How to get that decent drum sound?

Baggio... · 04-11-2010 12:09am #1

Hey there,

Can someone please help me out?

Gah!

I've been trying to get punchy drums for a month or two now. I've used layering and distortion with eq'ing.

I know I'm doing something wrong, could one of you guys be kind and throw me some technical advise.

Thanks!

Rob.

seannash · 04-11-2010 12:25am

sample kicks,hats and clean snares from tracks you like.
should instantly help.

Get yourself a good compressor and run all your drums to it.

but its really all down to sample choice.

Maybe if you post up some examples of your drums we could help you out

krd · 04-11-2010 3:39am

seannash wrote: »

sample kicks,hats and clean snares from tracks you like.
should instantly help.

Get yourself a good compressor and run all your drums to it.

but its really all down to sample choice.

Maybe if you post up some examples of your drums we could help you out

I've been experimenting with this over the last few days. Though I haven't built a track yet, with the stuff.

If you want a good kick - or snare - cut it straight off a track you like - just like Sean said - you can get things like hi-hats too, you might need to use filtering to get rid of the bass on hats.

But where I differ from Sean.

I cut the kick from a CD, I really like. And loaded the sample into impulse. The kick on the track has already been compressed, sweetened, mastered, limited etc. On the track on the CD - the Kick is hitting 0 db. So, I loaded the sample into Ableton's impulse and set the volume to hit at 0db. So my Impulse kick sounds exactly like, and at exactly the same volume, as the kick on the CD - there's no need for extra sound treatment. It sounds as good as the kick on the track I've taken it from - because it is the same sound.

Putting a kick through a compressor, doesn't automatically make it louder, it can make it quieter and muddier - though technically there's more volume in the wave - play around with the compression on a kick and you'll see it get louder and quieter where you don't expect it.

If you cut hits from a CD - into something like Impulse and set the hits to 0db peak. You can build patterns just like the ones on the CD and it will sound just like the CD and you won't need to master with plugins or compress them.

Is there anything in particular you really like the drum on? - Post it - I'm looking for stuff to rebuild my kits with.

seannash · 04-11-2010 8:33am

krd wrote: »

The kick on the track has already been compressed, sweetened, mastered, limited etc.

to be honest ive always heard this thrown out but its never been a problem for me for some reason.
then again the amount of compression i add to my drums isnt too severe as i always have a compressor on the master when i make a track(also not a huge amount of compression on it.also its very hard to avoid more compression on your kick if you ever master your track which will bring limiting back into the equation)

OP if you are worried about the kick you can run everything else to a bus compressor except the kick if you like.

As krd says post up some examples of what you want(although im sure we'll just say if you like that drum sound sample it

)

jtsuited · 04-11-2010 9:37am

krd wrote: »

If you cut hits from a CD - into something like Impulse and set the hits to 0db peak. You can build patterns just like the ones on the CD and it will sound just like the CD and you won't need to master with plugins or compress them.
.

This is a terrible way of doing it. Leave everything well away from the 0db mark at all times. In a 24 bit environment you don't need anything to be peaking at 0db.

Baggio... · 04-11-2010 11:19am

Hey guys,

As OP said the best thing would to be put up a few tunz I've made (I'll have to set u a sound cloud account). Please bear in mind though, that they are only "sketches" and by no means finished articles. At this rate I don't think I'll ever finish a song that I'd be happy with

My main aim now is kinda' dark video game music... There's also a drum bass influence in there somwhere, but to be honest I've kinda' given up on that end of things as I find it too technical for my minuscule brain.

The drum sound I absolutely love would be something like this (even if I did'nt use the Amen break - I just love the sound of the drums).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxl4ImW8aWs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn8vyV1jzJo

I'm using Ableton btw.

Thanks for the help guys!

Baggio... · 04-11-2010 11:57am

Okay - I've set up a sound cloud yokey.

http://soundcloud.com/baggio-2

I've got three of my best tracks up there. However, I do use "best" in a broad sense as they are pretty poor production/structure wise - I'm still really new to Ableton, production and subtractive synthesis.

But the drums especially on the first 2 tracks are just lost... and have no bite to them at all

Anyway, thanks again!

krd · 04-11-2010 1:19pm

Baggio... wrote: »

The drum sound I absolutely love would be something like this (even if I did'nt use the Amen break - I just love the sound of the drums).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxl4ImW8aWs&feature=related

I'm using Ableton btw.

Thanks for the help guys!

I've just started doing this recently - I haven't done a finished DnB track yet but I'll tell you how to do the drums in Ableton. It's a lot easier to do than if you had to do it the old school way with a sampler.

