trying to find a cohesiveness

I have a BUNCH of kits and sounds that i've bought and collected over the years since I've started getting into beatmaking. A lot of drum breaks from all over the place. I've gone through my beats the last few days and I've noticed they are lacking a "cohesive" sound. For instance, when you listen to a Nujabes instrumental, you can easily say "Yep, that's a Nujabes piece". Or you listen to a Shlohmo instrumental and you can say, "That's a Shlohmo record isn't it?"

It's like they have a very selective soundpool that they choose sounds from (a certain drum kit or 808 kit), but at the same time, they manage to give each song a life of it's own.

They're so many one-shot snares, for example, that I love, but I feel that after a few tracks if I didn't stick to the same few snares, that my tracks would lose that "togetherness" that I'm talking about.

I guess I'm just having trouble trying not to have every track "sound" the same, but at the same time, have the "glue" that ties all of them together.

If any of you have ever gone through this mindset, would you mind speaking on how you dealt with it, as in did you pick a certain drum kit and only use it for an entire album or just said **** it and used whatever sounds you wanted?

The "togetherness" you're referring is most likely a result of creating personal taste for sounds and programming. Of course you can direct and gravitate towards similar results by choosing the same gear, similar patterns, same drum kits, same FX, etc. BUT, in the end, it depends on how much can you describe, elaborate and analyse the nuances of your sound to yourself. F.e. if a person can't hear and feel the difference between sounds, it is very likely that the the person can not create cohesive sound using different sound sources.

In the end, it comes to how good you're hearing what is happening on given sound. By training to sort the characteristics of the sound, you gain ability to select certain sounds from different sources, and ultimately create that signature sound.

I wouldn't stress too much about it. Use different sources as much as you can. Sometimes it is very good to just browse drum kits and listen, without intention to do anything else. Sound selection is task and skill that needs a lot of training and it tends to go nowhere or fail if it is only done in a hurry while composing.

Just like Olavi said its probably not a conscious choice of theirs to stick with certain sounding drums, most likely taste.

But you could also try fitting drums to the beats - if you make a beat, after a bit into the process take a break and mute the drums and ask yourself "what kind of drums would sound the best to this?" Its about creating a complete song, not just finding the greatest snare ever and sticking to it. Makes sense?