how do u get THICK drums...?

bite the bullet and use a pillow
it's better I swear

I almost only use the envelopes and the pitch in the MPC. To get the kick I want I often set decay at start and make it very short, just a little longer than the shortest possible still sounding round and phatt.

Snares are often trimmed the same way, but often pitched up as high as it works while remaining a "real" sound. Thats often up max 60 (half a octave). That often makes my snares crisp. I usually filter my snares with a high-pass filter to remove the boom and hum from the reckord (I sample ALL my samples from vinyl).

If I layer kicks, I often pitch one up a bit to get the punch up there, and filter it down a bit. The other kick is pitched a little (only a little tho') down and subbed deep with the low-pass filter.

I always get the results I want from just envelopes pitch and filtering, and don't feel the need for compression on the samples for my style.

Lately I have actually used less layers, and often just a raw kick from vinyl only using the envelopes. Sometimes it works only by trimming the samples short. I know I can make drums knock even without filtering layering and pitching. I do that all the time with my SP1200 MPC and SP303.

And of course, I only mess with mono samples for my drums, splitting every drumsample and choose the best one or alternating between them if both sound cool. And don't forget mixing: by mixing the volumes too high or low in the mix you can kill all power. To much bass is stupid too. I mix all of my beats inside the machine, so you don't need advanced DAWs to get dope drum-mixes.

I guess it takes TIME to get the skills of making drums sound fresh. I know I did not make a single sample knock or sound good the first year or so I made beats. But now I like how my drums bang.

EXPERIMENT, LEARN HOW YOUR TOOLS WORK and you'll end up being good.

Can't remember if the drums on my beats on myspace right now are any good, but check if you like.
www.myspace.com/deckdaddy

Knowing the insides of the PARAMS screen in your MP, is about 90% of the magic behind these legends. Banging drums can be achieved through just that screen, so I def agree with deckdaddy!

Another trick I found recently is the power of the same drum layered. What I mean is, get one nice kick, put it on two pads. Then put some resonance on the one and the other filter it all the way down to 0 and put resonance up to 9-11, depending on the bass of the body.Then layer those two together and put the volume down on the filtered one.

That way you reinforce the bass body of the kick by a HUGE amount. Also, by applying some resonance on the clear sample, about 3 to 6, you make it more crispy, almost sounding like made from wood. If you got the EB-16 also, add some reverb on the filtered one and you got magic. Pure magic...

PS It works also on snares as long as there is some bass inside the snare sample.

bump

thanks for the tips deck d and kebzer

I DO NOT believe that compression is the key to phat sounding drums at all...that is a huge missconception man!!! if any of you have ever taken a mixing class that teaches about compression, you will have learned that if anything, compression degrades your sound quality the more u use it cause its cuttin some sound out. using WELL RECORDED drums, and layering with eq are def the way to design your drum sounds. NOT a couple knobs on a compressor....HONESTLY, the only compressors that are really anygood are actual hardware, "musical" compressors that cost the big$. thats why if you go to a studio to have tracks mastered by an engineer he will tell you to give him your tracks dry with ZERO, i repeat ZERO compression. if you compress befor you have access to high end equip your F@kin yourself! compressors are designed to help ALREADY PHATTENED sounds sit better in a mix. THATS A FACT. Yes they can have use in recording to help with level control and in live recording situations but otherwise...STOP SQUASHING YOUR MUSIC!

mainiakist wrote:I DO NOT believe that compression is the key to phat sounding drums at all...that is a huge missconception man!!! if any of you have ever taken a mixing class that teaches about compression, you will have learned that if anything, compression degrades your sound quality the more u use it cause its cuttin some sound out. using WELL RECORDED drums, and layering with eq are def the way to design your drum sounds. NOT a couple knobs on a compressor....HONESTLY, the only compressors that are really anygood are actual hardware, "musical" compressors that cost the big$. thats why if you go to a studio to have tracks mastered by an engineer he will tell you to give him your tracks dry with ZERO, i repeat ZERO compression. if you compress befor you have access to high end equip your F@kin yourself! compressors are designed to help ALREADY PHATTENED sounds sit better in a mix. THATS A FACT. Yes they can have use in recording to help with level control and in live recording situations but otherwise...STOP SQUASHING YOUR MUSIC!

L.O.L at yall caregivers...

thats a fals debate.. n i aint hatin... i recognise a good portion of what u just wrote is dope knowledge... theres a lot of misconception about audio gear these days... and compression is not the key to every problem.. but theres an even more huge misconsception about music in general... that is... there is a ''WAY''' to make music, and a way that WILL NEVER GET U GOOD RESULTS...

premise no 1 : a lot of the poeple here make BEATS.. and do not hook tracks together so they can fully respect and affirm the true musical spirit of a piece, and the natural swagger or behaviour of audio frequencies in the physical world...

Considering this... id guess most of the people on this forum do heavily compressed music ahaha... its an aesthetic they look for and i dont even understand why im arguin about this... but the point is that i dont think preachin about the squashing phenomenon is gonna change their behaviour in any way...

