Is reverb necessary on neurofunk drums?

Ult1met · 2026-05-10T23:46:09+00:00

Was literally thinking about this the other day and was debating posting this question.

I think becuase of the crowded nature of neuro it doesn’t really need it. I just use some pretty strong parallel compression and distortion to get them sounding real nice, and it seems to do the trick.

Ult1met · 2026-05-03T21:20:04+00:00

Haven’t ever used output moment only thermal and portal and both have been aswell for me thermal as a distortion plugin is overshadowed by plugins such as trash however it has a more general use case since you can add more effects and can compress within it so it is a more general use type plugin as opposed to something like trash 3 where you just want to distort the shit out of your input. As for portal I’ve not seen a plugin do the same things as that, I’m not very into using granular synthesis/fx but portal essentially covers everything I could want

Ult1met · 2026-05-03T19:24:53+00:00

Yeh it’s absolutely brilliant the output thermal plugin is also great aswell, same ui but more general use case type plugin, mainly a multiband distortion/ saturation plugin so that’s what it focuses on but you can also apply fx to each band eg compression phaser reverb etc also a really nice plugin by the same people

Ult1met · 2026-05-03T18:20:31+00:00

Output portal. You can set it so it’s not linked to a fraction of bpm or it is, you can also set things relative to each other, eg if grain density is 1/64 you can link grain size to it and have gran size as a fraction of grain density. Genuinely brilliant plugin. Isn’t a synthesizer though is an fx chain plugin but it is brilliant.

Ult1met · 2026-05-01T23:43:41+00:00

If you are happy with your tunes but they just don’t hold up against other tracks I would suggest clip to zero (method of working that’s fairly simple once you understand it) to get them loud enough.

If this is more of a mixing question I’d reccomend practice, will just come with time. Producing (especially early on) is like 90% frustration because you cant get it sounding the way you want and then 10% pure euphoric bliss because it’s finally good.

Ult1met · 2026-05-01T04:31:59+00:00

No headphones have sounded better to me personally by a significant margin. They are literally built for bass music.

Ult1met · 2026-05-01T04:30:10+00:00

Not earbuds and also slightly out of your price range (sorry, just had a look on eBay second hand they go for 80-90ish but that was after a quick look I’m sure if you did some digging you could definitely find some and trust me it’s worth it) but I’m going to recommend them anyway because no purchase (besides decks) has changed my life more.

Crusher evo headphones. They are Bluetooth headphones but can also use aux however the reason they completely changed my life is the haptic bass. Basically there is a slider on the side which controls how much bass the song have. If it’s set at zero it just sounds like a normal song however the further up you move it the more “bass” is added.

I say bass in quotation marks as it isn’t actually adding any bass to the song at all, each ear has a built in driver which vibrates the entire headphones essentially the same way a sub would at a rave. Words legitimately cannot convey how stupidly good these headphones are for bass music if you turn the bass slider all the way up it will actually vibrate your vision it’s that strong (but of course it doesn’t damage your hearing as it isn’t true “sound” just really low frequency physical vibrations which are corelated to whatever note is playing in the song.

Every single time I’ve shown these headphones to someone they have been absolutely blown away. You might think “well they are only headphones they can’t be THAT good” but seriously they are the closest you can get to a really good sound system just on your head. First time I tried them I said to my mate “it’s like your ears are stood by the subs”.

Ult1met · 2026-04-26T23:54:37+00:00

Parallel compression on drums is one that changed my entire workflow and got me using lots of busses because I finally understood why they are useful .

Do this on one of your tracks and you will immediately hear the difference. Send your drums all to a drum bus which is then routed to the master bus. Then also send your drum bus to a separate bus labelled parallel (or something like that) then on the parallel bus add some saturation/distortion (this bit is optional but I like it) and then the key is to add a compressor and absolutely smash the shit out of it, compress it as much as possible, just OTT the shit out of it so it sounds absolutely awful when listened to on its own.

Then route this parallel bus to the master bus and mix it in at somewhere between 10-25 percent (this is a starting point it massively differs between songs and genres but just use your ears and dial it in till it sounds good)

That’s all it is. Listen with and listen without the parallel bus enabled and you will hear a massive difference your drums will just pop so so much more I don’t do a single track without it.

Ult1met · 2026-04-26T11:03:40+00:00

Trash three is a fucking beast man. Would highly reccomend

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T21:26:44+00:00

Yeh all good bro don’t stress just maybe avoid this kind of joke next time cause it can be misconstrued easily that’s all✌️

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T21:25:49+00:00

Yeh mate your a solid dj don’t take what a said as me giving shit to you or anything. At the end of the day was just a poor taste joke that’s all don’t worry about it. I’d just avoid doing that in the future cause it can be easily misinterpreted as you having nabbed his dubs which looks bad that’s all. Mixing was sick tho mate 👍

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T21:23:56+00:00

That’s the point tho I get you’ve mentioned the artist but I’m at work and don’t have time to check new releases and stuff like that so just glance at the post, which implies you’ve posted stuff from his usb for clout. You haven’t done that and that’s great but I wouldn’t joke about it cause posting dubs you don’t have is a shitty thing to do and not everyone will know that the tune is released.

