Chopping Drumbreaks

I've been digging, chopping up my drum breaks, making programs but I've had trouble with getting clean kick's because a lot of kick's already have a hihat on it, or clean snares because they too will have a hihat on it as that's how the live drummer played the break.
how do ya'll go about that?

ive tried 1) lpf, but that just kills the quality of the kick

do i just need to find different breaks?

unfortunately, that's the byproduct of sampling drum breaks. sometimes you just never have a clean sound. i personally just leave the extra sounds in and layer it with the same sounding hat.

otherwise you pretty much answered your own question, seek out breaks with clean hits.

You can use the filter envelopes.

For kicks you want to allow the high frequencies through just for the initial transient since the tail will be all low frequencies.

To do this you put a LP filter on the kick then set the frequency value to 0 (completely closed), then set up the envelope as follows: Attack: 0 Decay: 5 Sustain: 60 and the envelope depth to +100. (You'll need to fine tune these values)

I use this all the time on kicks that have hats on them or too much distortion and background noise, once you understand how to use the filter envelopes you'll find there's lots of ways they can be used.

It will be harder to filter the hi-hat off a snare but using the same techniques you will be able to improve the situation.

hope this helps.

Nice tip robotnoize! Me myself i try to filter and eq my breaks for best results, but sometimes the "added elements" in the break sound fine on beats. Will def try out the filter envelope this evening. Tried to use it back when i got my mpc and s3000 but gave up on it as i was still trying to get comfortable with basic functions. Will have to revisit this.

robotnoize hit the nail on the head with that one.

I use whatever I got and make the best of it. The extra sounds make the samples more distinctive..leave the clean drums for the commercial keyboard beatmakers and don't try to jump through hoops to make the sounds so perfect. Use what you got, and keep your money in ya pocket! To get your drums sounding right, you shouldn't need anything more than your MPC and maybe the EQ on your turntable mixer; leave all that extra stuff for the mixing process (and most DAW's have enough compression/effects (in stock form) to satisfy most peoples needs.
Practice makes perfect.

i know the hat gives the kick more of a real feel, but when i try to sequence my beat with quantize off, the hat on the kick interferes with the hi hat track i'm trying to lay down.

on the other hand, when i have it all quantized, the kick and hi hat fall on the same point ie) 01.01.00 so it doesn't create too much of a problem. the only reason i dont like this method is that whenever in the sequence the kickwithhihat and hi hat are playing, you can hear two hi hats. it stands out. if that makes sense?

leonard-lee wrote:i know the hat gives the kick more of a real feel, but when i try to sequence my beat with quantize off, the hat on the kick interferes with the hi hat track i'm trying to lay down.

on the other hand, when i have it all quantized, the kick and hi hat fall on the same point ie) 01.01.00 so it doesn't create too much of a problem. the only reason i dont like this method is that whenever in the sequence the kickwithhihat and hi hat are playing, you can hear two hi hats. it stands out. if that makes sense?

You can aviod that by using the hihat of the kick instead of another hat. Dont play your hat on the steps where the kickwithhihat sit on. Use it that way on 8th.
When you use a kick on an even 16th (for example a double kick) you might use a filtered copy of the kick and a lower level on that kick (thats a bit the way a real kickdrum react if its played with less energy)

peace

poundaproblem wrote:robotnoize hit the nail on the head with that one.

This and some layering
Amp envelopes and layering can also do the trcik

peterpiper wrote:

leonard-lee wrote:i know the hat gives the kick more of a real feel, but when i try to sequence my beat with quantize off, the hat on the kick interferes with the hi hat track i'm trying to lay down.

on the other hand, when i have it all quantized, the kick and hi hat fall on the same point ie) 01.01.00 so it doesn't create too much of a problem. the only reason i dont like this method is that whenever in the sequence the kickwithhihat and hi hat are playing, you can hear two hi hats. it stands out. if that makes sense?

You can aviod that by using the hihat of the kick instead of another hat. Dont play your hat on the steps where the kickwithhihat sit on. Use it that way on 8th.
When you use a kick on an even 16th (for example a double kick) you might use a filtered copy of the kick and a lower level on that kick (thats a bit the way a real kickdrum react if its played with less energy)

peace

cool, that method makes sense. so basically, don't play the hi hat when there is that kickwithhihat. could you explain how to handle that 16th note double kick? do you mean lpf then play it at a lower velocity than the downbeat kick?

leonard-lee wrote:

peterpiper wrote:

leonard-lee wrote:i know the hat gives the kick more of a real feel, but when i try to sequence my beat with quantize off, the hat on the kick interferes with the hi hat track i'm trying to lay down.

on the other hand, when i have it all quantized, the kick and hi hat fall on the same point ie) 01.01.00 so it doesn't create too much of a problem. the only reason i dont like this method is that whenever in the sequence the kickwithhihat and hi hat are playing, you can hear two hi hats. it stands out. if that makes sense?

You can aviod that by using the hihat of the kick instead of another hat. Dont play your hat on the steps where the kickwithhihat sit on. Use it that way on 8th.
When you use a kick on an even 16th (for example a double kick) you might use a filtered copy of the kick and a lower level on that kick (thats a bit the way a real kickdrum react if its played with less energy)

peace

cool, that method makes sense. so basically, don't play the hi hat when there is that kickwithhihat. could you explain how to handle that 16th note double kick? do you mean lpf then play it at a lower velocity than the downbeat kick?

I think what he means is to put the same kick on multiple pads, adding more lpf and rolling off some velocity as you go down. For instance, I usually use a full row of pads on the same kick: the first pad is normal, the second has a lpf set at 94 or something and velocity max at 90%, the third has lpf with 91 and velocity 84% etc. That way they get darker and softer as you go down the row. If you are hitting the kick on the beat, use the first with the hat on top. If you are playing inbetween the beats (for a quick boom-BOOM sound), you use one of the darker pads for the first note and the full pad for the larger second kick. Drummers cant (usually) roll off a few full kicks in a row, and this mimics that effect.

disco records will have some clean drums.


also check

soul & jazz records, many songs will start with just a few clean drum hits


look for drums, but not breaks

also, sample from hip hop records(unless you feel it is cheating)

robotnoize wrote:You can use the filter envelopes.

For kicks you want to allow the high frequencies through just for the initial transient since the tail will be all low frequencies.

To do this you put a LP filter on the kick then set the frequency value to 0 (completely closed), then set up the envelope as follows: Attack: 0 Decay: 5 Sustain: 60 and the envelope depth to +100. (You'll need to fine tune these values)

I use this all the time on kicks that have hats on them or too much distortion and background noise, once you understand how to use the filter envelopes you'll find there's lots of ways they can be used.

It will be harder to filter the hi-hat off a snare but using the same techniques you will be able to improve the situation.

hope this helps.

on the 2000xl, i know where the attack, delay, and lpf is, but is there another window for the sustain and envelope depth? i can't seem to find it. looked into the manual as well?

Shoot I love it when it's like that when I lay the drums it gives the layered hat a rhythmic feel anyway so I tend to keep it. I just make sure the drums crisp maybe throw a open hat in to shake it up a bit and it's milk. Always good money.