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Hello,
I'm pretty new to music production, and whenever I make a song the kick and snare sound weak. How do I make the kick and snare punch like the pros do? Any help would be appreciated. (I'm using fl studio just in case you are wondering)

Thanks!

You probably just don't have the same drum samples the pros use. Plain and simple. The key is to start with the best source material.

Lots of them use Vengeance.

Not sure that's right. Lots of good samples floating around...

The exact answer to your question depends on what you want your kick and snare to sound like, and what sort of mix you're trying to fit it into. The basics: a kick has two components, which are the transient - if you imagine an actual bass drum, the thwack of the pedal going into it - and the decay, which is less noisy and more tone-y (and invariably lower in the frequency spectrum). A snare, likewise, is basically made up of the basic 'note' of the drum and the rattle of the snares at the bottom. So in order to make your kicks and snares sing out, you need to make sure they're clearly audible at four frequency ranges - in ascending order of Hz, the low tone of the kick (50-100Hz), the kick transient and snare tone (200-400hz - overlap likely here), and the snares per se (anything from 2,000 to 20,000, although the top end of that range should be eq'd out so it doesn't fuck with your hats).

What you want is for nothing else (or not much) in your tune to be hitting those frequencies, at least at the time your kick and snare are. The basic way to do this is with EQ, and the spectrum analyser on the FL parametric EQ 2 is a sodding godsend for doing such things. There are numerous other tricks and workarounds, but which ones are useful will depend on what sound you're actually going for.

It doesn't matter drastically what samples you're using, except that they should be the right ones for the job at hand. If you want a big, loud snare drum sound, for example, then pick a sample which has a lot of different frequencies in it (again, run it through fruty parametric eq 2 to see what frequencies a given sample is hitting). It's much easier to cut frequencies out than conjure them out of nowhere!

As a general recommendation, get hold of BBE sonic maximizer for instant heft to a kick drum. Fruity Soundgoodiser is a workable but inferior substitute.

thanks for the quick replies! Ill try this out.

tragiclifestories wrote:Not sure that's right. Lots of good samples floating around...

A myriad more bad samples than good ones!

It doesn't matter drastically what samples you're using,

Mmmmmm, gonna disagree with you here. Sub Focus would too.


Beyond the samples you're using, compression is the other thing that's going to help IMMENSELY. And as he mentioned, transient shaping is also helpful (though you can achieve a very similar result with just a compressor).

What you want is for nothing else (or not much) in your tune to be hitting those frequencies, at least at the time your kick and snare are. The basic way to do this is with EQ, and the spectrum analyser on the FL parametric EQ 2 is a sodding godsend for doing such things. There are numerous other tricks and workarounds, but which ones are useful will depend on what sound you're actually going for.

Very important! Another technique to consider is sidechain compression on other instruments that would take up the most frequency dense chunks of each drum-hit's spectrum.

If you are going to spend money on samples, I strongly discourage you from wasting your money on Vengances rinsed and over processed samples. There are good free ones out there. 75% of the samples I use are free.

Not everything in here is awesome, but this is my go to drum collection...http://warbeats.com/Community/Forums/aft/57

Totally free.

Edit: If you are going to pay for samples, I highly recommend Gold Baby. They are very lightly processed and are great for layering.

To add on to what has been said. Layering drum hits is often necessary. For example a good quick drum will have low-end boom as well as high end click. Quite often, you'll need two samples to achieve this. Snares are the same. You'll want a snare with some natural transient snap, but also crunchy body. You'll want to layer hits whose sweet spot are in different frequency ranges. Transient shaping and compression can do a lot for drums, but be careful that after you spend a lot of time picking out those golden samples you don't squash the life out of them with too much processing. If you spend more time pick sounds that compliment each other and naturally stay out of each others way in the frequency range you'll have far fewer mixing tricks to pull off.

try finding better samples like others have said. also layer your snares with 3 or 4 different hits. one low punchy one, one mid, one high. eq them accordingly to leave room for each. also compress them and set the attack so the initial smack of the snare gets through and then the compressor squashes the rest, this makes drums sound very punchy and in neat.

+1 for goldbaby, check out their stuff, they blew my mind instantly!

There is plenty of free sample packs online with free drums.I agree with eat bass layering is the key also processing the shit out of them.Adding high passed breaks(which also there are loads of on the net)is a good way to thicken up your beats ,also parallel compression on a drum buss also will help things sound fuller.My general plugin chain for my kiks and snares goes eq,logics enveloper plugin(waveshaper),maybe more eq then limiting a touch to stop wayward peaks,send to buss for parallel compression or parallel processes in general.Using logics enveloper is a great way to bring out the punch but very easy to overdo.Another technique i have been using recently is setting up logics test oscillator,setting frequency to around 60-80hz then adding noise gate to is plugin chain that is sidechained so it only triggers when the kik hits,adds a lot of weight to the bottom end of the kik and really punches.

fragments wrote: Not everything in here is awesome, but this is my go to drum collection...http://warbeats.com/Community/Forums/aft/57

Totally free.

Sweet bejesus we've hit the motherload. That is fucking awesome man. Thanks for posting. Should keep me entertained for a while anyway!!

fuck drums

Honestly layering is probably going to have the biggest impact on the way your drums sound. Just make sure you cut any muddy frequencies between your kick and your snare if they're hitting at the same time. Compression is also pretty important, read up on it before you go sticking it on shit though. It's pretty subtle if you don't know exactly what your listening for and it's easy to over compress your drums. Also, layering your good kicks and snares with a high passed break is easy groove with beefy hits man.

JTMMusicuk wrote:fuck drums

best post of 2012

RandoRando wrote:

JTMMusicuk wrote:fuck drums

best post of 2012

im here all week

parallel compression, distortion and eq to taste. those are the main things that make drums punch. layering helps, but it's nothing you couldn't do with those first three things.

Yeah I found that overdrive is a great way to make my drums more punchy (as well as EQ, compression, layering, etc)

Something i've been doing a lot for those punchy drums, is just simple layering + effects and EQ.

For that kick:
1.) Get a good subby(lo) kick
2.) Get a good wooden knock sounding(hi) kick
3.) Layer with a fast attack fast decay(mid) kick
4.) EQ to boost the best sounding frequency
5.) Compress and distort a little.

For that snare:
1.) Poofy sounding white noise snare
2.) Woody sounding snare hit
3.) Clap
4.) EQ (I usually boost at around 120-220hz)
5.) Compress
6.) Tiny amount of reverb.

First, Layer them as thelmbrjck said.

I don't always layer my kicks, but I always layer at least a clap and a snare together.

Then listen to the drum hits play on their own while you EQ them. Just crank a freq slider up to hear what it does to the sample, then take it back down. Take notes if you have to but figure out which freq bring out the sound you want, and which make it sound worse to you. Then work with those till it really hit's you as sounding good.

I use a free vst compressor called easyNY compressor and just use the punch preset since I know f*** all about compressors, it seems to do the job just fine. When I want sounds to pump I duplicate and reverse, then work on the timing. Sounds more interesting to me that way.

I recently found an article suggesting pushing kicks at 100, and snares at 200 and dropping them out mostly below those freq. I leave in 50 on the kick so it still has some gut punch. Then push the upper freq starting at about 5k just a touch to bring out some of the high end trans. Seems to work pretty well, but I still take the time to learn each sample's quirks.

I just keep looking around for tips and tricks and keep what seems to work for me, and discard what doesn't. I don't think there is such thing as a recipe, so I just try to figure out what does each song the most service.