Skrillex assistance. NO, this is not about bass or leads...

[sovietsoldier22]

Instead, the one thing that keeps me stumped is his drums.

Maybe to everyone else they sound bland and boring, but the snare he uses and if I'm correct, a crash cymbal, just sound right together. For an example, the snare in this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMdXOqq3WL4.


I don't doubt I'm not being very clear here, so I'll explain what I've tried before.
(FL user)

I've scourged all the packs I could come across, and the closest I could get to the snapiness of the snare was 029 in the Vengeance House pack 1. But the little noise that sustains doesn't cut it as a cymbal so I had to look for a cymbal that sounded like it was blooming, but wouldn't overtake my snare after I EQ it. Obviously, I couldn't get even close, and I've been at this for weeks, as sad as it is.

Maybe there's something I'm missing here, or maybe it's my turn to be ridiculed on this site for asking a Skrillex question. For the record, yes I've used the search function, with no avail. I'm asking as nice and un-trolly as possible, so a little assistance would be nice.

[jrisreal]

snare layered with cymbal. i do that too on some occasions

EDIT: Misread the post. I can't answer that other than saying, try a lighter, higher-end snare with a higher-end, harder crash.

[makemerich]

the drum is extremely compressed.....extremely.....

[mrlithium]

Did i come close? It took 4 tries for this --http://www.mediafire.com/file/p2qo36xws ... snare5.wav. I layered 2 snares with reverb on one, both tuned, and 1 cymbal and then rendered it, reimported it and compressed it a bunch. How is it? Its kind of hard to make yeah cause its still off. But then I gave up because its your project not mine

[sovietsoldier22]

I'll give you credit that was pretty close. Only thing keeping it from being REALLY close is that the cymbal needs to blast straight out of the snare, whereas in your example there was a a split second before the cymbal "blossomed". And I appreciate the help, and it is my project, and after a drive around town, I'm gonna get back to it.

[Atac]

Maybe instead of layering with a cymbal, try to synthesize some white noise stab.
His snares sound pretty synthetic (due to compression?) and I think this might do the trick if you play around with it for a while.

[RandoRando]

His snares always have that 200hz pop that cuts through the mix, I think he sidechains his midrange and subbass to he snare. Maybe making them sound larger than they actually are?

[hifi]

sounds just like pure layered vengeance sampled snares to me. some slight EQing and of course compression/limiting

[LordBid]

wow a thread where helpful shit is going down! Yea man skrillex compresses the living fuck out of his snares, you can achieve similar sounds as mentioned above, especially choosing good samples as well.

[wub]

Maybe to everyone else they sound bland and boring, but the snare he uses and if I'm correct, a crash cymbal, just sound right together. For an example, the snare in this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMdXOqq3WL4.

Skrillex Snares in FL Studio 101

You will need - 4 sampler channels, mixer routing (see details below)

• - Layer 2 snare samples, 1 with a crack at the start, and the other with a tshhhh at the tail.
• - Run each snare out through a different channel in the mixer & EQ these til they sit right with each other.
• - Now, add a clap sample. Adjust the OUT of the sample via the FL sampler so that you only get the crack at the start.
• - Again, run this out through a mixer channel and EQ til you find the sweet spot
• - Load an open cymbal. Adjust the IN of the sample so that you only get the tail
• - Run out through a mixer channel and EQ
• - Now route all 4 mixer channels into a bus on the mixer
• - On this bus, load an FL Compressor and apply hard compression to gel all the elements together
• - Apply liberal amounts of reverb; this is personal taste and depends largely on the tune

You now have a Skrillex snare. If you like the sound of this snare, then remove the reverb and bounce it out. Save it somewhere for use in the future. Also, save the above as a template, complete with the routing in the mixer. That way, if you want to create more snares in this way, you can drag and drop your samples in and just fiddle with the EQ/IN OUT points of the samples. Try different samples, different EQing, different settings on the compressor etc. Experiment. See what works and what doesn't.

[mrlithium]

Woke up this morning and tried to take Wub's advice - made another soundslikeskrillex snare.
I don't usually make my samples - I have 0 experience, the one last night was my first and this is my second.
I would like to see sombody else attempt it.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/enm78tizx ... are9G1.wav
I think I forgot to finetune the individual samples
And EQ for me is trial and error. That thing someone said about the 200hz was interesting but i couldnt achieve it.

[sovietsoldier22]

Off topic, but I feel good about asking a Skrillex question and not getting bombarded with Hams and Alpacas. TBH, I was pretty scared to even ask. But this is all very helpful and I'll work on it today. And if it's not too much to ask a second question, this one pertaining to Deadmau5, so hold on to your butts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqDSwv3WvTU&hd=1

It's another drum question, I know sidechaining and eq'ing the tits off the drums helps, but the pattern has me stumped.The kicks and snare aren't my issue though, it's the illusion he makes it like there's 10 different cymbals being hit at once. Go to around 3:20, it's where every sample seems to be playing simultaneously. It's not dubstep, but there can't be anything wrong with adding a prog. house feel to a dubstep song.... Right?

[bassinine]

Another thing that never gets mentioned - make your different snare samples start at SLIGHTLY different times when you are layering them. For example, have 2 snare samples hit on the grid, have 1 start a few ms before, and 1 a little later. Do this, on top of a highpassed kick or even a Tom around 150-200hz to add more punch.

[sovietsoldier22]

Alright so after about 45 minutes on it, this was as about as close as I think I can get it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?vqjeczcjvckjrim

[Debaser1]

All down to EQ/detuning your sample. His snares are very low endy, try peaking your EQ at like 300ish hz. Tweak with it.

Obvously the key is also down to layering and processing with compression etc. Just keep experimenting!!

[iamepoch]

on the deadmau5 tune i dont think its an illusion, there are a ton of hits layered up, not as much as 10, but at least 2-4 that hit on every beat and then hats on the off beat. not sure if thats what you were asking for, or if you even asking a question....

[jrisreal]

i think i made a similar snare, hold on imma render it out and edit this post in a few minutes

EDIT: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21699983/SkrillexSnare.wav
feel free to DL and use it as you wish

EDIT AGAIN: Wow, that sounds alot worse than it sounded in my daw...maybe its just my speakers

[sovietsoldier22]

Would it help if when after layering my snares, I only work on compression on say, 1 of em, and leave the other normal? Would that keep that strong thump/snap that hits first, or is that only gonna set me back? I know I'm asking alot of questions when clearly there's a search bar up there, but I have trouble following directions to something when it's not applied to my exact question. And I'm still trying to wrap my mind around importing and re-sampling, it just keeps coming at me like a tidal wave when I try and grasp it.

Thanks for the understanding guys.

[amidoinitrite]

its all about the original samples..
if you want it to hit hard and be splashy then find a sample that this hard, then find one thats splashy, and EQ them to fit, and maybe even compress them.

About that snare you're referring to, jrisreal got pretty close.
I would back off a bit on the noisy-clap-ish sample, and/or instead just throw in a weak snare.

[sovietsoldier22]

Alright, I got two seperate things for you guys to critique

Here's a beat with the snare I made (Yes, it's a 45 second attempt at re-creating Hey Sexy Lady, so sue me, it was the song in my original post anyways)
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Drum%20F ... w=88035d95

And this is the snare by itself
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Snare%20 ... w=332f0071

I wanna say I improved from the last attempt but bear in mind that I'm trying to do all this EQ/Compression with a pair of Skullcandies. I'm in the process of saving for monitors, so i got that going for me.