What's your main problem with chopping drums?
One thing i always **** up in the beginning was leaving a lot of "air" in front of my chopped up drum hits. I started out on an MPC500 where i had to chop by ear. Once i got a 2500 and loaded my chopped drum hits and could actually see the waveforms, woah man... all that air in front of the actual drum hit!
Today i have only old samplers and no visual waveforms. What really helped me in trimming individual hits is the following technique:
- Sample drumbreak.
- Decide which individual hit i want to chop out of the break.
- Trim the end point first, this helps isolating the sound for me personally if there isn't all the rest of the break playing each time i hit the pad in trim screen. Make sure to trim away enough so you don't hear the next drum hit, but leave all the air after the actual hit you want to chop out of the break.
Now comes the crucial part: Start point!
To get this on point i use the following method...
- Move the start point forward until you can clearly hear how you trim away the start / attack of the drum hit. Like the kick for example... keep trimming the start point until the attack of the kick is gone. Now slowly move back the start point and LISTEN how the attack becomes audible again. Keep moving the start point slowly... LISTEN how the attack comes back more and more... when you reach a point where moving the start point back further doesn't change the sound of the attack anymore, STOP. You have now (more or less) reached the perfect start point of your individual drum hit.
Peace.
PS: Same technique works for sample attack points as well.
PS2: I am sure there is a ton of videos on youtube already about chopping drums. Did you do a search???
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - R. D. Laing