [1996]
Source Direct - Approach And Identify [1995]
Safari Sounds - Ghetto Born Kid [1995]
Octave One - Technology [1994]
Remarc - R.I.P [1995]
Capone - Massive [1995]
Krome & Time - The License [1994]
DJ Zinc - Reach Out Remix [1997]
Megashira - Mental Strength [1996]

innovine wrote:Do you ever get any RSI or worry about RSI from finger drumming?

I've thought about it, but not too concerned with RSI from the drumming, mainly because it is a varied range of motion, and I use the MPC at different heights depending on the show. I'm not a medical professional, but it seems like the big contributor for RSI is small movements with limited variation, like scrolling a smartphone screen or clicking a computer mouse. Both of those really don't involve much change in blood flow to the fingers... but the drumming is a lot more active and moves around a larger space. When I used to produce only on a computer, and would be sitting at the workstation for 9-10 hours at a time, I definitely had some of the arm and shoulder discomfort... Thats one of the reasons I bought the MPC, better ergonomics and more fun!!