i want to write a piece on chopped breaks and the significance of them and why people are drawn to them and so forth. sort of a social dissection/inspection/study, if you will, of the rare breed that enjoys a good speed up and hyper edited breakbeat.

id like to hear about the sonic elements you enjoy in them - the crispness of a particular snare, the way a timestretched break makes you feel, particular breaks youre keen on and why, if its just because its a familiar thing to you at this point, your experiences (more mental/emotional than physical) mixing them or creating them... whatever!

any links to similar pieces would be appreciated, though they need not be specifically about breakbeats - they could be good editorials on a 303 or whatever, but focused on a particular element/aspect of a genre of music and what it is specifically that people enjoy about it and implications or assumptions that can be made about both that sound and those drawn to it.

feel free to pm or email (grindthievesATgmailDOTcom) me if youd rather not post publicly.

Fav breaks:

Amen
Think
Illegal
Cold Sweat
Apache
Sesame Street

These are the breaks I find myself most often using in production. The apache break is the only one I ever have trouble with however. I can't seem to get in the number and style of edits I want while keeping the break sounding organic or at least maintain the flow.

I could probably write a 10,000 word essay on my love of the amen break, but I'll short form it for this post.

The amen break is probably the most versatile drum loop I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Tempo seems to have very little affect on the break, as I've made tunes at up to 280 bpm using the amen and it still sounds hella wicked. But probably one of my favourite features of the break is a time-stretched and pitched snare (ex: Palmatron - Dem Move or Paulie Walnuts - Plead My Cause). The stretched snare can be used to build around an existing melody or create a whole melody in the tune. Also the crash at the end of the loop is, without edits, one hardcore sounding crash cymbal. I love doing heavy-metal style crash/mute/crash sequences.

Other things I love about the amen... drill rolls on snare or kick drum, ultrafast edits, pitch-up, pitch-down, filter, phase, reverse...

damn i love drumfuckery.

i love chopped breaks because i love patterns. complex , varying unexpected, repetative, evolving, expanding, progressing, breaking down. i love the differant combinations. i love the shift in time in makes u feel. i love to make them. i like the many differant sounds and samples, and the feeling you get from each of them. i love different effects u can mutate your sounds with. i love seeing patterns in the construction and taste of the collective. i love devolping the science. i love breaking the rules. i love the tradition.

to be honest i mess with every break i can get my hands on