Lo Fi drums on the MPC Renaissance

Man so ive been trying to experiment with my sounds lateley and wanna start making my drums bang lofi.
I get how to make it all grimey and distorted but cant seem to get my snares and kick to come though right.
Anyclue what settings or effects I could add or am missing. My kicks just dont sound sunk in enough to create that pumping effect. anywho ive been obbessing over it for a day now and was hoping one of yall could help ya boy out

Have a cassette deck? You could record all your drums to a cassette and then sample them into your MPC as-needed. You can re-re-re-record over that same cassette to f*ck the sound up even more. This might sound weird but you could also make a session in your DAW, load up all your drum sounds/place them on time bar and bounce or export to a lower bit-rate.

I do not know which route to take with effects... anything hifi still sounds hifi to me, effects or not. These "tips" will actually degrade your sounds.

I had the same problem when I wanted to make some gritty drums. The drums would just sound week in the mix. I started taking my initial drums and filtering them down to my liking. Next I would find a Kick similar to like an 808 but with less bass in it. I don't find many of these type kick sounds so its hard to describe. It's like a punchy sounding kick.

Now I have my initial kick filtered, I take the 808 type kick and filter it down but just enough so it still punches a little. Then I layer & pan one a little to the right, and one a little to the left of the initial kick drum. Then I adjust the filters to my taste. ie, less punch, more punch, etc. Finally, I adjust the volume on the panned kicks so they don't overshadow my initial kick.

For snares, I do the same thing except I don't use an 808 type snare. I'll use any quick, little decay, snap, crackle, type snare to layer my initial filtered snare. Then the same thing, adjust accordingly. Same for hats. The less decay the better.

This is how I got some gritty drums knocking in the past. I'll still use this technique from time to time. Hope it helps.

I had the same problem when I wanted to make some gritty drums. The drums would just sound week in the mix. I started taking my initial drums and filtering them down to my liking. Next I would find a Kick similar to like an 808 but with less bass in it. I don't find many of these type kick sounds so its hard to describe. It's like a punchy sounding kick.

Now I have my initial kick filtered, I take the 808 type kick and filter it down but just enough so it still punches a little. Then I layer & pan one a little to the right, and one a little to the left of the initial kick drum. Then I adjust the filters to my taste. ie, less punch, more punch, etc. Finally, I adjust the volume on the panned kicks so they don't overshadow my initial kick.

For snares, I do the same thing except I don't use an 808 type snare. I'll use any quick, little decay, snap, crackle, type snare to layer my initial filtered snare. Then the same thing, adjust accordingly. Same for hats. The less decay the better.

This is how I got some gritty drums knocking in the past. I'll still use this technique from time to time. Hope it helps.

What kinda filtering do u use tho?

Low pass filter. Sometimes a shelving LP so it breathes a little.

Afraid of the tape or bitrates?
Strongly suggest you give it a try once.

It's all about distortion. Not too heavy, but a little bit really makes the grittiness pop out. I like Camel Crusher for this but I don't think it's available anymore. But pretty much any distortion will do.

medearis wrote:Afraid of the tape or bitrates?
Strongly suggest you give it a try once.

No. Not afraid. Just never really messed with bit crushing. Tape isnt bad. I might start using bit crushing more in the newer shit i'm working on. I do a lot of beat battles and sometimes when the sample becomes unrecognizable, people accuse you of not actually using the provided sample. That sometimes can be restricting. I've never seen it as a problem this site, and one other that I know of. However, I have been working on newer shit were I'm trying to explore more things I never really used. You just put bit crushing in my head. Thanks for the reminder.

Wal Martian wrote:I never pan kicks or basslines. If it's stereo I bounce it to mono.

Bass, yea has to be mono. However, when I layer all my kicks in mono they sound muddy and somewhat distorted. Once I put them into my sonar software, I put a reduce width setting and it centers it without a problem. In gets a little punchier and less muddy after that. It works for me, but Im not a sound engineer.

Hey. You can try Decimort (set 12bit, go high with preamb knob, and try to reduce frequency a little). It really do the job:) After that it may be necessary to add some bass. FerricTDS is also interesting, and it's free:) Of course you can combine them together

Word!

I'm not talking about bit-crushing though, I meant bouncing/exporting your audio from your DAW to a lower bit rate than 44.1.

Personally, I have never been able to use a plug-in to reduce fidelity effectively. It also seems counter-intuitive to reach for modern software for degradation when I can push the audio onto an old cassette tape (or through a mic'd amp, etc). Not knockin' on it but it just seems a little backwards to me.

I also really like mic'ing things so any excuse is a good one.

EDIT: On another note... the OTO Biscuit gives me boners. I also dig Logic 9's crusher on those Casios you can buy at every mega-super-store, enough of it can rinse the Walmart right outta her hair.

medearis wrote:Personally, I have never been able to use a plug-in to reduce fidelity effectively. It also seems counter-intuitive to reach for modern software for degradation when I can push the audio onto an old cassette tape (or through a mic'd amp, etc). Not knocking' on it but it just seems a little backwards to me.

I don't think the DAW is the best place to rough sounds up. I've got several plugins (amp sims, distortion etc) that just don't hit the spot, although they are still good and useable. I have to be in the mood to cascade 10 or more plugins together to get what I want though!

Cassette and/or reel to reel tape can sound great, as can the SP-12 and OTO Biscuit... a mixture of all of them covers a lot of ground.

Hit a cassette hot, resample.

What do you mean record the tape hot?