The Clean "Live-Feel" of DnB Drums?

[Thatoneguy1224]

Well after a long time of fucking around i have developed my own methods of creating nasty Neurofunk Reeses through Reason and organizing them on Ableton. Although, the backbone of the tracks i make never seem to be as good as other peoples' drums. I have very punchy drums but its not that, its the live feel that tracks like the one below have. Its the living quality that the hats and snare have wit good slight reverb that make them sound like if they are right there in front of you.



Does anybody here have any tips on the compression or the tricks to achieve a real sounding but still punchy drum and bass drum kit on ether Ableton or Reason 5?

[Genevieve]

Only use one break, a very clean one, and don't layer any hits. Put all hats/ghosts/perc OFF the grid with a humanizer. It's best to use a long ass break with lots of snares, kicks, etc, to add some variety to the drums. And edit the velocity of your hits.

Also be veeery conscious of the order you use the hits in. Sometimes the reverb/tail of a kick that is hit a certain way may bleed into the transients of a snare that comes after it, and it's gonna sound weird if you used the snare with the reverb of one kick after another (not always, depends on the tune, but it happens).

If you're gonna add additional perc, use something like maracas or tambourines in the background and try to do it from loops too. Humanized.

Do very little EQ'ing.. mostly only stuff you don't hear. And minimal compression, if any. Sometimes adding a bit of saturation is cool too. But in my experience, making stuff sound 'live' is a matter of 'less is more'.

[Hircine]

soon deadly habit will come to this thread and teach you the art of cleaning breaks. But yeah, chop the individual hits, gate, eq, apply noise reducers, expanders, layer then with clean drum hits (808s, 909s), timestretch via pitching, layer with a sine wave harmonic etc. Wish I could be more helpful but dnb is not my thing. Tried dnbforum and the grid?

[Genevieve]

soon deadly habit will come to this thread and teach you the art of cleaning breaks. But yeah, chop the individual hits, gate, eq, apply noise reducers, expanders, layer then with clean drum hits (808s, 909s), timestretch via pitching, layer with a sine wave harmonic etc. Wish I could be more helpful but dnb is not my thing. Tried dnbforum and the grid?

Those are all thigs you want to do if you don't want your drums to sound 'live'. You especially want to stay away from gates, pitching and layering synthesized hits.

[Thatoneguy1224]

OK so Genevieve says kept it to a minimal, you Hircine say i need to clean up a break and do some processing with layers?
Im pretty sure that both do great but im not to sure on what is labeled a clean break?

[Genevieve]

OK so Genevieve says kept it to a minimal, you Hircine say i need to clean up a break and do some processing with layers?
Im pretty sure that both do great but im not to sure on what is labeled a clean break?

Nah, you need to clean up breaks either way. Just don't go overboard with cutting and boosting and layering a million hits and gating. It can sound good (though I stay away from gates). Just not the clean, loose, 'live' feel you're after. Then it's just some straight up techstep shit.

I hate posting this tune of mine cuz I've been overposting it lately buuuut..

Soundcloud

This is just one break with very little processing. And it sounds live. Not entirely done (and I need to change the order of the some of the hits, ugh) but the 'live feel' is there. And it's mostly there from keeping the hits sound intact and being very dynamic and using a lot of different hits.

[Hircine]

soon deadly habit will come to this thread and teach you the art of cleaning breaks. But yeah, chop the individual hits, gate, eq, apply noise reducers, expanders, layer then with clean drum hits (808s, 909s), timestretch via pitching, layer with a sine wave harmonic etc. Wish I could be more helpful but dnb is not my thing. Tried dnbforum and the grid?

Those are all thigs you want to do if you don't want your drums to sound 'live'. You especially want to stay away from gates, pitching and layering synthesized hits.

those noisia breaks sound pitched, the bass drum is definitely layered and there's a gater on the hats.

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=258668

some nice clean breaks in the NOISIA sample pack, didn't download the others

[Genevieve]

Sure, but that's not what makes them sound 'live'. You think that you make a break sound more realistic and real by altering its very pitch? Or by adding a synthetic sound to it?

And not all Noisia tunes will have that feel. The break in that samplepack sounds like a typical techstep beat.

[Thatoneguy1224]

Well one thing i see very common is the quick change of drum kits from kicks to snares but its definitely a higher level of processing other than just pitching. For example what is the pattern of effect chains do you use Genevieve to clean and restore the sound into a drum break?

[Genevieve]

Wow I don't know. On this tune I just cut shit up, and put each individual hit in a channel and EQ'd and I think some mild saturation on the bus + a bit of reverb.

Dunno, it depends on the break. It's mostly just saturation + EQ'ing and careful use of envelopes on the hits to get rid of noise I don't like. But I don't think I've ever processed a break the same way twice. Some I layer with stuff and compress and others I don't. But for a 'live feel', I try to do as little as possible.

[gen_]

You can layer and still keep a live feel, its all about your EQ. Take the snare fromt eh OP's track, you could take a 909 snare and cut the top end so its still keeps the break's air, but the 909 would reinforce the midrange and thicken up the snare. It depends what you want, if you want your drums to be softer and airy, then don't layer. If you want a live sound but want it thick and slightly saturated/meaty, then layering and/or getting into using saturation and EQ to remove the parts that harm your live feel is the way forward.

