HELP DRUMS DANGER

can someone explain a simple method to get your drums more tight...for example i lay down my snares and hi hats but they dont sound hard like a primo or alchemist... Plus im having a hard time getting my drums down in different patterns any help would be highly appreciated

hmmm...well, if you want them to sound good, you HAVE TO start with good sounds. The producers you mention are known for sampling off records of old funk music with live drums, right? So maybe try that.

If you want to learn more of the recording, producing and engineering craft, you could go one step further and try recording someone playing the drums and using EQ and compression to get them to knock harder. Once you got that, try to sample and chop that on the MP.

Take your time. Put in work. Play around with different types of swing and quantization, and also, try turning that stuff off for different tracks. For instance, lock your hats in but put your kicks and snares in with no quanization--WARNING-- this will take practice and skill to do well. If you can't learn to pound out a beat without quantization... Maybe this production thing isn't really for you.

Bounce doesn't come from making music perfectly machine-like, and that is exactly what quantization is about.

Yo DJ thanks for the reply and I am truly going to examine my vinyl records for those "funk" type drums...Thanks again...

I love this forum its so good at not holding back info from newbies such as myself....

You can find alot of great breakbeat compilations on ebay and around the net. They will save you alot of time and money looking for breaks on records. The breaks are all sampled off of records so its the same thing. (Even tho some really big vinyl people stay its not, as long as they're in .wav format, they are the SAME thing as getting them off records!! Trust me)

Also you need to learn how to EQ properly to get your drums to really bang and sound grimey. Layering is also a big factor with drums most of the time. Just keep searching thru breakbeats until you find the one that really goes with the sample. Then find the right sounds to layer on top of that to get it to sound even better. *Some beats dont need to have the drums layered, but most do and you will make your track sound alot fuller with the right layers.

Definitely work on trying not to quantize. It really helps. I have been practicing for awhile now and I can make a whole beat now without quantizing anything. It really gives your track such a great feel. So definitely practice with quantize off. However, SOME tracks DO need to have some quantization to them to get it to fit\sound right, whether its the drums or the sample, sometimes even both. Its all good tho, As long as some of it has that live feel. *Tip: never quantize your hi hats if your doing some boom-bap type stuff. It really sounds SO much better with the hats a little sloppy (good tip from my man Black Milk's beat video!!)

try using quantize off and then moving the notes with the step edit where they sound off...

hahahahahaha....... " cuz i wanted to sound like "
be original.... no diss

mr.pleasant wrote:hahahahahaha....... " cuz i wanted to sound like "
be original.... no diss

HAHA. Mr. Pleasant dont tell me you never listened to other peoples tracks and compared your work to theirs. I listen to stuff all the time and get ideas and new ways to work. Come on now. Every good producer is influenced by other producers. the dude simply wants to get his drums to bump like primos. Who wouldnt? Premo has some of the craziest drums ever!!!

Its good to listen to other cats and compare your work to theirs. It makes you Take all your influences and put them together and put your own little twist on it man. Thats how everybody comes up with their own style. Just please dont go jacking drums from other hip hop producers and sampling the same songs as them.. LOL

for tight drums , I chop the tail of the sample - keeps em tight and snappy
if you have OS2 , you can use the ADSR envelope to do this non destructively

also , as mentioned above , really make sure the swing of your beat matchs your sample of loop - just because it fits doesn't mean it hits ! ( sorry , bit corny )

thats what i do to some of my snares i cut off the tails ....

dmarz45 wrote:

mr.pleasant wrote:hahahahahaha....... " cuz i wanted to sound like "
be original.... no diss

HAHA. Mr. Pleasant dont tell me you never listened to other peoples tracks and compared your work to theirs. I listen to stuff all the time and get ideas and new ways to work. Come on now. Every good producer is influenced by other producers. the dude simply wants to get his drums to bump like primos. Who wouldnt? Premo has some of the craziest drums ever!!!

Its good to listen to other cats and compare your work to theirs. It makes you Take all your influences and put them together and put your own little twist on it man. Thats how everybody comes up with their own style. Just please dont go jacking drums from other hip hop producers and sampling the same songs as them.. LOL

i said " be original "
music is always gonna be compared to, in every genre of music..........
my statement is " try 2 be different "
no diss at no means

A little more about the funk drums~

I know a lot of young producers that want to just pick one "bangin" kick, hat, and snare, and make a whole track with that. For me, that can get boring pretty quickly.

IMO, one of the most important skills to practice as a producer is active listening. When you actually sit and play drums, or listen to a drummer play, you can notice that one drum never sounds EXACTLY the same twice because there are many subtle variables such as how hard it is hit, where it is hit, and with what part of the stick (and if it's the hat, the position/motion of the foot) all contribute to the subtle variations in timbre that help keep the listener on their mental tip-toes.

All that to say, one sample of each drum won't have the same dynamism you could achieve by taking the time to set up programs / kits of velocity switched multi-samples. This is a bit slow and boring to do, but the results can make a staggering difference.

If you want a drum sounds that NO ONE else has, this is your assignment:
-Find a friend who plays drums, and arrange a time to have access to their kit.
-Record them (or anyone really) playing that drum kit, one hit at a time, recording several hits of different intensity off each drum, and chop up these into one-shots.
-pick 4 shots from each drum that you feel represent a good range of volumes / velocities and layer these onto the pads of your MP as a velocity switched multisample program (this is explained in the manual btw and happens through the program dialogue if you are using the Akai OS)

Finally, let it be said that a lot of drummers keep time on the hi-hat, so to bring some of that live feel, consider laying down your unquantized hat track before dropping in your kicks, snrs, toms, cymbals, etc.

Cheers.

mr.pleasant wrote:hahahahahaha....... " cuz i wanted to sound like "
be original.... no diss

no diss? you contradict yourself... listen or better yet read what is written before posting your comments because if you read my post it says i am looking for the method used by these artists to acquire the grimy sound their drums have... I never said i wanted to be like any of them cats... i said i lack the grimy sound they have in their drums...
beside, everyone has a goal in music and mine is to have a signature sound not like the primos or alchemists of the music biz...

Really I have no problem when I guy says he wants tips on how to make a snare or kick sound like Primo or whoever.
Everybody gets into music after 1 or several artists inspire them.
I guarantee that a good "current" guitarist like John Mayer probably emulated a lot of little tricks, like slides & things of that nature from an older great like say Eric Clapton.
So, therefore at one point he had to say to himself "how do I hit this string to make it sound like Hendrix?", then he learns & puts his own spin on it.

Excuse me if John Mayer is far from a good guitarist, but I always seem to see him on tv w/ a guitar & I don't know much about bands. I would assume he is good for a commercial artist

Textures :

Textures are a BIG part of the rythmic feeling ur trying to bring to ur track and since rythm is somehow the ''life'' of ur track... u should focus on textures.. these are some.. pointers i guess.. nothing absolute .. just... hints of what i think could be cool to think about :

Kicks with different textures bring different effects... (fat, full, empty and dry, etc, long - short), u should start collecting as many as u can ...

Varying ur snares in length would also be a good start.. to realize that tight sounding snares dont affect ur beats the same way as reverbed ones do...

Hihats.. same thing... well i guess ill just drop some concepts and if ur not familar with those u can search the forum or just feel at ease to point them out, we'll (the forum people mehhehe) try to precise them :

-layering
-decay
-flamming (is that even a word)
-low pass-hipass filters

Workflow :

The way u store and classify ur drum sounds will be crucial... there are plenty : u could edit complex programs that u could use over and over with little to no tweaking (as Plan A explained) or u could just store them by type in a big accessible soundbank and just browse them from ur computer all the way to that Akai beast laying on ur desk (if u have one). Both ways is good and im sure there are others... the thing is u have to find a way ur comfortable with, that could let u focus on selection of ur drums... and Spend some time on that shit.

*oh and dont be afraid to use the same sound on two beats (PREMO MAHAHA, 9th wonder mahahahahaha, CRUNKKKKKK LOLLLLLLL)... but the question u may have to ask urself is... ''is it the sound i really need to achieve what i have in mind''*

Effects :

Now u can focus on tweaking them sounds, i wont bullshit u.. i know little to nothing about that... i just.. freak around until a sound sits tight in the mix.. and thats not for the final mix.. which i dont do myself (my eardrums are way too busted lol). With time i tend to think that any drum pattern, after a good equin and the right amount of compression, lasts 10 times as long as its ''flat'' or ''dry'' version before u can get tired of it. So pay attention to that.. it could really make the difference between a cool beat and ur friends going 'DAyUM AHAHA'' (That was corny as well)

Some people here will help u on that, dont be afraid, ask.

Relationship :

Ultimately, a good thing would be to ... train urself to see music instead of hearing it... it sounds REALLY STUPID... but at some point uve got to be able to really feel the bounce to a track. What i used to do was recording a snare on time.. and then mess around with the kick... and then u put rules in... like 2 kicks per snare and u vary the possibilities u see... just.. mess around, really... do it square, do it in ''66% swing'' do it in between, do triplets, double time triplets... just... feel it... ull get better at hittin sounds tighlty on beats but ur mistakes will also teach u about ... relationship between sounds... try it.. ull understand what i mean...

there are some pretty cool feelings u can add to a track by slightly altering a ''perfect'' rythmic... but these are somehow ''advanced'' concepts

To conclude :

i would like to thank the academy.... no okay..

i would conclude by telling u .. ud better not let ur machine do the work for u... forget about sound resolution.. even the tightest drum pattern (based on math) ... should in my opinion, be aprehended with ur ''soul'' rather then with a calculator... math is a TOOL and so is quantizing (AN IMPORTANT ONE BY THE WAY)... BUT dont OVERUSE IT.. and dont think ''inside'' the box ... dont be afraid to try new and odd things...

another thing i would like to mention is : LESS IS MORE... dont try to fool bboys and bgirls by piling up endless sounds so ur shit is so dense we may not distinguish its flaws (WE WILL, WE ALWAYS WILL MEHEHE)... try to keep it as simple as it could be... if everything is tight... THEN u can add up.

Rythm may be the core of ur work.. ultimately ur whole sound selection and melodic approach will go in the same way then ur rythms do and dont fear its gonna be tight

P.s : Plz dont take all that for granted.. it was my thought of the moment and i type that shit cuz when i make beats it HELPS me ... hehe dont be afraid to be urself musically... and experiment a lot!

oh and have fun (corny, III)