Cleaner low end, dirtier tops, and a free saturator
Tonight we're looking at a groove shakeup: part of getting that modern Solid Grooves sound isn't just distortion—it's knowing where to clean it up. Plus there's a freebie hardware-style saturator worth grabbing before August 20th, and a modular workshop that takes the pressure off. One thing you can steal tonight.
⏳ expires in 3 days
PSP BBDelay models the compander, not just the EQ curve
PSP's new delay actually models the bucket-brigade chips and compander noise-reduction circuitry from classic units like the Memory Man, instead of just copying a frequency plot. Zero dry latency, up to 800 ms delay (doubled in extended mode).
◢ learn
▶ Surco on modular performance: start with a 'pre-disaster'
Clearing your patch intentionally before a set forces you to improvise from a known starting point, and recycling sounds through pre-fader sends turns your own material into atmospheres that are automatically in key.
▶ A from-scratch 'I See You' remake tackles the bass with harmonics
This rebuild only borrows the kick and vocal—everything else is remade. The bass trick is boosting specific harmonics in a wavetable directly, which gets the tone without a filter. Also uses Serum FX's diffuser to smear tom transients.
◢ free & gear
fedDSP RAIJU saturator free until Aug 20(free)
Normally £30, this is a zero-latency, low-CPU saturator with a painless offline license—no iLok. Handy utility drive for drums or busses.
◢ the word
▶ Solid Grooves style: cleaner bottom, dirtier top
A bird's-eye breakdown of evolving tech house textures—older tracks leaned on crushed 909 kicks, the newer thing keeps the low end clean and pushes dirt into the highs. Teaches bass layering with Sub Boom Bass, Redux degradation, and tape delay pitching for dark vocal vibes.
Earth n Days — Don't Give Me This
the tense filtered loop underneath the vocal that finally snaps open at the first chorus · this is today's owner pick
- sample: Loleatta Holloway – Love Sensation (1980) / Acapella ‘Crash Goes Love’ — The foundational acapella isn't the famous 'Love Sensation' chorus everyone thinks. Marc 'MK' Kinchen isolated the phrase 'crash goes love' from a lesser-used part of Loleatta Holloway's Salsoul recording. The genius move was slicing a single sustained vowel ('ah' or 'ay') and treating those formant-frozen grains like synth oscillator waveforms, not words.
- technique: MPC-60 Note-Off Gating — MK tracked the entire vocal performance on an Akai MPC60 with the pad set to monophonic + overlap = off. When a new slice triggers, the previous slice instantly cuts. This 'note-off' gating is why the stutters in 'Burning' feel tight and percussive, not like a stretched smooth loop. It's the silence after each fragment that creates the swing.
- recreate: DAW Pitch-wheel + Clip Fades
- Load any sustained vowel note into a sampler (Simpler/Serum/etc.).
- Set polyphony to 1 and pitch-tracking on.
- Draw a series of quick 16th/32nd notes in your piano roll with pitch-wheel automation scooping up or down at the end of each note—just a semi-tone or two.
- Apply a tiny 5-10ms fade-out on each slice to prevent clicks.
- That jerky, melodic 'vocal lead' feel is the core sound.
- Don't quantize the pitch dives; play them on a mod wheel for the natural MK drag.
🔮 Producer Horoscope (for fun) — Your oldest, dustiest delay plugin will suddenly sound like the best thing in the mix. BBD chips are back, baby.
Grab that saturator while it's free. See you tomorrow.
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covered in this issue: psp audioware bbdelay