Ways to edit drum sounds with the xl...

What up mpc-forums. I'm new to this site, this is my first post...

Anyway, I gotta problem. To start off, my setup is pretty basic. It consists of an mpc 2000xl, American audio qd5 tt mixer, technics 1200 table, rocket monitors, and a mackie 8 channel mixer...

All my drum sounds are from vinyl (everyone) and due to having such a minimal setup I don't really have the resources to fatten up these vinyl drum sounds. I literally just sample the drum hits/breaks directly into my mpc from my turntable (I do some rough eq'ing on my tt mixer). The only ways I have to fatten these sounds up are messing with the attack and decay and also layering (sometimes I convert them to 12/8 bit).

So I guess my question is what's the best way or piece of gear that I can get to edit drum sounds before I put them in the mpc? I guess I'm mostly looking for good compression and eq...any suggestions?

Also I'm looking to get the eb 16 board so I can easily add reverb to my snares...is it worth the money at all? I want it cuz I like everything in the box, it just makes everything so much easier!

Well first and foremost, choosing the right sample makes everything that comes afterwards easy, but before you buy one more piece of gear, you need to know that throwing money at a problem doesn't always solve it. You have a whole lot of tools at your disposal with your MP and your DJ mixer. You got an eq on your mixer, if it has a line input, you can run your drums back thru there and resample. Play with the recording levels (turn em up to make em hit hader etc.) when you sample the original sample and when you resample.

Any drum sample inside the MP is like a lump of clay. Use the filters, tuning, timestretch, pitchshift, and attack/decay settings along with layering techniques.

What you wanna do as far as layering goes, is to isolate the best elements of 2-3 drum sounds and put them on top of eachother. For example take an 808 bass drum, chop off the attack element of the sample (either by editing the sample start or using the attack), cut the end to the desired length (either sample end or decay), and that makes the bass end of your kick. Then grab a vinyl kick, use a bandpass filter to isolate the mid frequencies. Then grab another one (or the same one) and use a highpass to isolate the highs. Stack em, play with the levels, sample start/end points, tuning, and attack/decay and bam... There's about 3 million permutations to the same idea but the basics are the same. All it takes is practice.

IDK if I would use the EB16 for reverb (if its anything like the reverb on my 1k it sucks), but the eq might come in handy.

And last, before you go get more gear, get more content. Electronic drum samples come in real handy for layering over vinyl or acoustic drums. Here's some free ones you can download (and they have more for a small fee). They should load into your MP just fine, but if not you might need to find a batch audo program to convert them:

http://samples.kb6.de/downloads.php

Having said all that. I got an SSL Alpha Channel, that's the bizness for drums. But if you run sh1tty drums thru it, they will just be sh1tty SSL sounding drums.

hey man...thanks for the feedback, i appreciate it a ton!

this is exactly why i posted before making any moves, im not really looking to spend more money. i like my setup (as basic as it is). ill download some of those drum kits for layering purposes...thanks again!

Oh no doubt. And welcome aboard. Also use that search button. I'm pretty sure you can imagine drums are a popular topic around here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=131462&hilit=drums&start=15

One little secret tip (well maybe not so secret...) , if you have a tape deck, record your samples onto a cassette and then back into the MP. If you push the levels, you can get some nice tape compression and saturation out of it.

Another one: go to radio shack, get a cheap dynamic mic, and sample yourself tapping, snapping, clapping, stomping, etc. and use them for layers. Or turn up your speakers/headphones and stick the mic in front of them and resample your drums that way.

oh and btw what drum machines have the best sounding samples in ur opinion?

808, 909, linndrum, oberheim dmx, alesis hr-16, casio rz-1 and sk-1...

to name a few. But truth be told you gotta put your own work in. Your ear is different from mine.

mp3 wrote:808, 909, linndrum, oberheim dmx, alesis hr-16, casio rz-1 and sk-1...

to name a few. But truth be told you gotta put your own work in. Your ear is different from mine.

yeah no doubt...i was just wondering what u thought cuz im prolly gonna hit up a few of those sample packs so i can layer and what not...thanks for the help. im deff gonna try that tape deck method. ive heard that a ton but never really tried it out.

To the op.. love the screen name!

SupremeSoulstice wrote:To the op.. love the screen name!

is that to me?

if so, thanks man.