Hi folks,

when we made Nostromo in one night back in the summer of 2003, we knew we had created something special. The scene’s first reactions were very positive, so we approached Skynet, who was then starting up his now-defunct nVision label. He was very positive about it, too, and soon promised to sign it. He never released it though, so after about 1.5 years we withdrew the tune from him.

After that, we updated the sound and showed it to U3R, the people behind Mo’Fire. With the Nanodust/Stripshow release in mind, they envisioned it on an n&d EP, also containing a remix by a well-known international production team. Despite the fact that all contracts for that EP were already signed,this obviously didn’t work either, so after some couple of months without any progress we were left with Nostromo without a release at all.

It’s 2006 now – we feel it is time to close this chapter by handing this tune over to the people. It still is a floor smasher every time we play it out, so we hope some of you gonna blast it.

Download Link

Feel free to play it at parties or include in your mix sets, as long as they’re not commercial. We will remove the linked file after two weeks, so spread the word. Thnx for the support.

Cheers,

n&d

Whenever I re-listen to those (heaps of) old tunes which I really like, I always wonder why only very few producers involved are still up-to-date. The degree to which those former heroes have come down, not only for my personal taste, but also in terms of being innovative, varies quite a lot, though.

• Some producers seem to have completely quit doing DnB, or at least have little and then uninteresting output at all, like Trace, Grooverider, Jonny L, Rascal & Klone or Kemal.
• Others, like J.Majik, Roni Size, Skynet or Ed Rush & Optical are still producing, but hardly write interesting tunes anymore or don’t have the necessary skills, at least in comparison to what they used to do. Sad but true.
• On the other hand, there’s a couple which I used to like (Fresh, Ill.Skillz, Concord Dawn, Kabuki), but don’t feel their recent style anymore. Most of their tunes are ok from a production level point, it just seems both them and I have changed over time.
• Actually, there’s only a really small couple of old-school producers I still find to be interesting, tasteful and good production-wise. Teebee comes to mind, with his tasteful Subtitles output, Matrix doing his unrivaled style (though keeping a low profile). John B, crazy as ever, maybe Optiv representing what used to be C4C (forget about those recent C4C tunes).

There even is a couple of younger producers I really found to be innovative leaders only 3-4 years ago, which now just release low-level tunes.
To sum up, two (personal) hypothesises come to mind

1. Quite a lot of former interesting producers are currently far from releasing solid, interesting tunes
2. Despite that, they still have a high visibility in the scene

How come?
I like to think that a producer’s importance to the genre is shaped like the gaussian, or bell, curve shown at the top. It starts at zero, gets bigger, peaks at some point in time and then vanishes. Obviously it’s not that simple, and there are various examples showing an up-and-down progression, but you get the overall picture, don’t you?
The question now is, what determines the curve’s form? My hypothesis is, that there are at least two important factors:

1. Staying up-to-date in technical innovation. This means constant change of work methodology, learning from others, constantly monitoring and questioning your own approach. Being open for constructive critics.
2. Burning out. As in every job, one experiences motivational lows and highs. Sticking to a fixed routine also makes it probable to get stuck in innovative zeroness. This be also be caused by an audience which is more interested in getting their usual fix instead of urging for something fresh, allowing you to use your bulletproof recipe again and again. Don’t change a winning team style. This of course can lead to a vicious circle.

What are the key factors to stay innovative (which is what I prefer) and motivated?
Constantly analyse recent innovations, and be open to change your routine and toolset. Don’t copy, adapt.
That’s probably far from complete. What are your recommendations on staying up-to-date, avoiding to get stuck?

After the recent post on sample management (thanks for all the fruitful comments!), I recently stumbled upon a highly related issue, that is unfinished tunes. Actually, I have one folder which contains previews of all the stuff I’m currently working on. Some people may just work on one single tune at a time, but I always have a couple, resulting from collaborations and different moods.

So, whenever I – for whatever reason – start working on a new tune, I render its current state to that folder, which allows me to take it with me on my iPod or just to listen to it again without starting up the sequencer. The idea is to be able to create new ideas in production off-time, writing them down and applying them the next time I get to that specific tune.

The obvious challenge is to handle each tune-in-progress with appropriate care. Actually, what I found was unfinished tracks from 2003, which of course sounded crap production-wise, still contained some elements worth keeping, like a nice intro or certain single sounds. So what I did was getting into those dust-covered arrangements, extracting the bits worthy and deleting the whole arrangement thereafter. By that, in a way similar to the sample management, I make sure I refocus on the right tracks and let go what has become useless over time.

It’s always a real pain, as every track I started, and be it three years old, contains something personal, which makes it hard to just delete in an instance. Nevertheless, I’m getting used to pruning the past where necessary and look ahead, not back.

Btw, do I have to stress that this may allow for uninstalling unused plugins, too, thereby reducing the time to scroll through when looking for something to insert on a channel? It’s all about refocussing, baby!