The Amen break is the most recognisable break used in DnB - but it's not the only one. There are about 10 or 20 famous breaks. In the Trace & Nico track the main break is not the Amen break - though a snip of it is used. A snip of the Apache Break is also used -

It easiest to start with the Amen break - get a sample of it - there's loads all over the internet. Drag it onto an audio track in Ableton. - set a loop around it - and set the BPM to 160 - 170 - warp will time correct the sample.

The when you will play it it will sound like DnB. The other famous breaks will also sound like DnB at that speed.

To cut it up to sound more interesting - The Amen break is 4 bars long. Slice each bar into quarters. Then copy what you have to another loop - and shuffle it like a deck of cards - double bits, remove bits - you'll get something interesting. The Amen break sounds great nearly anyway you mix it up. I'm trying to find ways of making it more manageable like numbering and colouring the 16 segments so I know which is which.

Do the same with the other breaks. Since Warp has taken care all the hard work of time correcting. You can just mix up slices of different breaks - everything will fit reasonably easy - anything that doesn't fit - just use a different slice.

krd · 04-11-2010 1:54pm

jtsuited wrote: »

This is a terrible way of doing it. Leave everything well away from the 0db mark at all times. In a 24 bit environment you don't need anything to be peaking at 0db.

Yeah, it's probably not such a great idea. I'm not going absolutely 0 db. What would be a better db to aim for?

Taking a drum from a CD - I just did it for the first time the other day - and it has given me a really great drum sound - just like the sound on the CD. It's a great way to get a good drum sound. Way better than any of the sample packs I've downloaded.

I'm looking for a good minimal track to sample - something really sparse with good percussion.

Anyone know a good one?

Also a good Sparse Dubstep track - I've heard these but I don't know the names and I've been trawling Youtube trying find them - My internet connection is terrible so it takes me ages to find out - I haven't found what I'm looking for.

Baggio... · 04-11-2010 5:51pm

krd wrote: »

I've just started doing this recently - I haven't done a finished DnB track yet but I'll tell you how to do the drums in Ableton. It's a lot easier to do than if you had to do it the old school way with a sampler.

The Amen break is the most recognisable break used in DnB - but it's not the only one. There are about 10 or 20 famous breaks. In the Trace & Nico track the main break is not the Amen break - though a snip of it is used. A snip of the Apache Break is also used -

It easiest to start with the Amen break - get a sample of it - there's loads all over the internet. Drag it onto an audio track in Ableton. - set a loop around it - and set the BPM to 160 - 170 - warp will time correct the sample.

The when you will play it it will sound like DnB. The other famous breaks will also sound like DnB at that speed.

To cut it up to sound more interesting - The Amen break is 4 bars long. Slice each bar into quarters. Then copy what you have to another loop - and shuffle it like a deck of cards - double bits, remove bits - you'll get something interesting. The Amen break sounds great nearly anyway you mix it up. I'm trying to find ways of making it more manageable like numbering and colouring the 16 segments so I know which is which.

Do the same with the other breaks. Since Warp has taken care all the hard work of time correcting. You can just mix up slices of different breaks - everything will fit reasonably easy - anything that doesn't fit - just use a different slice.

Thanks man! So do those boys not use individual hits that much then? I mean, do they get the Amen (or cool drum sound loops), slash them up and just rejig it about?

I remember when I programed my first Amen break, I was so excited and I thought it was going to be the bollox. Unfortunately, it sounded so like a monotonous drum machine and was so lifeless.

Stab*City · 04-11-2010 8:16pm

Rather than use the Amen break its fairly simple to create a d n b/dubstep beat in abletons impulse.. you could try layering up a couple kicks and filtering off the bits of the kicks you dont like.. and a nice banging snare, real crisp.. choose other percussion to taste. also when drawing/playing in notes set the clip grid to triplets by right clicking and choosing triplets.. this gives you drawing access to those tricky little off beat hits you hear in dnd/dubstep.. also remember when doing dubstep its kinda in half time.. instead in 1,2,3,4 think 1,_,3,_ so thats boom, , tick, boom, , tick or boom boom, pause, tick tick, pause!! did i just explain that really badly?!?!:D anyway you get the idea.. then fill the gaps in the triplet with other percussion bits.. double up on the klicks n stuff.. throw a phat bass on then and away ya go.. i think..

krd · 04-11-2010 8:29pm

Baggio... wrote: »

Thanks man! So do those boys not use individual hits that much then? I mean, do they get the Amen (or cool drum sound loops), slash them up and just rejig it about?

You can do it both ways and both ways at once. The Trace & Nico track is definitely cut up old breaks. But plenty of people create their own breaks using their own percussion hits. You can copy an old break with your own sounds - make a little variation to it - and cut it up like an old break. The Amen break is nearly always a little muddy - but I downloaded a collection that had about 50 odd treatment variations of the sample. 80s rap used all the classic breaks - the first jungle/DnB stuff came out of DJs playing rap 33s at 45 or as high as the pitch allowed.

