issue 49 · 2026-08-26 · for people who make house

Brunello's drum isolation trick in Live

The Brunello session is the one to open first — there’s a workflow move in there that turns a full drum loop into isolated one-shots without leaving Live, and once you see it you’ll steal it for every project.

◆ start here

▶ Isolate any drum hit from a loop and build a track around it

Brunello drops a Drum Isolator Rack that solos the open hat, clap, or tops from a full loop, then bounces the slice in place so you get a clean one-shot in under ten seconds. After that it is all arrangement: pulling bass notes from a reference melody with convert-to-MIDI, matching kicks by ear with a spectral view, and swapping samples by right-clicking 'show similar files' instead of scrolling folders. The dreamy Melodic House result hits, but the real takeaway is the rack workflow — it is the kind of thing that makes you rebuild your default template.

◢ learn

▶ A from-scratch minimal deep tech build where swing does the heavy lifting

Most of the groove comes from pushing the swing hard, then adjusting individual note timing until the pocket locks — call-and-response synth layers do the rest. The sub sidechain routing is shown in Serum alongside the mix tricks: cutting low end from the kick instead of the bass, layering a duplicate synth with a filter envelope for width, and pitching a preset down by octaves for dark texture.

◢ the word

Bitwig 6.1 rebuilds its sampler with slicing, spectral reharm, and a granular engine

The update is free for anyone on an active Upgrade Plan, and the sampler now slices by transient, beat, pitch change, or manual points — assignable to white keys only, black keys only, or velocity. Where it gets interesting: Spectral Reharm mode shifts harmonics and quantizes them to the project's global scale while leaving the fundamental alone, Cycles mode turns any sample into a wavetable oscillator with pulse-width modulation, and Fragments mode runs up to 256 grains per voice with independent rate, direction, and a morphing grain envelope. If you are already in Bitwig this rewrites half your workflows; if you are not, it is the kind of update that makes you curious about the switch.

4 min read · read →
♫ In Rotation
 
Nick Curly — Switching Levels
— LarryLuxe's pick
🎵 track of the day

Supernova — Deeper Transformation

the filtered piano stab that flips into a full chord stab at the second drop · in rotation pick — sits perfectly next to the Brunello melodic session above

📊 The Charts
 
#10 Franky Rizardo Shinjuku (Extended Mix)
▼ 2 · 7d · ▶ hear
= #05 Jamback Positive (Extended Mix)
26 days on · ▶ hear
#25 Supernova La Nuit (Extended Mix)
▲ 53 · 7d · ▶ hear
#88 Sam Frandisco Gotta Have It (Extended Mix)
▼ 38 · 1d · ▶ hear
#85 Josh Butler, Houston (UK) — Switch Off (Houston UK Extended Remix)
▼ 34 · 1d · ▶ hear

🔮 Producer Horoscope (for fun) — Your hi-hats will drift 3ms late and it will sound better that way.

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