You will need: Native Instrument’s Massive, an automation channel.

And here’s how you do it:

Sample Magic

The Sample Maestros are offering a range of deals, most popular of which is the Funky House Grooves Big Box – the definitive deep, soulful, disco and funky house collection, featuring a blistering 2,600+ samples with a massive 50% off. Comprising the award-winning Funky House Grooves 1 and 2, this is a must-have for all those who make house with a melodic, organic edge. Don’t take our word for it either – check out the many 5-star reviews.

It’s not just about house though; Sample Magic are also offering the Breaks & Tech-Funk Big Box – the ultimate breakbeat, nu-school breaks, dubstep and tech-funk breaks sample collection featuring a whopping 1,800+ Wavs and incorporating the best-selling Breakbusters and Tech-Funk Breaks – all at half price.

There’s also money off many other titles, including Minimal Techno (30% off), Sunset Sessions (30% off) and Ian Boddy’s Transmission X (50% off).

Riemann Kollektion

If you haven’t yet checked out Florian Meindl’s excellent Riemann Kollektion series of sample packs then when better time than with the whole series bundled together for 50% off? Featuring sounds from top-line producers, including Martin Eyerer, Ramon Tapia, Format:B, Shlomi Aber and Florian Meindl, this is a Minimal, Tech and Tribal-Tech smorgasbord that will keep you busy for months.

Zero-G

Zero-G have slashed a BBQ-tasty 20% off all their titles, from the authentically kitsch lounge classic Kocktail Kollection through their stunning – and best-selling Classic Disco to Satin Grooves and more recent dance titles including Electro House and Progressive House. For their full saver range – including chillout, world and urban collections, see here.

Hy2rogen

H2rogen’s product line has become something of a turn-to essential for those making progressive, tech and electro house, and in this first bumper Big Pack beats you get 675+ filthy peaktime beats, tops, synths and FX – all at 50% off. Well worth a spin.

Samplestar

Ex Sample Magic producer Colin Flynn is the man behind Samplestar, and his label – only launched earlier this year – has delivered some absolute gems. And now they’re retailing at 20% off! Highly recommended is the Nu-Rave / Prog / Ital Disco-inspired Electrik5, and for a deeper sound, 127>DeepMelodicTech.

FatLoud

For all your hip hop, urban and R&B needs, the FatLoud team are about as good as you get. Highlighted by Sound and gear’s SaintJoe as having “a production edge that makes their packs at the same time energetic and very now”, they’re offering a cool 50% off a whole range of their recent offerings, including Club Claps, Dust and Modern Sessions. Also worth investigating is the superb value PRO Series Bundle featuring 2.5GB worth of pristine orchestral samples at 50% off.

Best Service

Two words: Voodoo Grooves. If you don’t have it yet, it’s the biggest selling pack on the site – and with good reason: it packs in over 800 stunning tribal grooves and chants – ideal for any peaktime tribal bomb – for less than £20!

And if you’ve been delaying your purchase of the MASSIVE K-Size Editions – that’s the K-Size FX Edition, K-Size Minimal Edition and K-Size Tech-House Edition, then now’s as good a time as any, with 5% off everything.

Best of the rest…

For beautifully sampled instruments, check out realsamples’ 73 Stage Piano Collection or Early Pianoforte, at between 5 and 15% off.

For the more leftfield side of sound design and soundtrack production, you could do much worse than check out the various top-rated Haunted House releases – all retailing at 20% off. Our favourites include Monster Kicks – for kicks that really do bite – and the incredible value Ambient Worlds Complete.

Diginoiz may be the new kids on the sample block, but they’ve already garnered fans for their brand of tight hip hop. Check out their High Heel Vocals for 200+ velvet verses, luxurious layered choruses and sassy, sultry solos – at 33% off.

There’s more… many, many more, and far too many to namedrop. You can check out the full list here.

What is the key ingredient for a track? Breakdown? Style of production? Bassline?

Breakdown all the way. A breakdown sets the scene for the carnage that follows and is also a great way of letting the party crew rest for a minute or two. You can get really creative in the breakdown and use strings and pads (which I use at any given opportunity). I’m renowned for saying: “Let’s put a pad line there and then at this point put it up a seventh!” Ask one of the other chaps in Aquasky and they will probably say the bassline or beats are the most important thing. It’s like having a head and not having eyes, ears and a mouth to go with it: it would be pointless. Your track needs an awesome beat and a great bass. But for me it’s all about the breakdown. Strings anyone?

Have you got any advice for aspiring young producers out there?

Don’t listen to the haters and don’t go sending your tracks away until you know they are the best they can be. There is so much crap being given away at the moment. If your track is one of the crap ones then it will weaken your name and the scene you are down with. My second piece of advice would be to do what YOU want to do, and don’t always try to make the hot sound of now, as the hot sound will be out of date by the time your tune is released. Finally, be nice to people on the way up as you will pass the same people on the way back down.

Do you mainly use analogue or digital soft synth sources? Do you think analogue really makes a difference?

We spent years using analogue gear and still have most of the kit (boxed on the roof of our studio). These days though it’s all about digital soft synths. It’s amazing how much space our gear used to take up and these days the studio feels a bit naked. That said, I’m sure one day we’ll dust off the old kit and have fun with it again.

Any arrangement secrets you wish to share with us?

We sometime share a bed on tour…

What do you believe is the secret to your success as a producer?

I think it is about knowing when the time has come to move on and try something new. It’s a pet hate of ours when a producer has success with a tune then spends the rest of their career trying to recreate that success by making tunes that sound the same or even giving an annual remix of their classic tune. That’s when making music is more about the business than the creativity.

