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Milhousescoop,
How can I get the "loudest drums?" In order to get my snares ear-bleedingly loud, do I have to sample a wood cinder block being chopped by a stout Nova Scotian lumberjack and layer it beneath a normal snare? What equipment do I need in order to take a raw drum break and make it come alive...bursting with sound, fidelity, etc.? A lot of breaks sound very thin, and need some beefing up... help!

Whatz up Phizyx? Good to see you on here.

Dude, this is probably what most of this forum is going to be talking about...

Um, after wondering the same thing for many years, I'd have to say it is a combination of a lot of things. (damn, there's no magic answer...)

I agree with Thes that if you want beats that hit straight out the gate, the SP is your best bet. The sound is just incomparable. I think that most producers today would feel somewhat limited *only* using the SP, even if they only used it for drums.

I agree with what Thes said about the preamp/mixer selection. I'd go further to say everything in the whole signal chain is important. If your signal chain is tight, then the sum of all the factors will make your drums sound better.

Also, it's important to KNOW your sampler (even if you're using a computer). Each sampler makes different drums samples sound different. Some drums sound better on some samplers and sound like crap on others. What you sample is of course the most important thing of all.

Here some things I have found that will make your drums sound better:

SP1200: great for chopped drums. You can sample your mom clapping, and your dad stomping his feet and have the most savage hip hop drums ever.

DI: When tracking your beats I HIGHLY recommend using one of these. ESPECIALLY one with an input transformer (to kill ground hum). Don't get a crappy guitar/stage one. You'll want one for recording. The DI input on quality preamps is usually fine (but none of them have input transformers)

MPC60: If you like Primo's drums.. I found the 60 has a punchier sound for chopped drums, but it's not the best for getting head cracking snares

EQ: When first making beats, many people OVERDO equalization. If your drums don't sound good to begin with, it's hard to fix with EQ. Especially crappy EQs (this is 90% of mixer EQs). You cannot EQ frequencies which are not there already. If you feel you have to EQ, try cutting instead of boosting. Most things just need a little help or none at all.

Level: Obviously getting the hottest level w/o peaking when sampling is important. This is true for the levels on your mixer/preamp. If you're going through a DJ mixer, I wouldn't max out the master gain as it's usually very noisy.

Compression: This is a whole nother can of worms. Compression is a very subtle thing, and each compressor can sound vastly different. Generally compression can make your drums sound punchier and "sit" better in your mix (which will in turn make them sound louder). Compressors can be a whole thread unto themselves. But stay away from cheap ones, you're usually better off not compressing than using one of these. Also, overcompression sounds really bad (unfortunately REALLY common in hip hop) and many times you don't need any, so DON'T USE IT. Usually it takes people a while for their ears to develop to the point of being able to use compressors right.

Layering: A useful technique. Experiment with layering different snare sounds on top of each other. There's a bunch of stuff you can do here.


There's more, and I'll post other stuff when I think of it.




Here's some things that contribute to making your drums sound weak:

AD/DA: Avoid unneccessary conversions! This will make stuff sound worse each time you convert it. (unless you're doing it for effect like w/ an SP)

Digital effects: I have yet to find a digital effect that makes hip hop drums sound better. I would use digital reverb VERY sparingly on drum tracks. Analog effects & reverbs almost ALWAYS sound better.

Modern samplers: Hate to say it, but it's harder to get drums to hit on newer samplers. I'd say you'd definitely have to be more picky with what you sample and how you work with it. Of course that's in exchange for good things like more sampling time and filters and stuff.

Overcompression: Especially on snares, and especially with cheap compressors. Will make your snares sounds like soggy cardboard boxes.

OverEQ: Especially with crappy EQs, can make your beats sound anemic or just plain worse than they did before.

Computers: Hate to say it, but I have yet to be convinced that it's not harder to get smacking drums from a computer program vs. a stand-alone sampler/drum machine. Maybe I'm wrong, or just haven't been around enough good producers that use computers. Not to say i cannot be done, but that it's just harder to pull off.



There's more, I'll post when i think of stuff.



This is all from my experience, and I'm sure some people will agree/disagree with me. But, that's why this is a discussion board right?


I'd also close by saying that I think the difference between the often times HUGE drum sound that big producers get and what we get in our bedroom is a lot of recording technique/equipment that they have the luxury of.

Premier was using a 60 right? Have you ever tried remaking a Premier beat? Even if you had a 60, it wouldn't sound the same, unless you tracked it with an MCI console and had all the stuff (and engineers) they had at D&D. But it's really about the cumulative effect of all these things that makes his beats sound the way they do. Which is why he parked his ass in Studio B there for so many years.


Ok, my rant is done.

One more thing:

Stereo Drums: I wouldn't sample drums in stereo off a record. I can work sometimes, but I've noticed some wierd phasing stuff with my MPC3000. I think it's a MIDI problem. Remember MIDI cannot play any two notes simultaneously. MPCs do the same thing with stereo samples; they play one side and then trigger the other side at the next instruction. This creates a small phase error in the playback of a stereo sample. Especially true if it's like the first beat of the bar where there's a bunch of MIDI triggers at once. It's noticable. Maybe they fixed it w/ the 2000 and later models. I don't know. Generally stereo drum samples won't make your drums bang. You can play with layering, panning, and other mixing techniques to get a stereo field going for your drum tracks after you made the beat. I'm not saying you can't pull off banging stereo drum samples (I've done it before), it's just harder.

OK, now I know what is a DI :-//. Is this one a good DI?

http://www.radialeng.com/di-j33.htm
Or do you recommend another one?
Thanks.