Lack of good drums is killing me

Ok, so i have hundreds of drum samples on mym computer, and when i first listen to them they all soudn ill, then i go and put the best ones in my mpc, and when i go to make beats there are only like 2 bass drums, one snare, one clap and two hi hats that are even decent...

How the **** do you guys build up these libraries of great sounding drums without spending years only digging for drum kits?

This lack of good drum sounds really makes all my shit suffer, ive been workign with this mpc for about 2 months now and i feel i havnt improved at all since all my drum tracks are shit

yeah... i know what you're saying bro...

it's hard to get enough useable sounds - drums are the hardest to come by.

there's no quick way to do it... it takes time to gather a decent library.

keep your eyes peeled on the forum, people are often sharing drums that
they've put together. and have a search through some of the forums. there
are a few links to different sites that have heaps of stuff on them.

the other thing is to start layering and processing the drum sounds you do
have to make new sounds that are more useable.

try layer a few kicks, playing with the tune and sample level features til
they blend well. add filters and effects in the MPC or on your DAW and resample.

be creative! you can get some good sounds if you work at it.

I don't know. I get stuck with that kind of thinking a lot too - I end up hating all my samples once I try to use them in a track. But I don't think it's the samples. Even if I sat in some world class studio with full access to all their gear and samples they've collected over the years, my tunes would basically still sound the same. At bottom I just don't think it's about the gear, samples or any of that. I'd bet that a pro could make a hit in just about any studio.

Its not realy about having great drums, its about TWEAKING the drums that you got to make great drums. Listen man I have no where near as many drums as alot of cats on this forum. But I tell you one thing. MY DRUMS BANG! This is one of those things that just comes with experience homie. My drums sucked for like the 3 years and one day I woke up and everything just clicked in my head. Just keep in mind that you have to "Shape" your drums.

just keep digging and tweeking. You got the 2kxl, right? you can definantly make ill sounds with it especially w/ the fx card. If you want more fx something like the roland SPs can help you tweek drums.

lol



dat happens to me often

ur just thinkin too much

do this find a beat from some one u really like and really focus on their drums not really dat great sounding either huh

da actual samples by themselves play a lil part
( not in any way knocking great drums)

da full picture is what matters.

http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/drumsynth.shtml

do something about it then...

con_thafam wrote:lol



dat happens to me often

ur just thinkin too much

do this find a beat from some one u really like and really focus on their drums not really dat great sounding either huh

da actual samples by themselves play a lil part
( not in any way knocking great drums)

da full picture is what matters.

na da issuez iz layerin son yo need da right samples and layer them man itz cool to collectz and work on yourz but if you layer dem kik and poppin snare drumz they will bang hope dat helps 1

Jacpot wrote:Its not really about having great drums, its about TWEAKING them.

this is only true sometimes if you got a really bad drum you can butter it up but it will still taste like crap.. most of the drums you get off the net aren't really that great. like the ones off of mpc-sounds.com.. ugg

Grime wrote:Ok, so i have hundreds of drum samples on my computer...

That' your problem right there. If you have your sounds on the computer and didn't actually sample them that's probably the first issue.
Second issue:"Tweaking". Sriously if you grab something that's not all that good you can tweak as much as you like but it ain't gona sound right.
If you start with a good sample and you carefully chop it leaving enough time before and after.Remember the MPC will cutoff/roundoff fractions of a second on your samples when you chop them and this is automatic so when you come to play it it sounds a little different.
I personally have similar problems when it comes to drums but that's because I always try to make everything work and I've come to notice that some drumbreaks CAN NOT be chopped and sound good. Usually the ones that are faster sound like crap because there's not enough time in between sounds to make them sound "full".Use real slow ones those are great because you get the natural reverb and complete drum hits. You can layer them a littl here and there but don't over do that.
If you look at some of the biggest producers they seem to use the same sounds but just a little differently(i.e. Neptunes, 70% of their biggest hits were made with that same drum kit that's open on the intro to "I just wanna love you")...

zapp wrote: I've come to notice that some drumbreaks CAN NOT be chopped and sound good. Usually the ones that are faster sound like **** because there's not enough time in between sounds to make them sound "full".Use real slow ones those are great because you get the natural reverb and complete drum hits.

yea i agree.

Smoove03 wrote:

zapp wrote: I've come to notice that some drumbreaks CAN NOT be chopped and sound good. Usually the ones that are faster sound like **** because there's not enough time in between sounds to make them sound "full".Use real slow ones those are great because you get the natural reverb and complete drum hits.

yea i agree.

shouldn't let that stop you....

i process, add some reverb, layer other drums...

then track it to tape, resample.

you can create reverb tails in other ways too - people often sample ambience
from the same track and stick that in to help keep the natural feel.

or just use the filters in the MPC to make the short cutoff work to your advantage,
sometimes snappy drums can sound real nice... they don't always need to
decay the way they would naturally.

I get what you're saying but out of every ten breaks you try this with you might get one that sounds good or even natural. I don't like those odds.

t_bias wrote:

Smoove03 wrote:

zapp wrote: I've come to notice that some drumbreaks CAN NOT be chopped and sound good. Usually the ones that are faster sound like **** because there's not enough time in between sounds to make them sound "full".Use real slow ones those are great because you get the natural reverb and complete drum hits.

yea i agree.

shouldn't let that stop you....

i process, add some reverb, layer other drums...

then track it to tape, resample.

you can create reverb tails in other ways too - people often sample ambience
from the same track and stick that in to help keep the natural feel.

or just use the filters in the MPC to make the short cutoff work to your advantage,
sometimes snappy drums can sound real nice... they don't always need to
decay the way they would naturally.

nice ideas...

I agree, I think those are good ideas too. But I also think sometimes it's about context too. For example, I'll often hear songs I like and if I listen to the drum track, it's really nothing special. But with a great tune to go with it bangs anyway. Which is kind of what I was trying to say about good producers - if there's a really cool bass line and rhythm going with the drum track, they all seem to support and enhance each other.