Moody, downtempo drums

[Nanakai]

Hey there, beautiful people. I'm not very experienced with digital drum sounds, and I'm having a hell of a time getting the sound I want. Here's an example of what I want to make:



I can describe the pattern as slow, gentle, dirty and moody. My problem is getting the same kind of sound. In the track I can hear a kick and snare, but I can't name the other parts. That makes it hard for me to emulate.

Here is a terrible example of what I have made over the course of one long, frustrating night:

http://soundcloud.com/supermilitantburr ... pt/s-ZgQx2

I promise that when I record my acoustic guitar, it doesn't sound this bad. I finally got the pattern kind of right, threw a compressor preset on and rendered it out as an example of my work. I made it with a Spark preset that I edited to dull out some of the brightness and give the hats more sustain.

I could really use some help here. I feel pretty confident when it comes to anything but drums. Any ideas what I can do to get the same sound? Techniques? Samples?

[MrMagneto]

I think many of the downbeat drums get their cool feel because they have been pitched down. Get a random 128 dance drum loop and pitch-stretch it to tempo 80, 70,60 and just hear what happens. I think you'll get the idea pretty quick.

[thecontrolcentre]

Sounds like a pitched drum loop ... do what MrMagneto suggests, or load a break into a sampler and play it back using keys lower than middle C, until you hear what you want.

[Nanakai]

Holy. Crap. You guys just opened up so many doors for me. I threw together some quick loop in BFD2 and played the render back in Sampler. Doesn't sound exact, of course, but it's the right idea. With proper mixing and effects, I could get anything I want with this.

Thanks so much!

[thecontrolcentre]

Holy. Crap. You guys just opened up so many doors for me. I threw together some quick loop in BFD2 and played the render back in Sampler. Doesn't sound exact, of course, but it's the right idea. With proper mixing and effects, I could get anything I want with this.

Glad to help. I think to get the sound you're looking for, real drum breaks are the way to go ... but ymmv. Anyway, with Live you have the perfect DAW for this kinda stuff.

[stomachache]

Get crazy with it and see what happens. That song sounds like he has some layers slowed down 300-400 percent or more. A lot of the time it will be applicable to chop out bass. Not always, though. Classic breaks don't have much going on in the bass at standard speed and fill out perfectly when you drop them. Just that a hump at 200hz will turn into a hump at 100hz, then 50hz, if you keep dropping it octaves, and it will build up.

[MOK19]

Beyond pitched loops, which are awesome, also note that the samples you use have made a big impact. The ones in your material you posted aren't, IMO, the right samples for the job. They're to short and clean at the source. Try out auditioning terrible sounding drums; sometimes it'll surprise you.