How can you add more feeling to the drums?

[blackcat]

What is the trick that J Dilla and many others use to let them drums bounce. (add more feelings to the drums)

peace.

[Truthmusik]

So, you're influences are Pete Rock, DJ Premier, 9th Wonder, Large Professor, and D.I.T.C., and you want your drums to have a similar feel to their production. First I'd tell you to go get an SP1200, but of course that's not always possible. You're on a Fruity Loops budget and that crappy job ain't getting you nowhere near enough money to get the SP. So what do you do? Well this article is designed to give you the tools to grimey up your kicks and snares no matter what you bang out beats with. We're going to do this with techniques and ideas that you can apply to any situation.

We're going to break it down into 5 main points:

Sample Sources
Sample Bit Rate
EQ
Low End Theory and Layering
Compression
Sample Sources
This is going to be a lot harder if you're using super clean 96khz acoustic snare samples from your brand new Korg TrI-Ton (Roy Lee pronunciation). It can be done with super clean sounds, but it's a lot more work. You'll basically be repeating the steps over a couple times. I suggest chopping your drums out of a drum break from vinyl, this is a best case scenario. MP3's, WAV files, tapes, CD's, and 8 tracks are fine to use as well, but tend to lack the character of vinyl. Also cheap quality keyboards tend to have dirty 8-bit drum sounds as well. Don't be fooled by the flower drum pads and cartoon cow on the front of it. You can use those drums. It even helps if the source isn't in the best condition to begin with. A scratchy vinyl record adds depth and character, and tape hiss can thicken the sound. The full idea of this section is that dirty sources can create dirty sounds.

Sample Bit Rate
The key to the SP1200 sound was that it processed samples in 12 bit. Most modern samplers use 16-bit or 24-bit processing which produces a very clean sound. That's not what we're looking for. Some samplers are equipped with a bit rate change function, where you can just change the bit rate to whatever you like. It may have to be changed before you sample or can be processed later. You usually want the bit rate to be between 8 and 12 bits to get that grime, but don't be afraid to experiment. Other samplers have a resample function that just cuts the sample rate in half, just do so until you get the desired bit rate. Now some of you may say, "My sampler doesn't have either of those." Well next you want to head to MP3 processing, becaue you can also change the bit rate. Just take your chopped out sounds and turn them into MP3's at a low bit rate. MP3 bit rate works a little different than sample rate so you want to get in the 48kbps to 128kbps range depending on your desired amount of dirt. Then just change it back to a WAV file or whatever format you had it to begin with.

EQ
More than likely you're going to need to process the sound of your drums about now. For your snares you're going to want to boost your midrange and slightly in the low end. Boosting in the 300Hz to 500Hz range will give your snare more of a bottom and backbone. Boosting between 800Hz and 1khz will give it more of a pop effect to it. And boosting between 2khz and 4khz will give it more of a clap or smack effect. The rules for EQ on snares pretty much apply the same to hi-hats. As for bass kicks you're going to want to boost below 1khz for fatness or above to give a knock effect to the kick. You also my have too much tape hiss or vinyl noise so you may want to cut the frequency between 7khz to 10khz or higher depending on what noise you may want to remove. Also as a side note you may not have enough flexibility with your EQ to do all this at one time. So just remember you can always record or output a half processed sound to another medium and reload it back into the machine or software you use to complete your processing.

Low End Theory and Layering
The premise behind the low end theory is that you're going to take a sample and layer it with a low cut filtered version of itself. So basically you're going to layer the sound with itself, but the second layer will be all bass. Filter out your high frequencies. This is a technique that can be applied to many kinds of samples, not just those containing bass. As for layering, this is a wide open technique. For example; you can take 3 or 4 different kinds of snares and layer them over each other to create a specialized snare. Don't ever feel like you have to just work with one snare, kick and hat. You can layer a bass kick under a snare to make it stand out more. You can layer a hi-hat over a snare to give it more of a smack. Layering different percussion elements can add to the uniqueness of your sound. Shakers, tambourines, congas, random metallic sounds, and anything with a percussive feel can add colors to you drums.

Compression
Compression on the individual drum sounds can give them an extra presence in the mix, and a little compression goes a long way. Too much compression can make the drums too overpowering. This is useful because most production with dirty drums tends to be simplistic, so the drums need to play a bigger part in the overall feel of the beat. Dirty drums need to stick out like a sore thumb and make the listener take notice. They should feel like they're not just a part of the beat, but the star of the show.

Conclusion
Now remember, these are just basic techniques. Feel free to experiment and take these ideas to your own personal new high. So until next time, keep your fingers dusty and your snares crack-a-lacking.

Courtesy of Prophecy from The Molemen message board.

[bigvernthearkitekt]

techniques I use:

program the drums live--no quantization,
usually I'll play the kick and snare live for 4 or 8 bars and then loop those bars. This tests your rhythm moreand you have to pay more attention to the metronome, but it gives your drums a live feel. If you've never tried this, maybe quantize your hi hats to keep you on beat, then turn off the quantize and lay the kick and snare live or vice versa.

use different variations of the same sound in your sequence,
for instance, eq or filter the snare that hits on beat #2 differently than the one that hits on beat #4. mulitple high hats also make a huge difference. same goes with any drum, do de afraid to use multiple different kicks or snares in the same sequence.

adjust your swing to get the sound you are looking for.
whether you are on an mpc or fl, sometimes a little swing (or lack there of) is all you need.

chop your drums differently to experiment,
sometimes I'll take just the bare kick-by itself, sometimes, I'll take the kick and the hihat that follows it --on one chop. Play around with it.

use a machine that has a sequencer with the "bounce" you are looking for. For me I like the bounce of the mpc better than that of some of my other machines. So if I want that swagger to my drums I use the mpc. That is all a matter of preference though.