Drum processing in MPC

good replies here.

Firstly, as I probably mentioned on the OP - all my drums are from vinyl -
so fortunately I'm beginning with a big warm source. I will tend to convert, or record in mono (L or R depending on what sounds bigger or punchier), but I usually avoid converting to summed mono with the MPC for drums as the result seems to rip out a lot of quality and top end compared to a DAW mono conversion - but maybe it's just me.

If I use any of the MPC effects, it will usually be a bit of reverb/delay on whatever just to create a bit of depth - but when I print to a DAW the effects will be disabled/bypassed.

I rarely tune drums to samples, honestly because I don't know how to properly - but you can usually tell if things aren't gelling together.


So yeah - I might need to experiment with some parallel processing within the MPC or some other twisted techniques and C what happens.

damien907 wrote:nym, do you tune all your drums to the key of your tracks? or are you talking about more of a rough tuning just to get them to mesh better?

to the approximate key of the track, yes, but i don't break out a tuner or anything. typically i tune my kick up an octave first (as it's easier to tune higher frequency sounds than low ones) and then drop it down again.

im always wondering about tuning drums, but alot of them are atonal, so i wonder what others process's are.

very, very few samples that you'll ever find are atonal. they all have some dominant frequency and should fit the song.

arguing anything different is just silly. leaving something out of tune is just begging for problems. grabbing a stock kcik out of a big folder of oneshots and just hurling it at your song is just taking a shot in the dark - you're just randomly and clumsily grasping for something that works.

there are damn good reasons why professional drummers tune their drum kits in studio sessions.

there is lots of music that would get ruined if the drums were to be tuned to everything else, and many times where doing so would make things sound unnatural and synthetic instead, or ruin the drums in other ways if you are forcing them into a different pitch just because you want the pitch to fit everything else, rather than doing it to get the individual elements to sound good..

this is word salad. what is tuning/pitching other than "getting the individual elements to sound good" nobody ever said that you need to tune the drums ONLY and ALWAYS to the tonic of your key, or anything doctrinal like ibunshi is implying. and thanks for that "amateur" comment, very cute

simply and straightforward, if your drum sound is out of tune with your beat, you need to tune it, or continue to grope until you find something that fits your frequency requirements.

^^ oh sorry, but:

"make sure you're tuning your drums"

seemed pretty doctrinal if you ask me, it looks a lot like it implies that it is necessary.. or that is how i interpreted it anyway... but i may have read it all too quickly of course.


I were just a bit bothered by the "make sure" part, as i have seen way too many newbies sit and follow an idea as if it was absolutely necessary, because they had read "make sure" on some tutorial, which to many newbies kinda automatically becomes an authority simply because it holds knowledge they don't yet know.... but where the advice did nothing but to ultimately hold them back rather than them simply learning a bit from experimentation and finding out where and when it is best to do something.. then years after banging their heads against the wall, end up having to unlearn rules and habits they have set upon themselves.. people get obsessed with rules and hold themselves back trying to always follow them.. and it just gets a bit tragic to see it over and over.

my best advice to anyone is extraordinarily unhelpful: use every parameter to its best outcome.


i took some time to listen to both of the tracks in your signature and i did enjoyed them. what are your thoughts on the tuning of the drum sounds in "melodic sketches" and "dark abstract sketches" ?

"dark abstract sketches" is percussive in nature, but is still written in a key signature. you can listen to this song and hear dominant notes in the drum sounds you've chosen. they are tuned together, unmistakably, and it's what makes it sound good. one could write a melody from the dominant frequencies in the drums, and that's what i have been trying to get at since my first post

it helps more often than it hurts

innovine wrote:it helps more often than it hurts

you can still **** it up, though - here's an example of how i did.
this is one of my most popular songs, but it contains an audible mistake
listen to this track - take note of the rides starting at 1 min 42 seconds in



these rides are slightly out of tune in this versio,n, and you can hear it.
this could be fixed by tuning these rides slightly or by eqing slightly.

Someone earlier on in this thread mentioned a technique most commonly known as multing. I dug up this post I wrote on another forum 7 years ago....still relevant

Multing

This is a simple yet fairly hard to master technique to improve the sound of your beats.

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This is NOT the same as layering different sounds to fatten up drum hits. (Also a great technique)
With Multing we are splitting a sound (for example a kick drum) into 2 or 3 different duplicates and we are treating each copy differently before merging them all back together on a buss.

Multing can be done in the analog domain, on an analog console, or digitally, inside a DAW for example.

To start with take the snare track (or kick track) and create 2 copies of it.
Send each track to the same group channel or buss.
We want to think of each of our copies of the snare as different 'portions' of the sound.

So the first will be our attack, or snap.
The second will be be the meat or body of our snare.
The third will be the tail.

We need to process each track differently so that we are bringing out just the portion we want, and not the rest.
So for our first track, our attack portion, use a compressor, followed by an EQ to really bring out the initial crack or snap of the snare. It will likely sound terrible on its own.
For the second track we went the meat of the snare. Again use a compressor followed by an EQ to emphasise the belly of the sound, and shape the rest out of it. Similarly to our first track it will likely sound strange on its own.
Finally take the third track and do the same, this time emphasizing the tail sound.

Then you will need to adjust the levels of all three of the tracks to 'mix' them to taste.
You will likley need to practice this technique a lot before you get the results you are after - but when you do crack it, your hits will be bigger than they ever were before...

Remember that different compressors and EQs have very different flavours, different colours to their sounds.
Different compressors have very different characteristics in terms of how fast they can attack for example. So bear this in mind, as predictably, you'll want to choose the right compressor and EQ combination for each track.

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TIP: instead of a compressor on the attack mult, maybe try an SPL Transient Designer, or one of the plug in emulations like Waves TransMod.

TIP: instead of splitting the sound according to different portions, split it according to frequency - bass mids, and high end.

TIP: try mixing the original sound in with the mults aswell

TIP: try a compressor on the group channel or buss, to help 'glue' the mults back together

TIP: try multing a vocal. A simple vocal mult might be just to run the clean vocal alongside a slightly distorted version to dirty it up a little.

Don't be afraid to experiment !

Nym wrote:there are damn good reasons why professional drummers tune their drum kits in studio sessions.

I'd just like to point out that whilst in sessions drummers sometimes tune their kits to be sympathetic with the song key, its certainly not the norm.
Mostly tuning drums is done to tune the heads to themselves, with the aim being to get the same pitch all around the head and achieve a clean tone with minimal overtones.

When it comes to mix and master, having drums (esp kick) tuned to the song key can be detrimental to achieving good separation.

As with everything theres no hard and fast rule. If it works, it works