Chopping/EQing breaks

Just had a quick question for y'all. When u chop a break and u use the snare that directly follows a kick, u know how that snare tends to have a bit of a low end ambiance to it, due to some left over frequencies from the kick that hit before it in the break? Well I sometimes eq the low end out a little bit but I often leave it as is cuz it seems to give the snare some more character and when I eq the lows out a bit it tends to make the snare feel like it's lacking something ...any thoughts as to how u guys use breaks?

I like to not touch breaks that I chop up from wax. No eq, no compression, I like to just chop as is to give my drum hits a real natural raw feel...

It depends on the EQ/Filter you use and the overall sound of the snare. It also depends on how the beat should sound.
When I use EQ on breaks I use a graphic EQ (10-30 band) and increase the frequencies of the snare a bit and cut away other freqencies. Since most snares have their lowest frequency in the 180Hz-250Hz range the snare should shound full although you decrease the ca 0-150Hz range.

But if you arrange the chops like in the original break it will sound less natural cause the kick before the snare will sound kind of shorter (the kick will end when the snare starts to play)

Most of the problems I got with breaks was the very low end (turntable rumble etc) so I cut away 0-40Hz with a smooth slope.

peace

Thanks, appreciate the feedback a lot

yeah, or even... you could try and cut out several snares from the break and layer them... or you could use a high pass filter to really cut off everything as peter said... below 300 or so hz. if you really want to eliminate it but a slope might sound smoother... and finally about the turntable rumble or what have you.. that might also be a good plan but dont forget layering other things to re-obtain that low end. Some people layer roland 808 style kick drums over their kicks, sometimes I do that too but I might use a low pass filter set around 120-150 hz depending on the kick sample in the break.

The real challenge is working with the air the break probably has.. sometimes that can be a real pain and I dont often find noise gates really that helpful because unless you really spend time tweaking it you get that volume lfo type sound.

What do you mean by air? Like the space between your chops? Like the "tail" or left over reverb...

sometimes chopping a few snares and using different ones at different parts of the sequence gives it a more natural feel too.

tyrone_biggums wrote:What do you mean by air? Like the space between your chops? Like the "tail" or left over reverb...

yeah, like.. for example the most noticeable time I often get it is in the high hat chop... I try and chop from the beginning of the hit to as close to the beginning of the next hit as possible to get the most air in there so it aint only during the hits etc.. then sometimes I chop a clip of just air to fit in between the gaps.. and mess with pad mutes as well as adsr to have it as fluid as possible... layering with other drums helps drown it a bit and maybe when the sample is placed over the that then you wont hear it so much. I hate spending all day on fixing such a mundane sound issue so I try to get it tolerable and move on.. sometimes it sounds rugged anyways.

i think it depends on what you want.

sometimes i've eq'd the whole break and sort of shaped the sound of it more to my liking and thats really all i did, not chopping, just looping and eq'ing.

alot of times when im chopping breaks its cause i really like the break and want to sort of keep a similar vibe of the break, but maybe in my own tempo or with a little variation in the pattern or whatever to fit the beat im working on. in that case i end up chopping in larger chunks keeping kicks and snares, or kicks and hihats together. or looping half a bar instead of the whole 2 bar drum loop or whatever.

but i think that if you are extracting individual hits, yeah, you gonna have to eq maybe depending on the sound you like.

if you listen to some tracks where some artists just used drum breaks and straight up looped them......as far as i can tell alot of times its pretty much jsut some good eq'ing happening and they sounding nice and hard. guess my point is there some good breaks out there that really dont need anything except maybe small boost on the kicks to make em thump a little more. so in the end its all really what sounds good.

debauch onto someting with his post too. alot of producers, including myself, steal the air from drum breaks, or hats with air. part of some of those ill breaks are the atmosphere/texture they create. its not just about the individual drum hits, but the overall sound, mixing, atmosphere, the break gives. you loose that if you extract individual hits and truncate tails, and eliminate the space in between the drums. a good example is Power of zeus-The sorcerer of Isis, sounds super ill as a loop. taken apart, you loose alot of what that break is. no doubt, you can still extract the hits and make something differant and ill.....but part of some breaks in my opinion is keeping the essence of it intact.

^^^ no duobt, real good post. A good example of what you're talking about is the way digable planets used the Impeach the President break in the song "rebirth of slick (cool like that)", they chopped large chunks as you stated and rearanged them.

i usually eq a break even if it sounds sick.

sometimes eq'ing is necessary to make the frequencies of all your samples blend into each other

goldenxscholars wrote:i usually eq a break even if it sounds sick.

sometimes eq'ing is necessary to make the frequencies of all your samples blend into each other

agreed 110% ... not to mention trying to make it sound somewhat different from the original at least.

I use amp envelope on each drum chop. This way you can really sculpt the sound to your liking. As well as filter envelopes to take away unwated frequencies or accentuate frequencies with resonance. And of course some pitch shifting to tune it with other stuff. If the chop has to much air or atmosphere, ie background noise and reverb tails and the like and i want to remove it I change samples end points.

mr_debauch wrote:agreed 110% ... not to mention trying to make it sound somewhat different from the original at least.

thats post modern appropriation right there. Of course a lot of music is based around sampling old drum breaks and chopping away. IMHO its kinda hard to listen to stuff thats not chopped up now

tyrone_biggums wrote:...any thoughts as to how u guys use breaks?

I like to not touch breaks that I chop up from wax. No eq, no compression, I like to just chop as is to give my drum hits a real natural raw feel...

Thats good but think about the context of the sound in your final mix as well. What i mean to say is that the character might be good, but it wont sound the way you want it to when its mixed with a hundred other tracks over the top of it.All that noise and unwanted frequencies can effect your mix, by taking up lots of other frequencies. So try all these things above and with some practice, you will be able to make fat sounding chops with old breaks.oh and my last post i did was about chopping as well so scope it out if you have not done so allready.
http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=149141
Happy choppin

thats post modern appropriation right there. Of course a lot of music is based around sampling old drum breaks and chopping away. IMHO its kinda hard to listen to stuff thats not chopped up now

It's funny you should say that actually since I'm trying to do a dissertation/thesis based around appropriation in art and music. It's stressing me out since I'd rather be in the studio making artworks rather than doing this theory bollocks, although reflection is important, I just like to create and do practical stuff first.

Practice then theory.

Intuition then intellect.

For me anyway.

As for the topic at hand, I like to sculpt my hits. I think, as goldenxscholars has already pointed out, sometimes, if not most of the time, EQ'ing is necessary to make all the frequencies sit in their respective bands. Especially if you like to layer your drums!

@debauch, layering air is quite hard to do at first but once you get it, you can make your chops feel more cohesive and "break-like". A good but simple tip would just be to practice with pad mutes and A.D.S.R. like you already touched on. One thing I really like about the S950 is the A.D.S.R. envelopes... they're really dope!

With regards to how I EQ, I tend to reduce frequencies more than I boost them as I think it sounds more natural and raw... something that you dig tyrone hahahaha? Also, with subtle EQ'ing, you can differentiate it from the original. I also don't cut or boost over -/+4dB. I seem to remember that rule of thumb from somewhere, maybe someone can drop some more knowledge in here. Although creatively EQ'ing sometimes can warrant some nice discoveries!

It all depends. Sorry if the post is a little convoluted, my brain is fried from writing my dissertation haha.