1. layer ur drums. The best way to do that i have found to be this. - Sample a break, then extract individual kicks and snares from it, raise both the trebles and bass on em (to get a fuller, punchier sound) and layer emn back on the break. It will produce a sort of compression result, without all your snares sounding like rimshots (cats who mess with compression know wat im talkin about). Also, extract ur hihats from breaks and throw them in on the break once in a while. it will give a more "live feel".
2. Dont over-reverb snares. And if you do, make ur reverbs trebbly, not bassy. Bassy reverb just makes the beat sound muddy. The trick in reverb is not to make it noticeble. Ive rarely seen ppl pull off reverb on kicks. It messes the beat up usually.
3. Compress drumbreaks only. Unless u got an sp12, individual sounds will sound crap when compressed.
4. Get an sp12.
... if u can. i dont own one, but maybe one day. But remember that no sp or mpc will make you ill. I have friends that have both and their drums are thin like fruityloop presets. And my best friend actually ONLY uses fruity loops and his sh!t is bangin. Its all in the time u put in perfectin your craft. 5. never underrate 808's. layer some 808 kicks under ur drums.
6. Sometimes an ill sample will get enhanced by the crappiest drums. ive made a couple a beats in which the weak individual drum sounds i had worked perfectly with the sample. it usually has to do with the sample having some drums already. Mess around with your drums.
7. The pattern on your drums cant be stiff. Check any Primo drum track-nomatter how much he fell off or whatnot, i still havent heard a wack drum pattern from him.
8. and this is pretty wild and might seem like a complete waste of time but
if u have a loop of an individual hihat that just goes (t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t) or watever. take it and (if u use software) and convert it to rm. (realplayer) format. Its funny, but the format makes all the hihats sound slightly different and more "live". the first beat that plays on my site - http://www.djalibi.com has hihats made this way.
anyways, in case ure wonderin wat i use
yamaha su700 sampler and vegas audio software for sequencing.
looking into gettin a hardware sequencer. any suggestions?
and to finish this off on a drum theme. Check out my man Buddy Rich throwing it down - legend right there...
http://ueba.net/go/4282
peace
http://www.djalibi.com
3.