80's Dancehall Riddims: Snare drum sound

[interruptor]

The sample set is from the site http://samples.kb6.de which is a great resource for drum samples.

[MarkyP]

11 years on again and I dig it out and revive it as a newcomer to this wonderful place.

Firstly I'd like to say a big hello to everyone here.

I am curious to know if the OP ever did manage to track down the snare that they were aiming for or if they possibly improvised their own in the end.

I myself am just getting started dabbling in the magical sound of 80s dancehall. I'm not new to producing on computers but I am new to the reggae, dancehall and dub production scene. I have loved reggae and dancehall since the early nineties and adore the early electronic Steely & Clevie sound mainly coming out of Jammys studio at the time.

So on my journey I am aiming to reproduce that sound of Steely & Clevie just to get me started and see where it takes me. I'm not into copying or plagiarism nor do I rate doing so at all but there is just something so magical about this sound I feel overwhelmed to make it happen again 40 years on.

I wish I had the money to get myself an Obie DX, a DX100 and a CS01 but as I write this the price of such equipment would cost somewhere in the region of £2000 so I shall be using their digital counterparts or their most closest resemblance I can get.

I'm really looking forward to searching, asking and hopefully digging up some golden nuggets of information regarding the production of the best kind of music ... REGGAE.

[colinrobot]

@MarkyP Behringer are not far off releasing their clone
https://www.musicradar.com/news/behring ... m-linndrum

Probably around the same price as the RD8 & RD9 drum machines they released

[colinrobot]

Found two places for Yamaha RX5 and Roland R8 as the links are dead above .The links go to a Reddit page and a site called Boxed Ear (On this site right click on download button and open in new windows to download pressing the button doesn't seem to work)
I've downloaded both myself and are safe.



https://www.boxedear.com/free.html

If you don't use Bitwig on the Reddit download just download the top folder (Samples Only)

[colinrobot]

Here's another site for LinnDrum samples

https://www.drumkito.com/sample-packs/l ... mple-pack/

[colinrobot]

Here's a DMX free sample pack too

http://www.dubsounds.com/dmx.htm

Hope these help anyone who found themselves here..

[interruptor]

Thanks for the new links!

Most pages disappear after some years. One big exception is this archive which exists since 28 (!) years..
http://samples.kb6.de
Unfortunately they had to remove all samples by Roland who fiercly protect the copyrights of samples from their legacy products.
I am surprised Roland also clamps down on samples recorded from analog gear like the original Jupiter/Juno synths or the tr-808 and tr-606. Probably, offering a sample pack and using the name "Roland" to describe it is already an infringment of their rights.

[Fieldrecording]

Yes I was reading the post they made on KB6 site. It's a shame as it's not just about the samples but a history of Drum machines and the sound they made. Crazy that Behringer got away with the RD-6 RD-8 and RD-9 but probably easier to put a takedown order on some samples than a big law suite .
A big thank you to yourself for everything you do on this site

[Fieldrecording]

Another Free Library

https://reverb.com/software/samples-and ... collection

[interruptor]

Yes, crazy that Behringer gets away while KB6 didn't. Maybe they should just rename their Roland samplesets "Behringer RD-8" etc. and reupload them..
Or some fantasy name like "Robert 8"

Yes I was reading the post they made on KB6 site. It's a shame as it's not just about the samples but a history of Drum machines and the sound they made. Crazy that Behringer got away with the RD-6 RD-8 and RD-9 but probably easier to put a takedown order on some samples than a big law suite .
A big thank you to yourself for everything you do on this site

[MarkyP]

@MarkyP Behringer are not far off releasing their clone
https://www.musicradar.com/news/behring ... m-linndrum

Probably around the same price as the RD8 & RD9 drum machines they released

@colinrobot:
Yes I heard about this clone and am very excited to see what it can do and to see their pricing on this machine and the upcoming DMX clone comically named BMX too! Exciting times for us musically minded.

Shortly after making a reply here on this page I discovered AlyJames' "VPROM" plugin which is an awesome software recreation of the LinnDrum and the price for it is shockingly low for how much research and work went into it, its not like the other software versions available such "MininnDrum" which is a fairly basic sample player in comparison, the VPROM has the actual circuitry of the original LinnDrum and uses real EPROMs.
https://www.alyjameslab.com/alyjameslabvlinn.html

I was also extremely pleased to find out that not only are hardware recreations of the 80's drum machines from Linn and Oberheim used for 80's dancehall on the horizon now from Behringer but that GForce has also released a perfect software recreation of the Oberheim DMX!
https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/dmx/

I understand that it was all FM sounds used in alot of the Steely and Clevie 80's dancehall riddims, to get that piano sound heard on a lot of Jammys releases I use either Native Instruments FM7/8 or Arturia DX7 although I prefer the former FM7 for the piano.

