Lo-Fi Drums

Iight... Here's the Deal... I've been workin pretty hard at gettin a certain type of sounds from my drums... While I'm satisfied that I've gotten this far with it, I was wondering if anyone could lend some tips in this area...

Basically, I'd like to have my drums come off sort of like Madlib's... If any of you have heard the Madvillain Remix of MF Doom's "One Beer" then you'd see sort of what I'm goin for... I just can't grasp how he gets his drums so lo-fi but they still come thru clear and with a lot of punch to them...

Everytime I create lo-fi drums they sound lo-fi... Which is to say that they sounded sh*tty... But when he does it it still comes thru pretty full sounding, just gimey... Any tips would be greatly appreciated...

Before I hear anyone sayin, "Why you tryin to jack someone elses style?", Take into account that the best way to learn is to try and emulate others styles and learn from those experiences...

Thanks in advance for any tips... Much love...

I'd like to help you bro, but all my lo fi tips are stuck to my chest!

hello,

Try recording your drum sounds to a cassette deck. Do not use your lo-fi sounds. use some of your favorite sounding drums. When you record to cassette make sure you record really hot, what you are after is the warm tape distortion. i have been doing this alot lately to get those warm sounding analog distorted drums. The tape adds is own sort of compression and distortion.

You got to have the sp 303 for the lofi sound......

Trust me I have it and there are about 4 ways you can sample something into the sp-303....

1)Stereo- Takes up too much space
2)MOno- half as much
3)MOno-Long-COmpresses it in half...
4)lofi- this setting puts this sheen on any sample meaning it adds a certain grit...

I went after that same sound before...
The lofi setting on the sp-303 does not change the bass sound that much...
as in take away any freq..ITs just compresses it badly...


I also read an Article about Madlibs compression ration on all his mixes are like at 20/20 which is unheard of for real music as in classical and blues and pop...

He uses a Universal Audio 1176ln Limiter..This is how you get those drums to bang...

He also said that he compresses all the tracks to the max on the limiter cause it allows the vocals to just blast through the track without having to cut a channel in the frequencys it just sits on top..

Hope that helped...

If I can get the exact sample rates and compression schemes from the roland sp-303 manual I will tell you how to emulate it

Peace

Freedom wrote:You got to have the sp 303 for the lofi sound......

Trust me I have it and there are about 4 ways you can sample something into the sp-303....

1)Stereo- Takes up too much space
2)MOno- half as much
3)MOno-Long-COmpresses it in half...
4)lofi- this setting puts this sheen on any sample meaning it adds a certain grit...

I went after that same sound before...
The lofi setting on the sp-303 does not change the bass sound that much...
as in take away any freq..ITs just compresses it badly...


I also read an Article about Madlibs compression ration on all his mixes are like at 20/20 which is unheard of for real music as in classical and blues and pop...

He uses a Universal Audio 1176ln Limiter..This is how you get those drums to bang...

He also said that he compresses all the tracks to the max on the limiter cause it allows the vocals to just blast through the track without having to cut a channel in the frequencys it just sits on top..

Hope that helped...

If I can get the exact sample rates and compression schemes from the roland sp-303 manual I will tell you how to emulate it

Peace

cool

Freedom wrote:You got to have the sp 303 for the lofi sound......

Trust me I have it and there are about 4 ways you can sample something into the sp-303....

1)Stereo- Takes up too much space
2)MOno- half as much
3)MOno-Long-COmpresses it in half...
4)lofi- this setting puts this sheen on any sample meaning it adds a certain grit...

I went after that same sound before...
The lofi setting on the sp-303 does not change the bass sound that much...
as in take away any freq..ITs just compresses it badly...


I also read an Article about Madlibs compression ration on all his mixes are like at 20/20 which is unheard of for real music as in classical and blues and pop...

He uses a Universal Audio 1176ln Limiter..This is how you get those drums to bang...

He also said that he compresses all the tracks to the max on the limiter cause it allows the vocals to just blast through the track without having to cut a channel in the frequencys it just sits on top..

Hope that helped...

If I can get the exact sample rates and compression schemes from the roland sp-303 manual I will tell you how to emulate it

Peace

Very Much Appreciated... It's alright... I have the SP-505... It has the same effects and all... I've tried to get that sound... I've been experimenting with it recently and I can see what your saying... I think I just gotta work with it some more...

The other tips about the gear and type of compression and limting he uses is very useful... You Always know cool sh*t man...

Much appreciated...

You don't need no 303. Never clean your vinyl when sampling drums, tha'ts one of my steps. Second, when sampling kicks and snares make sure the signal is hot, so it comes out slightly distorted. turn up your gain, or turn up your low eq a bit higher. Sampling drums strictly off of old dirty 45's works well too, 45's always seem to have a lower quality sound. I heard about that recording your drums to tape thing before, Divine Styler did that on Wordpower2:Directrix I heard... but I got rid of my tape deck a couple years back so I can't cosign something I never did. But it seems like it would do well, if there's not too much cassette hiss involved.

Nahh I know you don't need a 303, but I mean I know it's one way to do it, but I'm tryin to figure it out... Like I said I have the 505 so it seems like this would be the best way for me to get that sort of sound...

My question to you Freedom is... How do you figure helimits his tracks... I mean I have a software limiter, but it just seems to chop off and deaden my drum hits... Doesn't seem to make them punch harder... So if he limits his stuff really high how do you figure he creates this effect...

Any Clues???

I told it to you already

you need to buy an Universal Auido 1776ln LImiter...

It compresses and Limits..


This limiter is what makes all the difference.,....


the sp-303 and Sp-505 are different they use different Flash software compression...
The sp-202 has a sp1200 effect cause it does not use the same compression scheme also..

I know this cause I own a 202 and 303 and My friend has a 505...



The limiter is a hardware piece of equip But Universal Audio
Made a pci chip that includes it as a software plugin and I ve heard it emulates it very well..

Never cleaning your vinyl is bull cause..
Scratchy noise is diff from loss of data from compression...
And secondly you said record hot a little distorted hahahahahahah..
I disagree but everyone has there own thing....
Digital clipping you cant fix..
So dont distort you drums cause they are clipping and will never be ale to fix..

I hasve the compression schemes on the Universal audio limiter....

Just make sure you dont use the bomb factory...
1776 ln limiter as it does not sound the same

This has nothing to do with lo-fi, but if set properly a limiter can really make a kick or snare really crack and stand out in a mix. Also all software liniters are not created equal. Some are very transparent. The Waves L2 comes to mind.

Maybe you didnt read I said you sample your drums lofi in the sp-303 then you use the limiter to make them sound hard and style have there bite..

He also asked how madlib did it so..

I knew and I answered

Thank you Freedom... I appreciate all the help... You are always full of knowledge... I undertstand that the 303 and 505 are different, but I'm still feeling the 505...

I've been re-sampling on there in Lo-Fi Mono... But my drums just seem to lack that extra punch I'm lookin for... So maybe if I look into that Limiter I can get the sound I'm lookin for...

Who knows maybe I'll look into the 202... I've been lookin for an SP-1200 sound for the longest time... I understand it isn't exactly the same but it could give me a nice sound to work with...

By the way... Where did you read this about Madlib??? I'd be curious to read this article myself... I think you said it was an article anyway...

sp-202 runs on batteries
It only samples up to 12 bit 22000hz...
thats why it sounds like an sp1200

The article i am trying to find again I think it was

Universal audio site

Yea thats why I might wanna get a 202... They go real cheap and I can just re-sample my drums on that...

You talkin about this one

http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2003/august/text/content3.html