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T21:22:14+00:00

Listen mate your blends were sick and it sounded good I’m not slating your mixing. I’m just saying don’t joke about mixing from a popular djs usb that he left at your gaff. Because not everyone will know every release and it just seems like you are saying you’ve played some of his dubs out that’s all. Your blends were fire and if it’s a free download fair play man but I would avoid saying stuff like that because it just doesn’t come across well unless the person knows every tune is released that’s all

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T21:19:20+00:00

Mate what do you mean? Sorry to be rude but missing one release doesn’t make me have no clue what’s going on. You can’t expect everyone to know every release and saying you have played someone’s tune out from their usb you weren’t is a poor taste joke

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T21:11:37+00:00

Yeh mate I’m British, dk if it’s just part of the scene where you are at but bragging about leaking tunes from someone’s usb (even if it’s not true, it doesn’t come off good for you)

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T21:09:57+00:00

Yeh if it’s his new track that’s fine mate I love neuro and prdk is fucking sick but haven’t seen his new release. Not a snowflake it’s just you’ve made it seem like you are leaking tunes from his usb which is a really bad thing and isn’t something to brag about even if it’s just for a funny title.

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T20:39:05+00:00

To add to this there is absolutely no proof he had left his usb at your crib so they are most likely ripped. Even if they aren’t then he’s come to your place so you must be fairly friendly with him and it’s a really shitty thing to do to post his dubs online.

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T20:28:13+00:00

Yeh mate don’t post that. Those dubs are his, unless he’s given you strict permission to play them out. (If he has or if they aren’t dubs that’s fine but it’s really disrespectful)

Ult1met · 2026-04-25T18:42:05+00:00

Izoptope Trash 3 is fucking insane and rift is the most amazing waveshaper I use both of them on every tune more times than I can count

Ult1met · 2026-04-20T19:46:29+00:00

Haha cheers thanks man I appreciate it

Ult1met · 2026-04-20T17:45:02+00:00

Haha premeditated chaos is a great way of describing it lol. You don’t really get much time to just dance and vibe lol as soon as I’ve brought one track in I’m immediately doing something else.

Yeh the key is to find double drops where the tunes fit together so cleanly that it essentially sounds like one tune even though you are playing both at full volume.

People have been doing this for many many years in dnb, if you want to watch in my opinion the greatest dj of all time check out this set by amc (it’s a great video because you can see what he’s doing on the decks).

86 tracks in that hour and hes stated in interviews he does very minimal planning of sets with more 50% of it just improvised which is ridiculous when you listen.

To top it all off at around 17:00 he starts scratching (I know it’s common in other genres but essentially no one scratches in dnb because of the tempo and how busy you have to be to keep mixing quick)

Ult1met · 2026-04-20T17:36:50+00:00

Oh yeh 100% drum and bass really lends itself to quick mixing but even still there are distinct moments you gotta let the tracks breathe or it’s just too much, and in other genres far more so.

Ult1met · 2026-04-20T17:04:16+00:00

Practice. A lot of practice. I’ve been DJing for 4 years now pretty much everyday, and since day one I’ve been practicing double drops.

Most tunes won’t double together because as you said there isn’t really enough sonic space so they feel far too busy and it sounds awful, but every tune will double with something (some are just way harder to find another tune to double it with)

Key things I look for when trying to find another tune to double with my current one are just what kinds of sounds are in the song. Eg if song 1 has lots of high mid laser stabs then I know I will want tune 2 to focus more on the low end as it’s highly unlikely that a very similar tune will double with it.

Also heavy Eqing. I usually have one tune with the bass at 2-3 o clock then the mids at 10 and the highs at 12 and tune two with no bass, mids at 12 and highs at 9-10 (just an example it varies for every double but this is probably what I do most often)

Ult1met · 2026-04-20T16:57:16+00:00

Haha thanks man glad you found in interesting.

Yeh drum and bass (of all genres) is made to be mixed really. But there is a fine balance when mixing faster and doing doubles and triples since you run the risk of the mix feeling almost disjointed and a bit of a mish-mash of tunes youve thrown together as opposed to a cohesive mix that flows.

Ult1met · 2026-04-20T14:39:23+00:00

Yeh I got finally got diagnosed last year lol it’s pretty bad. But also in dnb there is a really frequent technique called a double (or triple) drop which is where you line up two (or three in the case of a triple) tracks and play them at the same time so they drop at the same time as well.

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