Finding the right drums and organizing drum sounds...

This is for sample producers mainly. Ok so Im extremely picky when it comes to finding the right drum sounds for my beat. The drums really have to match perfect. And sometimes Ill spend hours just trying to find the right drums and most of the time Im still not satisfied. How do you guys go about finding the right drums? Do you play breaks until you find one. Or do you have all of your drums chopped up? My drums are really unorganized but I have years worth of drums that I chopped from breaks. Im thinking about just deleting all of my drum chops and starting from scratch again because the way it is now I just cannot figure out a quick way to find the right drums for my beats... I keep all my drums saved in the computer because I like to be able to go thru them quickly and I like to EQ and layer them before I sample them into my MPC 3000.. Keeping all my drums saved in the MPC just seems like a hassle to me. And I wont use sample libraries because I feel like Im cheating if I dont chop and layer my own drums for some reason lol...

when you're listening to drums remember that they won't necessarily work right off the bat. remember that you have to tune them to fit your song. when you hear a snare, for instance, or demo a break, imagine that same break tuned down or up to match elements of your beat/samples.

tuning your drum oneshots is one of the most important and overlooked part of finding drumsounds that match.

Nym wrote:tuning your drum oneshots is one of the most important and overlooked part of finding drumsounds that match.

agreeeed homie

I have a drumbreak folder, in wich I have all my breaks chopped up and assigned to a program. I also have the original sample of every break in that same folder. So I listen to those before I load up a program.

Most of the time I pick something quickly to keep the creative process going. I select something that comes close to the sound I'm looking for. After I've layed down my basic stuff I will do all the tweaking and tuning and of course layering. I also have a 'drumsounds' folder, in wich I have different folders like 'kicks' and 'snares' etc. Those are all random one shots I use to mix and matc. But the foundation is the break most of the time.

I never did this technique before like last year, but started and will never look back.

I build kits. simple kits. kick, snare, hihat, sometimes shaker. now i do boom bap, so its all i need. but if i come up with a drum combo i like, ill save it in my "kit" folder.

I make all my kits the same way, kicks on same pads, snares, etc. So, when i make a beat. my track 1 is always my kick, my track 2 is always my snare, track 3, always hihat.

I also save just drum sequences.

So now, when i start a beat, I load up like 4 kits and several drum sequences. Since they are all mapped out the same, i can swap the pgms in each sequence, and go through each sequence. then i toss on the vinyl, search for sample and am able to compare it against my seuqnece and kit. Since i have my kits mapped out and consistent along with my sequences.........I can swap a kit until i find one that matches the sample.

alot of the times ill end up further tweaking or doing the drum pattern from scratch to get the bounce i like, but this method gets me 90% there.

If none of my kits work, then i go into my library or vinyl and build a kit that does. but after i do all that hardwork, i save it as a kit for use later.


another secret i have is ...... nevermind keeping that one to myself

another thought. I like to create kits from sratch, like finding an ill snare on one record and a kick from another. but a good rule of thumb is to find a break first. because if you think about it. all the drums in the break already match and work together. so its easier to make a kit from a break.

When it comes to drums and mixing them with samples and melodies, I like to match the era when the drums were played and the samples. So if the samples were from a 1973 Herbie Hancock record, I search for drum breaks from between 1971 to 1974. Sometimes I hear classic samples that are dope but then the producer laces 808 kits on top it don't really sound good. The sound needs to be from the same garden, you know how Ms. Lewis' carrots taste better than old lady Sheradan's carrots, there you know that you'll get a better salad from Ms. Lewis' garden and not because she has big tits.

u only need a few drum disks see how other mpc users work

jpeg wrote:u only need a few drum disks see how other mpc users work

yea thats my problem.. I have a million breaks from all over the place but I make different drums for each track.. I just dont like to use the same drums over and over again.. But I guess I should start doing this...

Personally, I don't build kits..I get bored with the sounds waaay to fast...I don't like overusing the same samples too many times. What I do is start from scratch every time. I sample different breaks that I stumble on (randomly choose) and then I go from there. Mix match the kicks and drums to make a basic sequence, and layer/edit the sounds if needed. I tend to use records/breaks or cd's with breaks because a snare I take off a record might be a snare someone else won't. I almost feel like using individual .wav drums someone else created sounds too clean for my style of music, so I don't do it. Again, this is what I do, not what anyone else has to do. To use software drums and download plugins to dirty them up is more than I'm about to do. I keep everything 100% MPC when I make the beats, but I use the computer to record (Audacity).
Its work, but nothing in life (worth cherishing) comes easy.

I start from scratch everytime, too. Usually I try to find a break that sounds like it might fit, then pitch it or time stretch the whole break to fit my tempo. Then I chop it how I want it to swing. If I feel like it's needing more, I layer one shots over top of that. If I can't find a matching one-shot snare, kick, or hat from my library....I sample one. From a synth, module, vinyl or drum machine. That way I can control exactly what I'm looking for like reverb or distortion. I use the 4000, so shaping drums is pretty easy; I can audition my sounds while playing my sequence and it makes matching drums much easier.

cyrus wrote:another thought. I like to create kits from sratch, like finding an ill snare on one record and a kick from another. but a good rule of thumb is to find a break first. because if you think about it. all the drums in the break already match and work together. so its easier to make a kit from a break.

You ain't lying with this one.

I just use kick, snare and hi-hats from the same break and layer stuff under each of them. For example, you can keep the acoustic sound of a kick drum by high-passing it and layering a strong, dry, bassy drum machine kick underneath. You can layer the snare with another one; even if the other snare is more dominant/loud, the sound will be consistent and "together" as long you have the break's snare under it. Of course the two snares have to fit with each other.
I don't usually layer hi-hats, I just filter/bitcrush them a little.

I use breaks... Drummers know their stuff when it comes to it and spend crazy time and money choosing and building up their kits over years to sound how they want, so they usually sound good together.
Then like most of you guys I use layers to get it sounding how I want.