For us it’s about being able to have the freedom to create what we want, when we want. We knew when our days producing drum ‘n’ bass were up when Adam Freeland got us into breaks. Then we knew the days of spearheading the bassline breaks scene were over when on entering the studio we already knew what the end track was going to sound like. It started to feel as if we were on a production line. Basically, we got bored wth where we were. Then we hooked up with Meat Katie and did the track ‘Overneath’, which was a huge success. From there we got back into the 4/4 sound, using our trademark bass and our knowledge of old school vibes and mashing it all up. I wouldn’t even know what box you would put our new sound into and I don’t really care either !

How do you see the dance music industry developing over the next 2-3 years?

Musically it could go any way, and that’s great for us as we love to mash it up and stay out of the boxes that are placed around you like cages in a zoo. “Hey kids,” the PR masters say, “do you want to see the jackin’ house enclosure or go looking at those wild bashment-bassline kids in their reinforced pen?” It’s such an exciting time and there isn’t a hierarchy dictating what you should or shouldn’t be doing (other than the obligatory PR firms and club promoters). You’ve got the DJs playing tracks that make the punters bounce like in the old rave days of time gone by and trust me; we were there for that and that’s what has kept us inspired ever since.

Any advice on monitoring? Quiet? Loud? Do you prefer flat and boring speakers, headphones or big, phat and chunky monitors?

We like to monitor on speakers that give us good mid and top-end clarity. Dave’s [one of the other two members that make up Aquasky] dad made a big bass speaker for us to check the bottom end and that only goes on for a short period at the end of the mixdown otherwise the studio would probably cave in on top of us. We never monitor on headphones and never have the volume loud. It just tires your ears and then you’re fucked: you’re not objective which is not cool when you are doing a mixdown. We always do our final mix at the end of the day and check it the next morning before making the last bounce.

How important do you think it is to have your music mastered commercially? Can you do it yourself as effectively and what tools would you recommend?

We can do digital mastering ourselves as well as most mastering companies. Sometimes we’ll do it better as it’s our own music and we know how it should sound. Vinyl, however, is a different beast altogether. There’s only one person who can handle that for us and that’s Shane at Finyl Tweek. He knows our sound and knows how to make it sit ‘pon de wax!

Describe your typical workflow on a track.

We keep our heads down, the door shut, phone off the hook and a laptop to hand to keep the Tweets up to date. That’s about it really. If at the end of the session we are up on our chairs, shirts off, making boxes and sounding air horns then we know we’re on a good track. If we are sat in the corner, chewing our cheeks, staring at a wall covered in sweat and puke, and slipping into a deep black hole, then it has been a bit of a shit session. Thankfully we don’t end up on that many bad trips.

What sounds do you find are the hardest to create from scratch?

I was never any good at being a human beatbox. So I’d probably say that’s the hardest thing to do from scratch. It aways sounded like I was sneezing.
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More from Aquasky: www.aquasky.co.uk Twitter aquaskyuk, myspace.com/aquaskyuk

Who’s currently rocking your world as a producer and why?

Peo De Pitte is one of my favourites. His style is unique and his tracks cause hell on the dancefloor! The latest Boris Dlugosch material is seriously hot too.

When building a track how do you normally work? Do you start with the drums and build your way up from that?

As a rule, yeah: for most club tracks I aim to get the beats and bass right first. The rest usually follows naturally.

Do you use mainly analogue or digital soft synth sources? Do you think analogue still really makes a difference?

I don’t feel strongly about it. To me it’s whatever works in the context of the track in question. I don’t have a preference either way.

Any advice on monitoring? Quiet? loud? do you prefer flat and boring speakers or headphones or big phat and chunky monitors?

Monitor finished mixes on as many sets of speakers as you can (tiny ones, in the car, on your hi-fi, as well as on the ones in your studio). Most club stuff is designed to be played at volume so it’s worth mixing at volume, but only in small doses. It’s fatiguing to listen to loud music over long periods; it doesn’t help your mixing or your ears, and your ears are an important asset.

What is the key ingredient in a great track? Breakdown? Style of production? Bassline? And why?

It’d have to be the vibe. It’s an unquantifiable term, but you know when you’ve got it. It’s the skill of putting the different elements together to create a new, single unified entity.

What’s your opinion on processing the mix bus? Leave it clean or drive it to the extreme?

It depends. Sometimes driving the bus hard works fantastically – especially with beats – but I don’t tend to squash the life out of complete mixes. Instead I use some gentle compression to help gel the different mix elements together. The deciding factor is the source material.

Loops or programming your own beats from single hits and why?

Both have their place, but it’s definitely worth learning how to make your own beats as it’ll teach you a lot about drum programming and groove, which is essential knowledge when making dance tracks. That said, if you’ve got a loop that works, use it!

How important do you think it is to have your music mastered commercially? Can you do it yourself as effectively and what tools would you recommend?

It’s not essential, but I think it adds a lot to the process. Mastering is an art that takes many, many years to learn and you’re essentially paying for that (plus the kit they use of course!)

I’ve learnt loads watching our tracks getting mastered over the years and it’s incredibly useful to have another pair of ears on your mix that are totally impartial.

Of course you can do it yourself using digital limiters like the Waves L3 and you can get pretty good results, but there’s nothing like having an expert do it with proper gear that you’ll never be able to afford. I would always recommend getting albums professionally mastered.

Have you got any advice for aspiring young producers out there?

Practice, practice, practice! Also critically listen to as much material as you can, keep an eye on forums for tips and find a bunch of like-minded folk to swap ideas with.

And finally, what do you believe is the secret to your success as a producer?

Hard work and a strong stubborn streak.

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