If you have a break with a loose groove, cut it up the way you want it so you have your basic break, then either use your DAW's MIDI drum substitution to add sound reinforcement, or make a groove template, or layer it yourself then get to work with the EQ and gating (so none of your synthetic sounds have longer tails than the original). When you have a break that has something thick in all ranges (Snares need thickness across the board which is why 909 snares work so well under them, Kicks need thickness up to about 90-120hz, hats and so on don't really need anything) pull out your EQ and cut everything synthetic that sticks out, so your drums sound live but a bt more meaty, then get out your saturation and efx and bake till their golden brown

[rymebox]

Sounds like just a processed acoustic snare

[Maxxan]

Being a bit late to the whole EDM-party I've never understood this whole 'break' thing. How much dnb is actually made from sampled breaks? Are there people who make their own beats? When I'm listening to stuff like Netsky, Camo & Krooked and some of this new sellout dnb (Yeah I'm a big fan and I know it's probably considered pretty gay in dnb crowds but whatever) it definately doesn't sound like a break to me, but tbh I've never really dabbled with breaks so I could be wrong. Could someone briefly explain the whole thing? I'm starting to feel really stupid with all this talk of breaks lol.

[Augment]

Being a bit late to the whole EDM-party I've never understood this whole 'break' thing. How much dnb is actually made from sampled breaks? Are there people who make their own beats? When I'm listening to stuff like Netsky, Camo & Krooked and some of this new sellout dnb (Yeah I'm a big fan and I know it's probably considered pretty gay in dnb crowds but whatever) it definately doesn't sound like a break to me, but tbh I've never really dabbled with breaks so I could be wrong. Could someone briefly explain the whole thing? I'm starting to feel really stupid with all this talk of breaks lol.

Often with the stuff like netsky, camo & krooked and the likes, they will have breaks with a highpass filter on them, cutting out most of the lows, just to get the airyness and stuff from the breaks. Like in house music, they reaaally overuse whitenoise, breaks are like that to the commercial dnb stuff, but the characteristics change depending on the break, making it more interesting than some whitenoise.

[twilitez]

The whole breaks thing originates from a couple of famous old tracks that used some classic breaks from mostly 60s/70s funk records, the most famous one being the amen.
Heres a list of some other commonly used ones with references where they came from: http://www.junglebreaks.co.uk/

[overture]

Noisia layer programmed breaks and hits from Superior Drummer onto their drums to give them a more live feel, I try and get a heavy kick and snare and then layer with lighter, slightly hi passed acoustic hits and very slight reverb on the whole bus just to give it a bit more of a room sound.

[flood]

soon deadly habit will come to this thread and teach you the art of cleaning breaks.

are there any threads in which he has already done this?

[Thatoneguy1224]

soon deadly habit will come to this thread and teach you the art of cleaning breaks.

are there any threads in which he has already done this?

Actually yea, is there a thread that already explains this?

[Maxxan]

Being a bit late to the whole EDM-party I've never understood this whole 'break' thing. How much dnb is actually made from sampled breaks? Are there people who make their own beats? When I'm listening to stuff like Netsky, Camo & Krooked and some of this new sellout dnb (Yeah I'm a big fan and I know it's probably considered pretty gay in dnb crowds but whatever) it definately doesn't sound like a break to me, but tbh I've never really dabbled with breaks so I could be wrong. Could someone briefly explain the whole thing? I'm starting to feel really stupid with all this talk of breaks lol.

Often with the stuff like netsky, camo & krooked and the likes, they will have breaks with a highpass filter on them, cutting out most of the lows, just to get the airyness and stuff from the breaks. Like in house music, they reaaally overuse whitenoise, breaks are like that to the commercial dnb stuff, but the characteristics change depending on the break, making it more interesting than some whitenoise.

Ah yeah, that makes sense, thanks man.

I actually thought about using superior drummer for hats myself, used to use it a lot when producing for metal bands and the likes. They sound a lot more live since there are so many recordings for each cymbal hit, so the same bar never sounds completely alike which is great. Also sounds really good if you humanize the velocities as they have different samples for different velocities.

[deadly_habit]

soon deadly habit will come to this thread and teach you the art of cleaning breaks.

are there any threads in which he has already done this?

Actually yea, is there a thread that already explains this?

What's to explain, it's just eqing?
Pretty much all that needs to be covered has been said in this thread already.
Sorry I don't really peruse this board that much anymore.
As far as working with breaks how you chop them and sequence them varies on if you work with midi or audio with your drums, but you have to take into account the tail of the hits that may overlap rather than just the transients (this is where gating and such can come in handy if you're rearranging the beat a la drumfunk), but after all the cleaning you'll often need to add a bit of verb or something to glue the sound back together to make it sound natural again.
To keep a human/live feel don't have everything snapped to grid save maybe the kick and snare, have variations on velocity of your hits, and ghost snares etc.
Keep in mind when dealing with a sampled break you're dealing with multiple elements, the kick, the snares, maybe other percussion like toms, conga, bongos, hats, and also the room ambiance/reverb.
A lot of character of a break comes from that room verb/ambiance or the "air" of the break.
Now depending on the tune and artist, some are based on samples reinforcing a break, and others use a break to reinforce a pieced together beat composed all from samples.