Drum Sounds + coherent kits.

[grix]

Just wondering where everyone gets their hits from? I started out producing DnB so my kits are mainly from Drum n Bass sample packs. Anyone got any links to some nice drum samples?

Also, i was just wondering if anyone has some tips on making a nice coherent sounding kit. Sometimes i find i have a well sequenced beat but the hits just dont really fit together.

Any tips on achieving a cohesive beat?

[näjt]

What do you mean by 'Cohesive beat'? Do you mean something that sounds like a real drummer could have played it, as in a natural flow, or do you mean like having sounds that compliment eachother well?

[darkmatteruk]

i built my sample collec up sharing with other producers on DC downloads

[amisane]

Drum & Bass tends to use hits with really short decays so that they can sound tight when played at D&B BPMs alongside everything else in the track.

Dubstep drums tend to be from more organic samples (I would say drum kits but I love recording random sounds and turning them into drums) - drum machines will rarely do the job when you want your drums to breath a lot.

I would reccomend finding some nice long drum hits amongst your samples and dumping them in a dubstep folder.

[r]

Vengeance Essentials House Vol. 1 + 2
Disco drumpacks

[grix]

By cohesive or coherent i mean sounds that compliment eachother; hits that sound like they came from the same kit for example.

sometimes when i make a drumbeat the seperate parts, hats, snares, kicks, sound too far apart. As if they are all in their seperate sections and, well, not working as a team

Its a bit hard to explain but if you listen to any decently produced track the seperate layers of a beat just sound as one.

Anyways, this isnt a major issue. Usually with a lot of tweaking i can get my kit sounding pretty good but i just wanted to pick up some tips. One technique that i read in the sticky dubstep bible thread was to use 2 different reverbs, one short and one long, as sends. Then you can apply the same reverbs (in different amounts) to your drum parts to get that cohesive sound.

Anyways, cheerz for the info people. Keep it coming

[miss_molinari]

synthesis?

[serox]

Just wondering where everyone gets their hits from? I started out producing DnB so my kits are mainly from Drum n Bass sample packs. Anyone got any links to some nice drum samples?

Also, i was just wondering if anyone has some tips on making a nice coherent sounding kit. Sometimes i find i have a well sequenced beat but the hits just dont really fit together.

Any tips on achieving a cohesive beat?

I dont use any sample packs and I dont plan too.

Getting sounds too fit together is the fun of it and takes time till you can match the hits and noises imo.

You could do it the easy and boring way and use sampled breaks and take the hits from it. I find that boring tbh and I would rather use a standard drum kit and add my own Fx/Modifications.

[John Locke]

By cohesive or coherent i mean sounds that compliment eachother; hits that sound like they came from the same kit for example.

never even considered this b4.

just by the fact that ONE person uses the sounds, in ONE way, in ONE song, mostly is enough to hold it all seamlessly together.

i think if u have a clear idea of how u want the drums 2 sound on that track b4 u start selecting the hits then it aint really an issue. yr selection will already dictate that there's a certain amount of continuity between the sounds.

also, 2get the sound yr aiming for on any one track yr gonna have to proccess and effect yr drums to get it, right? so, in the process, by adding saturation here, overdrive, there, reverbs all over, the sounds come together anyway.

i wouldnt think about it too much if i was u. if u got a clear idea in yr head of what u want, you'll DICTATE that those little fuckers hold together whether they want to or not

its certainly not something ive ever worried about, and dont c any reason 2 start now either.

[setspeed]

By cohesive or coherent i mean sounds that compliment eachother; hits that sound like they came from the same kit for example.

sometimes when i make a drumbeat the seperate parts, hats, snares, kicks, sound too far apart. As if they are all in their seperate sections and, well, not working as a team

Its a bit hard to explain but if you listen to any decently produced track the seperate layers of a beat just sound as one.

Anyways, this isnt a major issue. Usually with a lot of tweaking i can get my kit sounding pretty good but i just wanted to pick up some tips. One technique that i read in the sticky dubstep bible thread was to use 2 different reverbs, one short and one long, as sends. Then you can apply the same reverbs (in different amounts) to your drum parts to get that cohesive sound.

Anyways, cheerz for the info people. Keep it coming

easy dude,

i normally start by chopping up a loop and using that as a background; either a funk loop or a DnB loop. then i'll layer over another snare for oomph/top/whatever's needed, and another kick likewise. that way you'll end up with a coherent core of samples, just overlayed with other stuff (actually i'll often end up with 5 snare samples and 2 or 3 kicks too). if you layer your snares, then you can also use one or 2 as ghost notes, and these will then sound nicely related to your main snare.

i do use 2 reverbs for dubstep stuff, usually a long one for snare and short one for kicks.

most importantly tho, just spend AGES tweaking it, trying out loads and loads of samples until you find the right ones. i spend up to a day and a half on my drums before moving on to anything else


(have a listen to the track 'flay' on my myspace if you want an idea of what i'm usually aiming for. there'll be more dubstep up there soon www.myspace.com/djid - yes, really must re-register here under my production name heheh)

[John Locke]

setspeed, drums on flay r real nice. would vary the type/length of reverb on the snare every now and then tho cos it gets a bit repetetive. but otherwise pretty damn sexy.

[setspeed]

thanks man

would vary the type/length of reverb on the snare every now and then

hmmm, now there's a thought....

[mrhope]

I kinda like it when the separate drum sounds DON'T sound like they came from the same kit. I like a mixture of stereo and mono, wet and dry, hard and soft, acoustic and electronic, all mixed together.

It's not dubstep, but you get a little bit of the idea for the results in my tune Ego-Tripper: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6559660 and in Azure: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=5485159

As for getting better kits, I'm spending the day today going through my drum samples and deleting all the poor quality sounds, and keeping only the best ones. I'm also going to seperate them into better categories. I feel that when you get good at categorizing them, it provides more ideas for mixing and matching and layering sounds.

I audition each drum sound on a wimpy set of small speakers so that I know it will sound good, even on a wimpy speaker. In the past, I didn't do this and some of the kick drums ended up being too weak. Later on, after that, I'll go back and listen to them on a big set of good speakers and weed out the ones that have too much bass.

I get my drum sounds from online WAV files and sometimes from software installation packages. I bought one sample CD, but it was mostly low-quality SoundFonts designed for Hip-Hop.

Most of the time, I go back and compress and trim each drum sound to make it sound as good as it can be. It's an overwhelming task, but it's fun do listen to the results.