There's a tutorial on Ableton for making an eq rack - or I can't remember what it is - you can tweek the breaks to bring out the bass of the kick - or reduce or compress the hi's.

As for making your hits stronger - cutting them directly from a track you like is a way to go. I have found though - for some reason it's important to leave in the little bit of noise at the start of the hits - experiment with the attack and you see yourself.

I remember when I programed my first Amen break, I was so excited and I thought it was going to be the bollox. Unfortunately, it sounded so like a monotonous drum machine and was so lifeless.

There's a real science to this....which I haven't figured out yet. I did the same thing and it sounded terrible.

The reason the Amen break sounds great is the drummer is funky and he's playing a groove that's very slightly off the beat - he's not being sloppy, he's playing a rhythm between - most good drummers can do this.. When you pencil straight to the grid - you're perfectly on beat. It doesn't sound funky.

There are two other things to remember - the drummer is not hitting everything at the same volume. So if you're copying the break - pencil in at different volumes to match the break. Also, there is a tonal difference between the way the drummers left hand strikes the snare to the drummers right. If you look up the rudiments of drumming, you'll see it's all about this left left right right left thing - because the left and the right hand sound different to eat other. A good way to get the effect is to have two slightly different versions of the snare in impluse - even slightly different pan - you will notice the difference. In the more synthetic Dnb - they go the whole hog and have completely different snare samples. The same rules apply to the rides and hi-hats. Another thing is ghost notes. putting a really low kick in here and there, even though you can't hear them, really adds life to the beat.

To copy the groove of the Amen break you need to switch off the grid and pencil in manually. If you have your midi clip right below the Amen clip you can do this by using your eyes to match the hits. A cleaner break might be easier to see the hits - you can even see how hard they've been hit by the height and size of the spikes on the wave.

The rhythms in dnb are largely about a sensibility for the music (a sensibility I haven't got yet). dnb rhythms make sense. If you have the sensibility for the music - once you get past the nitty gritty of getting the sounds right you should be able program good rhythms very quickly.

Another thing you could try - you can jam live in Ableton. Set up say some snare and percussion - and pencil your kicks in (and out) on the fly as it's playing. or the other way around, pencil your snares in. You have to be quick with the mouse but after a few tries you'll get quick at it - and start realising interesting rhythm combinations.

There's also drum replacement software - something I've never used. I imagine it might be a great way to get an interesting version of a classic break - that sounds nothing like the original break but captures all the groove.

dasdog · 04-11-2010 10:33pm

^ picture/a thousand words and all that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b98BJ36K1wo

krd posted up a link to Belgian site a few months back with lots of good free breaks. If you're having trouble getting that "shuffle" try mixing your own hits in with some sample breaks and slice them up. No point in re-inventing the wheel too much but if distortion/eq isn't working try some really tight reverb and pitching your snare/bass/hats.

slut1 · 27-11-2010 9:45pm

krd wrote: »

If you cut hits from a CD - into something like Impulse and set the hits to 0db peak. You can build patterns just like the ones on the CD and it will sound just like the CD and you won't need to master with plugins or compress them.

yeah, but what about the rest of sounds? the rest still have to be compressed, eq'ed and processed, and with that sound of cutted drums will be affected...

krd · 29-11-2010 10:31am

slut1 wrote: »

yeah, but what about the rest of sounds? the rest still have to be compressed, eq'ed and processed, and with that sound of cutted drums will be affected...

Yes, that is a problem. But what really effects your overall sound is the quality of the sound of the individual elements. If you have a CD where there are really good drum hits and you can get them cleanly, that's more or less the drum sound you'll get. If you're using the typical drum hits from a sample pack you may need to do a lot more with them to make them sound like they have life.

Compression is over-rated. If something doesn't need to be compressed it doesn't need to be compressed. Do you absolutely precisely what the compressor is doing any of your sounds? Compression can take a good kick sound and take the kick out of it and make it sound wolly. Compression can make parts of the sound louder that you don't want or need.

Eq'ing. I'm pretty useless at - I need to practice. There is no rule says everything has to fit neatly anyway. And some things you'll listen to that sound really clean aren't when you take a closer listen.
.

If the sounds you want are coming through clearly and it's loud enough, and you don't have excessive muddiness, then you're there.

The thing to do really is try it. Take drum hits straight off a CD you like. It's pretty easy to do. You can use eq on the samples to get rid of stuff you don't want - like bits of kick on a hi-hat sample, and then resample.

slut1 · 29-11-2010 12:31pm

krd wrote: »

Yes, that is a problem. But what really effects your overall sound is the quality of the sound of the individual elements. If you have a CD where there are really good drum hits and you can get them cleanly, that's more or less the drum sound you'll get. If you're using the typical drum hits from a sample pack you may need to do a lot more with them to make them sound like they have life.

