Drum samples & mixing...

[digiskunk]

Hey there everybody, my name is Gary. This is my first post so I figured it would be a good idea to introduce myself first before getting too involved with the community, haha. So, hey guys!

I've been producing dubstep on FLStudio 9 for about a year and a half now but I'm not that good yet. I have a lot to work on, but I'd really like to improve on my beat construction and my samples. My actual beats are pretty decent in design and structure, but I'm curious if there are any really good drum/percussion sample packs out there that may be of interest to me, or maybe even if there are some tricks in mixing my samples that I can try out.

For the most part, I use the Vengeance Club Essential packs (vol 1-3) for kicks, hats, percussion, cymbals, and sometimes claps. When it comes to snares, I usually always have to dive into my library of random hip-hop kits and from there I'll start tweaking and layering.. But still, even in the end, I can't help but feel that I'm missing out on a much bigger, grimier picture. I tried looking online for grime samples in hopes they'd be at least a little bit different than hip-hop ones, and I even tried looking for some drum & bass samples.

I'm hoping you guys can throw some suggestions my way; maybe share a bit of advice, or hopefully even turn me onto a really unique sample pack. Thank you to anybody that can help!

[venuq]

Easy there Gary.

It sounds as if your well on your way to digging some nice samples for production usage. The vengeance kits are pretty good and I often find myself using them, my advice is just to try and get as many samples from as many different places as you can, if you like the sound of it then theres no reason not to use it.

The way I normally work is to sift through any sample packs/ vinyls/ cds/ or whatever; listening to each sample one by one. When I stumble across a sample I like, I move it to a dedicated folder so it is easily accessible as and when i need it. This makes things a lot easier and fluent when it comes to actually making tunes, as all the samples im likely to use are in one place so minimal time is wasted and I can crack on with actually making the track.

Layering and tweaking sounds like a good route to take, theres some nice tutorials and advice about on the forum so just dabble with the search bar and im sure you'll find what your after.

V.

[jaydot]

I'll eventually have to progress from my current drum kits. They're the standard free ones I got off somewhere and half the samples I unusuable almost. I find myself having to take the same old samples and tweaking them til I get a nice punchy sound but would like some variation.