snare

How do you get that good crisp snare drum?

you gotta find em man. you find a dirty one it'll be dirty. find a nice clean one, you got a clean one. out of the millions of snares out there, there's all kinds.

try some eqi'ng too! i wouldnt over do it on the high end and not too sure about the exact frequencies, but try messing with the high mid to high end of the eq. that might make it smack a bit more.

good luck

I sample the ones that I hear that sound nice and crisp. But it seems like I lose a little snap from the chop.

a lot of times yo, if that snare aint doin the track no justice go ahead and drop another Snare track. man make you anothe track and use another snare overtop the one you already got. that usually helps a LOT. i like the idea of using 2 hats, 2 snares, and sometimes two kicks. it can really spice up drums. not only using another snare, but if you got a nice crisp hat or tambourine hit, drop those on top of your snares. that sometimes helps too. percussion instruments are a blessing! dont forget it!

layering your drums works miracles sometimes. dont rule out eq tho...

I feel you on the layering. And I will use that advice on the eq. I think I have been using the eq on the highs to much. Also what about filtering or attack/delay? I use these sparingly.

its all about layering, amp envelopes, filter envelopes, filter and amp responsiveness, amp env responsiveness.....crack that and then break out the eq, compression and reverb...

greg

Make sure you are not cutting off the initial transient when you sample. If you do, you could always try using a gate on your snare track and setting the attack to as fast as it will go. This will add a little "pop" type sound at the front of your snare. Use the realease setting to let the gate follow the contour of the snare and don't cut off the tail end.

You could also use the attack/decay on the mpc envelope (just re-read the above post) to do this. Much easier.

"its all about layering, amp envelopes, filter envelopes, filter and amp responsiveness, amp env responsiveness"

I dunno about all that. I thiink your making it a lot harder than it really is. It all starts with sampling a decent sound. If I drop a pencil on the floor, filters, envelopes and the rest of that stuff ain't gonna do anything, but if you already have a good starting point, all you have to do is get a nice recording signal. I used to do all that 'extra' stuff when I first started, you'd be surprised how little that I do now. It really doesn't take much.

www.soundclick.com/creamofbeats

try boosting the volume up to the point where you see the volume level almost clip....

your abosultely right roxstar id never sample a pencil and try and get a snare out of it...that is far too much effort....this guy wanted to improve his snare sounds and utilising the functions on the mpc is the best place to start....i only do this when wanting nice responsive snares or if the sample i have is too long...which is most of the time as i do quite tightly squenced stuff which is reliant on short samples....spose for hiphop it doesn't matter as much...

greg