Quality drum hits for house

[markbenson]

can any one recommend some good samples for drum hits for use in making my own beats on soulful house tracks ??

i have some on sample cds but when using them they lack a certain Umph

maybe it to do with reverb, compression etc
any help or tips on getting my house beats sounding better would be really appreciated, as im new to this using live at the moment,

thanks mark

[markbenson]

maybe some one has some tips for making my drum sample sparkle a bit more
my beats just seem a bit dull

any one ?
thanks mark

[cdq]

This tutorial page might be handy.

[zvon]

maybe some one has some tips for making my drum sample sparkle a bit more
my beats just seem a bit dull

any one ?
thanks mark

Funny you are asking this, I made a tip last night that may help you. I just posted it this morning here:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 93#1089693

[markbenson]

arh, not a bad idea, i suppose youll get varied results though with this,

thanks mark

[bduffy]

Try a bit of distortion. If you use Cubase, the included Quadrafuzz is excellent; it provides the possibility to distort 4 different bands; so you could just distort the lo-mids of the kick drum, say, for a punchier sound that won't rely on cranking the bottom end to sound "big". Or there a lot of free compressor/distorters that can give you an analog style punch to your drums. Experiment with distortion and compression on individual instruments or drum buses to get the right feel. I tend to use:

Camelphat free (kick ass for kick drums)
UKM Nonlin
Comprimiere
TBT Tubelimit (having a hell of a time finding this EXCELLENT plug-in. can't figure out why the dev stopped making it?)

Included with Cubase:
QuadraFuzz
Puncher
Magneto

There's a start. There are so many compressors/tube sims that you should just try em all. SoundOnSound have amazing tutorials about this kind of stuff too.

[zvon]

arh, not a bad idea, i suppose youll get varied results though with this,

thanks mark

Yes, aside from the samples you pick to double your original kit, the results will also vary with the mix levels and panning of your kits. You can also have different FX for the 2 kits, or one dry and one processed (lightly or heavily).

[Kraku]

Good source material is essential (if you're not going to use synthesized sounds, but sample based, that is...)

Try these two single hit sample cd's:
Dance Megadrums 1 (drum machine samples)
and
Bob Clearmountain Drums 2 (premium quality acoustic drumkits)

Then it's all about compression and eq... Those two sample cd's ROCK! (no bullshitting! they're the ultimate thing!)

[safeaim]

I second bduffy's post and the suggestion of Dance Mega Drums 1, THE samplecd for housedrums..!

[bduffy]

yeah! Dance Mega Drums! Hardly a day goes by when I don't use that wonderful, huge collection.

[Kraku]

Just to promote more of those two sample cd's:

Imagine the day when there were no VST's, just hardware synths and drummachines. Most drums machines were sample players and some were older real drum synths. Those sample players had limited number of sounds in them (usually 200-400 of them). Drum synths had different sound engines to them. Each sound channel of the drum synth was usually limited to some specific kind of sounds for, say, kick drums and snares (they had special synthesis circuits for each type of sound). So they also had quite limited sound palette to them. Dance Megadrums 1 offers pretty much everything from those two areas (sample based & synthetic drum machines). So why not use it? You could use that old hardware sample playing drum machine which has 200-400 samples in it, but you could also use Dance Megadrums 1, which has almost 5000 drum samples in it (and they're all in very good quality!). Sample CD's are a good thing, no matter what someone might say (and to quote someone from these forums: "and that's a fact in my opinion" )

[markbenson]

great thanks alot, yeah it seems there are always new sample cds being released but they arent all up to scratch, i suppose if you start with less than perfect samples the poor qulity will carry through your mix, ill look for these sample cds

and try the free vst's suggested
loops are ok but nice to have the flexability of making beats and editing them, fills rolls, precussion parts etc

cheers mark

[el davo]

my suggestion for an easy start: sample drumshits from the tracks you like. but not the whole beats! cut up and mix up the sounds from different sources.

right now (and possibly later too) it will be more efficient for you to have a small library of great samples rather than 5000 "good" sounds. at least for the most important pieces: bd, snare, open hihat. then you can blend in other sounds for variety.

getting the right sounds is important and a good start. to get the whole beat consistently right you need to practise. a lot. in addition to technical knowledge, your ears/brain must learn to pick up on the subtleties. you'll slowly improve over many many months/years. If you're a professional DJ/musician etc you have a good head start.

your main parameters are (sorry if obvious)...

1. the sounds. choose good source sounds rather than trying to mangle bad sounds into submission.
2. composition of the beat - timing, interplay between the different hits and silence.
3. volume (get the balance between the individual hits right)
4. eq (+ pan) of individuals hits separately
5. compressor (on the whole beat), route the sounds to a group if this is possible in Live. you need enough to make things gel with eachother and maybe pump and breathe a little, but not so much that you loose the transients and dynamics or even distort it.. if you can't hear the difference, just keep trying, A/B compare, leave it for a bit - come back and listen.. etc.

+ effects and sometimes compressor/transienton the individual hits to spice things up. some room/reverb on the snare and a little delay+reverb on the percussion to start with.

all that said, never be afraid to experiment. although the genre you're aiming for can be quite orthodox, you still need to find your own sound..

good luck

[markbenson]

thanks for all the info on this, the processing parts is very handy, isnt the dance mega sample cd quite old ??
had a listen to a demo on the timespace.com website, didnt sound that great but hey it was a 20 second sample.

i read some where that for house alot of different hats and shakers are used and panned hard left and right, it said that about 4 different hats and 4 shakers were used i didnt realise this, as it definatly doenst sound like this, maybe thats how they get that full pumping sound ??

mark

[el davo]

thanks for all the info on this, the processing parts is very handy, isnt the dance mega sample cd quite old ??
had a listen to a demo on the timespace.com website, didnt sound that great but hey it was a 20 second sample.

i read some where that for house alot of different hats and shakers are used and panned hard left and right, it said that about 4 different hats and 4 shakers were used i didnt realise this, as it definatly doenst sound like this, maybe thats how they get that full pumping sound ??

mark

this can help to make a wider fuller soundscape. just beware that if you add too much, it'll turn flat and cluttered instead - the omphh in a drum track is in the interplay between (near) silence and the hits.

the pumping is achieved through compression of the whole drum track with a fast attack and short release time (10ms or so).