Compression is over-rated. If something doesn't need to be compressed it doesn't need to be compressed. Do you absolutely precisely what the compressor is doing any of your sounds? Compression can take a good kick sound and take the kick out of it and make it sound wolly. Compression can make parts of the sound louder that you don't want or need.

Eq'ing. I'm pretty useless at - I need to practice. There is no rule says everything has to fit neatly anyway. And some things you'll listen to that sound really clean aren't when you take a closer listen.
.

If the sounds you want are coming through clearly and it's loud enough, and you don't have excessive muddiness, then you're there.

The thing to do really is try it. Take drum hits straight off a CD you like. It's pretty easy to do. You can use eq on the samples to get rid of stuff you don't want - like bits of kick on a hi-hat sample, and then resample.

if You have a decent sample pack, its not a problem, but sometimes even on decent sample pack You want a kick shorter than it is, and thats where compressor coming in! (release knob) and for loudness, moderetely twist treshold, ratio, attack and release, and at some point You will get what You want... I can't explain how I'm getting it working, basicaly it's trial and error... http://soundcloud.com/slut1/the-noisy-freaks-d-r-e-a-m-slut1s-wake-up-mix here is example of my work, feel free to comment!

krd · 29-11-2010 5:49pm

slut1 wrote: »

if You have a decent sample pack, its not a problem, but sometimes even on decent sample pack You want a kick shorter than it is, and thats where compressor coming in! (release knob) and for loudness, moderetely twist treshold, ratio, attack and release, and at some point You will get what You want... I can't explain how I'm getting it working, basicaly it's trial and error... http://soundcloud.com/slut1/the-noisy-freaks-d-r-e-a-m-slut1s-wake-up-mix here is example of my work, feel free to comment!

To tell you the truth, I haven't a clue what I'm doing. I think it's mostly down to my ear. Each track I do I figure it out a bit better. And the more I become concious of stuff the more I can change stuff.

There's plenty I don't know yet. There's lots of things in my stuff I don't like but I don't know how to fix yet.

The Noisy Freak track is an example of a track with great drum sounds. I'm going to run off and grab the stems if there still going.

slut1 · 29-11-2010 6:31pm

yeah, that contest still running, until 30th december I think... Here's the link! http://digithype-records.com/TNF%20-%20%28EN%20INFO%29.html there is one kick sample, but its ****e, so I didn't use it

glad You like my stuff!

krd · 29-11-2010 7:46pm

slut1 wrote: »

yeah, that contest still running, until 30th december I think... Here's the link! http://digithype-records.com/TNF%20-%20%28EN%20INFO%29.html there is one kick sample, but its ****e, so I didn't use it glad You like my stuff!

Yeah, just downloaded the pack. They have the one untreated kick in there and it's not great.

I've found the best result when I lift a sound straight off a CD - not an MP3 - I don't have that many CDs, though.

Some Kick sounds are very weird looking when you look at the wave.

slut1 · 05-12-2010 11:00pm

krd wrote: »

Yeah, just downloaded the pack. They have the one untreated kick in there and it's not great.

I've found the best result when I lift a sound straight off a CD - not an MP3 - I don't have that many CDs, though.

Some Kick sounds are very weird looking when you look at the wave.

Vengeance releasing a lot of very good sample cd's, I believe that spencer & hill cooperating with them. and btw. here's new version of my tune, drop some comments, or whatever... http://soundcloud.com/slut1/the-noisy-freaks-d-r-e-a-m-slut1-remix

seannash · 05-12-2010 11:02pm

slut1 wrote: »

Vengeance releasing a lot of very good sample cd's, I believe that spencer & hill cooperating with them. and btw. here's new version of my tune, drop some comments, or whatever... http://soundcloud.com/slut1/the-noisy-freaks-d-r-e-a-m-slut1-remix

Go easy with the self promo man

hubiedubie · 06-12-2010 12:46am

krd wrote: »

Yeah, it's probably not such a great idea. I'm not going absolutely 0 db. What would be a better db to aim for?

In Ableton, if you drag a simpler / sampler onto a track you'll see the volume is set to -12db. I've taken my hints from this and find it is a great starting point. So I usually have my kick peaking at -10 to -12db and mix around that. I generally never clip the master channel this way and have plenty of headroom for mastering if required.

slut1 · 06-12-2010 1:09am

hubiedubie wrote: »

In Ableton, if you drag a simpler / sampler onto a track you'll see the volume is set to -12db. I've taken my hints from this and find it is a great starting point. So I usually have my kick peaking at -10 to -12db and mix around that. I generally never clip the master channel this way and have plenty of headroom for mastering if required.

thats very good starting point, consider that the sounds gonna overlap each other, so overall volume gonna sum up, so with every single sound its getting louder and louder

How to get that decent drum sound?

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