Can anyone provide any usefull tricks to get rich pro sounding Base Drums and snares and I'm more conerned about the last one. I have a cool trick to start with; I take individual hits and equalize them to different frequency and combine them together for instance; taking a deep kick drum and compress it heavily, then take another one and equalize it to be mid - range. Then paste them on top of one another. Well that's one of the ways, and I would be really happy if I'm shown other ones from some prfessional fellows here.
Thanks.
Need additional tricks for more pro- sounding Drums.
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- KVRist
- 107 posts since 6 Jul, 2003 from ME
Thorough preparation makes its own luck
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- KVRAF
- 4692 posts since 28 Jan, 2003 from In these very interwebs
It's mainly careful listening and experience. You also have to know your gear 110%.
You know about the usual tricks - eq, compression, layering. The key is how you apply them.
You might find this useful though - it's a guide I wrote to making kick drums and basslines play nice together:
Kim.
You know about the usual tricks - eq, compression, layering. The key is how you apply them.
You might find this useful though - it's a guide I wrote to making kick drums and basslines play nice together:
Forever,Compression is not so important. Eq less so.
The most important steps are:
1) Planning what you want the kick and bass to do
2) Choosing sounds that are appropriate for your plan
3) Composing sensibly.
Planning
You should decide how you want your kick and bass to sound before getting stuck into tweaking. Rarely can the kick and bass BOTH be huge and fat on the bottom end, as well as being full in the mids and articulate in the highs... It's easier to establish a hierarchy. For example, you can let the kick take the lowest bottom, and give the bass more body in the mids, but let the attack of the kick come through in the highs. Alternatively, you could have a bottom-heavy booty bass, and couple that with a lighter, perhaps shorter kick.
Most of the time when we hear "fat kick and bass", the "fatness" comes from the two working together like that - one fills in the holes of the other. Which is which will depend on the music.
Of course, browsing presets and messing about it a good way to get inspired, but once you have a good idea of what you want, go easy on the tweaks!
Choosing
Once you've got the plan, choosing sounds is much easier. This includes programming, but I'm specifically calling it "choosing" because you will be creating a sound that you've already heard before. Yes, it might involve some synth programming, effects, whatever... but you'll be choosing the sounds from the massive bank of sounds in your memory (in your brain).
The trick with choosing sounds is to stay on target. Don't get distracted by endlessly tweaking parameters or scrolling through hundreds of samples. Know your kit well enough so you don't have to waste time working out how to get a certain sound. You should already know how to do it - just spend the time in actually doing it.
This is where you'd use EQ to shape the sounds so they become closer to what's in your head. Compression is usually not needed - most bass sounds can have their dynamics precisely controlled from the synth or sampler. The only exception I can think of is a "plucky" bass sample that could do with some compression to bring up the level of the decay after the pluck. Most kick drum samples are already compressed and don't need further dynamics tweaks (except maybe to enhance/reduce the attack - which can usually be done from the sampler). If you're using a drum synth (not a sampler) and you think you need compression - chances are you really need to adjust the synthesis parameters.
I've heard others say that layering kick drums can be a good tactic. Personally, I haven't found a need to layer them. I find I can get what I want by starting with a good (appropriate) sample, and editing (EQ, envelope, etc). Layering also opens a HUGE can of worms when it comes to workflow - the possibilities are huge. For example - let's say you have 100 kick drum samples. If you decide to layer two of them, there are 10 000 combinations! If you want to layer three, there are 1 000 000 combinations! If you want to layer them with a programmable drumsynth... well, the possibilities are endless! Not good for workflow!
You might still be asking - Why use familiar sounds? Why not create totally new sounds? Don't kid yourself. Unless you're into experimental academic art noise, most of the sounds you'll be using in your music already exist on recordings of other people's music. Is this unoriginal? Perhaps... but like I said - if you're totally into making sounds that nobody's heard before, get into art-noise. Otherwise, be content that your music will contain familiar elements. No rock music fan complains that all their favourite bands use electric guitars.
Composing
If you've done the first two steps well, then this is the easiest. If your sounds are chosen well, you'll be free to have your kick and bass playing at the same time, or not, and both will sound good. This means that your choice of notes is a composition choice, not a mix choice. Big difference. You can have the bass and kick play whatever is appropriate for the music, without being limited by the sounds.
If your bass and kick are both equally fat, then it will be very difficult to avoid mud when they're both sounding at the same time. This will limit you to compose the bass and kick to be "taking turns". Great if you're into dancefloor trance, not so great for most other genres.
I hope that helps.
... or you could just EQ and compress the fnck out of your bass and kick, and wonder why your mix can't get out of the quickmud it's stuck in.
Kim.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 107 posts since 6 Jul, 2003 from ME
This is a very valuable information. You are my hero 
Thorough preparation makes its own luck
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- KVRist
- 433 posts since 14 Apr, 2002 from Caracas Venezuela
A very useful tiny trick.
If you layer samples, use an LFO or automation to modulate the start time offset of the different layers, with this you get moving drums as it is on reality, kinda emulating the fact there aren't two shots with the same frequency components.
This is very useful on Snares and open/close hats.
You can also add a very little phaser on hats and very little flanger on drums, that helps too.
This is a normal procedure on every of my tracks lately.
If you layer samples, use an LFO or automation to modulate the start time offset of the different layers, with this you get moving drums as it is on reality, kinda emulating the fact there aren't two shots with the same frequency components.
This is very useful on Snares and open/close hats.
You can also add a very little phaser on hats and very little flanger on drums, that helps too.
This is a normal procedure on every of my tracks lately.
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- KVRist
- 433 posts since 14 Apr, 2002 from Caracas Venezuela
And two more:
Good dinamic threatment of each shot can make a huge difference without needing too much resources.
Late (laidbacked)notes sounds good most of the time, even sometimes on those very late on the grid, early notes sounds terribly awful even if they are early by some miliseconds.
so when you record some patterns realtime, dont use quantization, just find those early notes (and plain wrong ones) and move them manually, leaving the late notes alone (again, unless they are plain wrong)
Good dinamic threatment of each shot can make a huge difference without needing too much resources.
Late (laidbacked)notes sounds good most of the time, even sometimes on those very late on the grid, early notes sounds terribly awful even if they are early by some miliseconds.
so when you record some patterns realtime, dont use quantization, just find those early notes (and plain wrong ones) and move them manually, leaving the late notes alone (again, unless they are plain wrong)
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- KVRist
- 329 posts since 15 Jun, 2004
for the snare, although compression generally does good on drums, you have to be extra careful, i sometimes find that even though i gain in loudness i lose the snap, so in these cases running a squash compressor in a send cand prove useful.
When layering you can do this trick also, using a strong attack snare (non compressed) to provide the snap (dial a short decay) layered with a heavily compressed hit that provides the 'body'
And while layering, try also pitch shifting some of the hits in your sampler, it can greatly help the sound, i don't really know why but sometimes you just transpose it up a semitone and they blend together much better.
This is also good when you're mixing the kick with the bass, pitch shift the kick a semitone up or down to give it more breathing room in the frequency spectrum.
When layering you can do this trick also, using a strong attack snare (non compressed) to provide the snap (dial a short decay) layered with a heavily compressed hit that provides the 'body'
And while layering, try also pitch shifting some of the hits in your sampler, it can greatly help the sound, i don't really know why but sometimes you just transpose it up a semitone and they blend together much better.
This is also good when you're mixing the kick with the bass, pitch shift the kick a semitone up or down to give it more breathing room in the frequency spectrum.