U seem to have the mindstate of pofessionnal ingeneer... which is dope if u ask me... but i mean...
...

using WELL RECORDED drums, and layering with eq are def the way to design your drum sounds. NOT a couple knobs on a compressor....

word

HONESTLY, the only compressors that are really anygood are actual hardware, "musical" compressors that cost the big$.

hmmm ... so we gotta forget about shaping the dynamics of our sounds?.. it kinda depends on a lof of factors..

thats why if you go to a studio to have tracks mastered by an engineer he will tell you to give him your tracks dry with ZERO, i repeat ZERO compression.

id like to see a sound engineer get a dry and raw beat from flying lotus and compress it himself... lol

compressors are designed to help ALREADY PHATTENED sounds sit better in a mix. THATS A FACT. Yes they can have use in recording to help with level control and in live recording situations but otherwise...STOP SQUASHING YOUR MUSIC![/

comprssors were roginially designed to do that.. but if ur creative enough.. u can paint a musical landscape thats absolutely out there.... mpcs were not originally designed to make syncopated and carricatural beats... yet thats what a lot of people love them for and they have shaped a whole musical movement thanks to that


So ... to resume : ur right... compressors may not be the best tool to fatten a drum...
and a 30294234209$ rig is better then a couple plugins... but (insert previous paragraphs here)


Now to answer the original question... id prolly record a GOOD sounding drum first, then eq it ... and comperssion could help to make it sit out, be more hmmmphy... or more punchy.. or more whatever id like it to be dynamically...

the other thing id do i sread about that... a couple months ago if u read my previous posts.. ull realize i was ... a sorry ****....

p.s i aint hatin im just debating... anyone who shares on that forum is my friend

Now to answer the original question... id prolly record a GOOD sounding drum first, then eq it ... and comperssion could help to make it sit out, be more hmmmphy... or more punchy.. or more whatever id like it to be dynamically...

the other thing id do i sread about that... a couple months ago if u read my previous posts.. ull realize i was ... a sorry ****....

p.s i aint hatin im just debating... anyone who shares on that forum is my friend



hey man i like the talk and im not trippin either....i know you can use compression to help design your sound....dont get me wrong....but i just believe its not at all the most important part...i use very small amounts of compression so i do use it...usually i create a dry/wet of slightly compressed drums and the drums shaped with eq. eq before compression though i have noticed....i also feel reverb should be put on your sends to also create a dry/wet mix of your reverb and dry....thats just my method...not sayin its right but it seems to be producing decent results....sorry for ranting again i just love exchanging ideas on mixing cause its all trial and error to find yuor sound style.

mainiakist wrote: id prolly record a GOOD sounding drum first

regardless of what anyone agrees on or disagrees on this ^ is the most critical part of the whole process. Your downloaded torrent MP3 youtube sample garbage will never sound as good as the same drum coming from a record, CD, or the original instrument it was created on.

Another thing I see a lot of guys do is over EQ and over compress. You should leave the compression til later and the EQ should be used gently in the begining.

poundaproblem wrote:

mainiakist wrote: id prolly record a GOOD sounding drum first

regardless of what anyone agrees on or disagrees on this ^ is the most critical part of the whole process. Your downloaded torrent MP3 youtube sample garbage will never sound as good as the same drum coming from a record, CD, or the original instrument it was created on.

Another thing I see a lot of guys do is over EQ and over compress. You should leave the compression til later and the EQ should be used gently in the begining.

Case Closed. This about sums it up. Good post Pound.

deck daddy wrote:Can't remember if the drums on my beats on myspace right now are any good, but check if you like.
http://www.myspace.com/deckdaddy

Man your drums are straight quality : warm, thick and punchy. Ones of the best i heard.

DoNutS wrote:

deck daddy wrote:Can't remember if the drums on my beats on myspace right now are any good, but check if you like.
http://www.myspace.com/deckdaddy

Man your drums are straight quality : warm, thick and punchy. Ones of the best i heard.

Nice Avatar!

peace

word to yall

poundaproblem wrote:

mainiakist wrote: id prolly record a GOOD sounding drum first

regardless of what anyone agrees on or disagrees on this ^ is the most critical part of the whole process. Your downloaded torrent MP3 youtube sample garbage will never sound as good as the same drum coming from a record, CD, or the original instrument it was created on.

Another thing I see a lot of guys do is over EQ and over compress. You should leave the compression til later and the EQ should be used gently in the begining.

agreed

oh... i was reading today and it came to my mind (cause i think of yall during my daily tasks... foreal)

Why do u want thicker drums? i mean... why exactly ... what isnt tight in ur beats? what would u like to bring in ur beats that u dont already have....

a hint : sometimes less is more...

the problem may not even be the drums themselves

Ldizzy wrote:oh... i was reading today and it came to my mind (cause i think of yall during my daily tasks... foreal)

Why do u want thicker drums? i mean... why exactly ... what isnt tight in ur beats? what would u like to bring in ur beats that u dont already have....

a hint : sometimes less is more...

the problem may not even be the drums themselves

Thats a good point! Theres no need to always make thick drums. A track can be dope although the drums are thin.
Maybe its a kind of masochism. People want snares that smack in the face and kicks that punch in the belly

peace