chopping drums

somebody should make a tutorial on chopping drums......... I know its out there.... so I can learn

javierperez0023 wrote:somebody should make a tutorial on chopping drums......... I know its out there.... so I can learn

I've written many tutorials on chopping drums, they form a significant part of all my books

http://www.mpc-samples.com/section.php/ ... tutorials/

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???

The easiest method for me to adjust start points is by playing the sample chromatically. Instead of playing the root note, I play it at a lower key so as to slow the sample down and any air before the sample becomes much more drastic and noticeable. Play it on a low enough key and you can find the exact moment in milliseconds when the air goes away and the sample kicks in. I suppose this works a lot better for rackmount samplers though because the MPCs don't exactly let you play back samples chromatically

The 2000XL obviously give a visual display of the waveform, which I think you can zoom into a bit, but I'm so anal when it comes to getting rid of as much air as possible, regardless of how few milliseconds it takes up, that I prefer the chromatic method.

There are lot's tutorials on Youtube
This guy has a lot of them that also cover essential stuff like saving beats etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2xD4MKlym4

And this guy has a few with layering techniques and stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRafmJpTbX0