Creating powerful sounding drums in Ableton?

[sn0wday]

Any good tutorials or places i could read up on creating nice, strong and overall good sounding drums in Ableton?

Even ones from packs sound weak compared to ones I hear in amateur to pro tunes. I mean heavy, like brostep heavy kicks and snares.

Thanks! even pointers you can leave here will help

[DrastikMeazures]

Pretty much every CM Masterclass ever uploaded to You Tube touch on the subject of layering drum samples. Watch some of those, the theory is the same no matter which DAW your using.

[nowaysj]

Probably less about the samples, and more about the mix. Just get your levels right between the drums and the rest of the mix. It is a lot harder than it sounds. Get them into the right area. Then eq each drum sound to find the little hook, the spot in the spectrum where the sound has some content and can catch the ear in the mix. Subtle here, pretty modest boosts, with pretty narrow q's (depending on the octave of the sound). Then consider parallel processing of individual sounds or the whole drum buss. Not just compression... parallel eq (careful) parallel saturation, parallel limiting, parallel anything... and all that parallel shit can be frequency split/dependent.

But honestly, a majority of it is just getting those levels right, and again, it is a lot harder than it sounds... sounds like you should just move a couple of faders and your drums are sitting right... spend some time with it... use level matched reference tracks as you work on it.

[sn0wday]

I appreciate your effort to help me, but i'm very new to production and don't know half of those terms. Anything I can start with that will eventually lead to those things you posted? Or a tutorial that explains some of those?

[daeMTHAFKNkim]

It's from long effect chains & mastering tools

[nowaysj]

I appreciate your effort to help me, but i'm very new to production and don't know half of those terms. Anything I can start with that will eventually lead to those things you posted? Or a tutorial that explains some of those?

My bad. Think I was on an iphone when I wrote that. Brief. Just look up those terms as I use them.

Trust this as your baseline: Ableton can make those powerful drums. The samples included with ableton can make powerful drums.

First things first, get your mix right, meaning get the balance of the volume of the drums to the rest of the mix right. If you get that sorted, you'll take a huge step in getting your drums sounding powerful.

[elyhess]

all about the samples, use vengeance and then detune them and eq and shit and make them your own, tthen you wiin

[Canonmusic]

Check out the gain structure/money shot threads here. It's got quality info from the guys here. Made my drums more prominent in the mix

[ZankUSA]

Good samples, proper eqing, using filters, saturation, reverb, and just experiment.. you can't turn awful samples into BANGING samples.. the sample has to be decent.. Vengeance, Danny Byrd, Loop(?????) something samples.. lol.

[outdropt]

A lot of times its not one sample. I would suggest playing with some samples you like. Find out what you like about the drum sample, high end, low end, ect. (take an eq and remove every frequency, watch a frequency analyzer and see where the drum sample is hitting. Slowly move the eq where these frequencies are hitting) Keep what you like get rid of what you dont and fill in the gaps with other drum samples that you like. Just make sure when you are eqing the drum samples, they dont clash in the same frequency.

[Theo Void]

Start with good samples. I use vengeance. But I also use this tape saturated 808 on just about every track. I think its from Gold baby.
Anyway, for me layering, eq, and parallel compression is my main processing on drums. For kicks I'll have 3 layers. The deep sub layer, a mid kinda thud layer and a high click layer. EQ these to their respective ranges (deep, mid, high.) On the high make sure you get a nice click or snap sound. This will be what you hear if you listen on small speakers, w/o the click layer the kick will be inaudible on small systems. Also, I basically cut everything below 30 hz. Use the eq to tighten things up so the kicks not flabby. Then parallel compress for punch.

Snares are layered clap, snare, clap plus a bit of white noise under-neath. Also I usually stagger them. (turn off grid)

I use Ableton ....works quite good

[Perej]

Consider recording your own drums. Objekt and Blawan record their own apparently, which is why their drums make the track what it is. The drums are the essential 'weight'. There's something very organic about recording your own.

[outdropt]

Sounds like you guys just got finished watching Rusko's masterclass =P

[nowaysj]

Objekt ...record their own apparently, which is why their drums make the track what it is.

Soundcloud

These are recorded drums?

[Perej]

Objekt ...record their own apparently, which is why their drums make the track what it is.

Soundcloud

These are recorded drums?

Maybe not that tune, could be though to be honest, just going by what I've been told as one of my mates knows him. Blawan definately does.

[outdropt]

They have a lot of tutorials

[Darj]

You can use parallel compression to make your drums solid. The drum rack can make that really esay, there's some nice tutorials on that uploaded by Ascian a few month ago.

[mikeyp]

imo it's all about the sample
i haven't even been touching my drums lately and they sound better than they ever did when i'd fx the fuck out of them

find the right samples
less is more

[staticcast]

in order of importance

1) select and layer the right samples according to what sound you're looking for and
2) process each sample individually and appropriately according to its strengths and weaknesses, using an
3) instrument rack. prioritise this, then
4) process the entire rack if needed, but
5) do not get carried away with fx chains (or 10 different layers) unless you know exactly what you're doing. less is indeed more.

ps. i very, very rarely record my own acoustic percussion, but i also very rarely use a single sample straight from a samplepack without layering or mangling it beyond all recognition (unless it's something basic like a 707/808/909 and even then they are usually heavily processed).

pps. the key is to listen. fill in what's missing by layering another sample.

ppps. IMO the ableton libraries suck for drums, apart from classic machines and basic 'high quality' acoustic kits.

[Perej]

in order of importance

1) select and layer the right samples according to what sound you're looking for and
2) process each sample individually and appropriately according to its strengths and weaknesses, using an
3) instrument rack. prioritise this, then
4) process the entire rack if needed, but
5) do not get carried away with fx chains (or 10 different layers) unless you know exactly what you're doing. less is indeed more.

ps. i very, very rarely record my own acoustic percussion, but i also very rarely use a single sample straight from a samplepack without layering or mangling it beyond all recognition (unless it's something basic like a 707/808/909 and even then they are usually heavily processed).

pps. the key is to listen. fill in what's missing by layering another sample.

ppps. IMO the ableton libraries suck for drums, apart from classic machines and basic 'high quality' acoustic kits.

Sweet! cheers man.

That's why this forum is sometimes good, cos you get people like Objekt giving you advice.