Direct Hit Music

Direct Hit Music was started by LaJoel Darell and is located in Tacoma,Washington. Direct Hit Music produces Music / Radio Industry instrumentals for the R&B, HipHop, Urban, Neo Soul, Jazz, Pop, Rock and HipHop Alternative Genres.

We do not play live. We just concentrate on Music / Artist / Studio Production.

Some great influences for us are GOD, Hip Hop, Jeff Lorber, Dr Dre, Dave Grusin, Larry Rosen, Marcus Miller, George Duke, Snoop Dogg, Eric Benet, Kenny Loggins, Donny Hathaway, Confunksion, Will Downing, Norman Brown, Teddy Riley, Blackstreet, Pete Rock, Cl Smooth, Earth Wind and Fire, Ohio Players, Isley brothers, James Taylor, The Beatles, Clarence Clearwater Revival, War, Tower of Power, Whindam Hill Records, Maxwell, Alex Bugnon, Glenn Jones, Najee, Eric Sherman, Mary J, Jay Z. I could go on and on.

We mainly produce beats using Reason 4.1, Native instruments Maschine and komplete 6 with a lot of virtual instruments. If needed I rewired with Sonar 8 or Cubase 5. We use Pro Tools 8 when needed. We use the best drum module / controller software program for beat production there is and it is called MASCHINE by Native Instruments. This beat production tool will put any and We do mean any Akai MPC machine to and challenge and must say it will win. Check out the tutorials on the Native Instruments website or Youtube and see for yourself. We run everything through a Tascam TM-D4000 digital automated mixer (love this mixer). We transfer all the information via the Korg KONTROL 49 and a Roland MKB 1000 88 key weighted keyboard. We control my DAW with the M-Audio Projectmix I/O. One piece of gear that made recording life much easier is the BIG KNOB by Mackie. This piece of gear solves all the vocal booth, main room and speaker monitoring issue you can think of and give you other connectivity parameters such as turntable and or a 2 2- tracks. We use the Roland R8M Drum Module. We have all the sound cards that came with this module. Because of the R8M and the sound cards we have every drum module and drum sound that Roland produced. This module is only 8 bit but it is very thick and warm. When used the sounds cuts through the mix. we also use the Roland JV1010 sound module with the Hip Hop Expansion card inside it. This module records thick and clean as well. The coolest piece of gear that we use is a computer that we built to be used as a virtual synthesizer(s). We have various virtual synthesizers that sound just as good as any keyboard made loaded in this computer. What would a virtual synth setup be without Native Instruments Komplete. We have a Rhodes electric piano without have to search the world for the original. We use the all the Korg all the Arturia VST instruments. We also use Imagae Line's VST Synth Morphine (VST is a product of Steinberg). We have various outboard gear but we find ourseives using VST plugins. We love the Universal Audio UAD 2 Cards. Universal Audio simply are the best models of the best vintage processors. Some of our favorite plugins ins are Modern Plug-ins. These plugins are free and they give UAD a run for the money. Oh That's right the modern plugins are free. But on the real side these plug-ins are accurate, do not use up cpu and you will hear a difference with every adjustment. Moderns Universal Audio emulations is pretty accurate. Moderns version of the LA-2A compressor-limiter is mind blowing. Also we use Waves plugins and URS plug-ins. The SSL plug-ins are sweet. For reverb we use the Altiverb 6 and the Lexicon plug-ins. If you can get this get it. Its worth every penny. We master using Pro Tools and or T-Racks 3 Deluxe. Sometime We master with my outboard gear. We really think one day outboard gear will be obsolete because of the power of the virtual plug-ins. For Mic Preamps we use 2 recording industry standard Universal Audio LA-610s. To me this is the best hand made mic preamp. The optical compression-Limiter is the best thing that can happen for a vocalist. As far as we are concerned there is no better. We also use, believe this or not a Modified Behringer Tube Ultragain pre amp with Telefuken tubes in it. Don't Laugh Its sounds pretty good on guitars. For Microphones we use Nueman U-87, Sterling Audio ST69 Tube, Sterling Audio ST77 Fet and an Avantone CV-12 Tube. All these mics with the Universal Audio LA-610 sound cut through the music putting the vocals out front as they should in todays studio standard. We thank the manufactures for these mics. Check them out. Our speaker monitor system consist of a pair of Mackies HR824s, a pair of HR624s and a HRS120 12" subwoofer.