how do you make kicks and snares?

[serox]

sick replys. lots of help. and i want to make a beat liek forgive by burial, literally one that fills the song. does this mean that i can do this beat just needs time spent with layering and eging and stuff? essentially if i start off with one beat i just resample eq blah blah?

As far as I know all of Burials tunes are sample based. The drum hits, bass lines and atmos/drones are all samples from records or packs. They are shit quality too:) Burial does quite a bit in a unique way and it prob took him a long time to get that flava.

[fiziks]

As far as drum machine sounding snares, you can make them from straight white noise and a pulse wave at like 60 with a volume and pitch envelope. Or sample a door slamming, footsteps, gun clicking, whatever. There are million and one ways to get snare sounds.

Kicks on the other hand are a whole different game. Especially 808 and 909 sounds. 808's a bit easier to reproduce in my experience and I can make them pretty good in soundforge. However, I've yet to find a technique to reproduce a 909 kick with any accuracy. I make house more than anything so I'm constantly looking out for techniques or plugins for kicks. Everytime I think I've nailed it, I compare what I made with a sampled 909 and it's nowhere close. I've tried bassizm, the soundforge technique, Ultrabeat, etc. 808's can be done with decent accuracy, but the 909 style requires voltage from an analog source to generate that sound. In my opinion anyways.

I'm going to pick up a mbase01 or mbase11. The demo's I've heard are pretty good. There are a lot of parameters for fine tuning a kick too. Although, if someone's made a decent 909 with software, I'd love to hear it and how you made it.

[64hz]

i use renoise and draw them straight onto the sample editor, then use ringmod to bring out certain frequencies, ie if i wanted a kick, snare or hat, then additional processing/envelopes/layer etc to taste.
i saw a really good video once, its where i got this idea from, i'll try and find it.
once youve done a fair few, you get a feel for making them and can make a drum sound specifically how you want.

http://www.vimeo.com/6418999
theres the video for any renoise users who are interested, if you watch it full screen you can see what hes doin better.

[ninjadog]

I think for what your looking for you are better off with a good quality sample pack, the sounds are just going to be a hell of a lot cleaner and louder than any other method. Unless of course your want to do it your self and try to synthesize something, or sample something your self.

And I totally agree with layering. I always throw in a low, mid and high sample for a snare and a kick, from there just add some sounds to give it character. Like 86 mentioned some random sounds, and sounds you think wouldent work, can come together and make something awesome.

[Rickmansworth]

two step process.

first step- get a boatload of one hits (synthetic drums, live recorded organic drums, random efx, synth sounds, etc).. download em, buy em, whatever. just make sure you've got a library of a couple hundred (if not more).

next step- go through your downloads and find your favorite hits that will fit the style you're trying to make. layer, eq, compress, efx (or whatever you want) then re-sample. now you're sitting on your very own, custom, original one hit.

try this with all sorts of different one hits until you come up with exactly what you want.

personally, i don't see the sense in making your own snares or kicks in a vst (or other instrument) unless you don't already have a ton of one-hits. typically, i only make my own kicks "from scratch" if i want one of those long BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM drops.

[fiziks]

The point is to make exactly what you want as opposed to sifting through gigs of kicks or snares or whatever. Plus, you've got the added bonus of having something original on your hands. People blow my mind with 700 gigs of one hit samples. Try to make something from scratch or hook up the tv or turntable and sample your own drums(or car door slamming or whatever you want). That's a whole other discussion though.

Also, to clear up any possible confusion, we're talking about synth kicks and snares like 808, 909, etc. Another great reason to synthesize your own kicks is to add some punch to an organic kick that's lacking some bottom end (or even top end). When you make your own kick can control the frequencies much easier.