Is there anybody here on interrupter who would be interested in hearing the recreations I have made using these synths, such as the piano and bass that was on most of Steely and Clevie's jump up tracks from the 80's?

[KidsonicOfficial]

Hi. I'm not necessarily a reggae/dub producer, but as a person of mixed heritage (including Caribbean - more specifically Kittitian), classic reggae has always been a part of my life. I'm not so much into Dub, but I can appreciate its appeal (but mi nuh come yaso fi tek drugs lol).

It's nice to see that this thread is still around.

So, I've been studying the sounds of reggae classics such as the "A Love I can Feel" riddim (namely Beres Hammond's hit "Tempted to Touch", Nana McLean's "Nana's Medley" and Tony Tuff's "The First Time I met you") along with Sanchez "The Saddest Day", Garnett Silk's "Everything I Got" and Buju Banton's "I Don't Know Why" featuring Wayne Wonder etc.

I started out by listening to different drum sounds to try and determine what they could've used, and went from there. Upon watching Anthony Marinelli's video on Michael Jackson "Thriller" (of which he prrogrammed the Bass and Drums on). He mentioned that on the LM1/LinnDrum, you could burn different sounds to the sound chips and have different kits which were swappable. Upon downloading a LinnDrum VST I recognised a few of the sounds from some Reggae tunes. However, I quickly realised that that wasn't solely the case. I then watched Steely and Cleevie talking about the instruments they used in the video referenced earlier in the thread. They mentioned that the Oberheim DX could do the same thing, which made me start thinking about what Drum machines were actually used, as I've heard a lot of different machines' names being bounded about.

So here's my take.

Anything that Steely & Cleevie produced was most likely an Oberheim DX.
Anything that Donovan Germain (Penthouse Records) produced was likely a Sequential Circuits Drumtraks (i.e. Buju Banton Murderer). I believe King Jammy used the same drum machine (along with the TR808 for hi-hats).
Anything Produced by the late Philip "Fatis" Burrell was what I believe to be the RX11. The "woah" sound in the "A Love I can feel" riddim also came from the RX5.

Upon someone mentioning the old Kawai R50, I did a bit of analysis on the sounds, and it sounds like a lot of tunes, as it has the Oberheim DX Rimshot, as well as some zap sounds which I have come across in songs like "Murderer" (which in that track were layered with the piano), so I do believe it was used a lot. I'd also like to get that drum machine to pitch that zap down loads, as I've been unsure of where that low bubble sound in later reggae songs such as Sizzla's "Babylon a Listen".

My tutor at College (and later Uni too lol) was Digistep from Dubkasm. He'd managed to get extremely close to that sound using a toy of some kind (I can't quite remember which one he said he'd used).

This same track (Babylon a Listen) is a prime example of why I think the RX11 was used. If you pitch the rim down enough, it sounds very similar to this snare sound (which was a sound I've been trying to get for a long time).

So, yeah. To answer this question, from my testing and recreations, I've come to the conclusion that the snare you're talking about is in two parts.

The higher pitched snare (can be on a DX, DMX, or DrumTraks - doesn't really matter) needs to be on 1/4 note dotted grid (1/4 note + an 8th note). This should give you that typical dancehall rhythm. From there, the Kick and Rimshot need to fall on the 3rd beat. Hi-Hats are always 8th notes, etc.

That's pretty much it. I'd recommend breaking down each track element by element to really get a full glimpse into the production. I think that was one of the greatest things about going to uni to study music production. In the first year we did an analysis module which allowed me to closely study everything and recreate it to the best of my ability. If you have stem separation software, I'd recommend running each track through that and studying each stem if you don't know how to analyse a track to the extent I have. An album I'd recommend is "No Contest" by Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown as this is literally the epitome of 80s reggae and early 90s dancehall. It also features backing vocals from Nadine Sutherland, who went on to have a successful solo career in the 90s with songs such as Baby Face, Action (with Terror Fabulous), and Buju Banton's "Wicked Dickie".

I hope people find this useful.

Big ups,

Isaiah (AKA Kidsonic)