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Ez all, I have been producing for about 1 year now. I use Logic and Reason, and most of my drums sound alright I guess, but I just want to know how to make them sound better, louder, bigger, punchier, you get the idea. My understanding of drums so far is sampling, eq, compression, sometimes reverb or delay, and limiting, but I'm sure theres much more to it then that. Can someone help me out here?

Cheers, Static

Not really much more to it mate, maybe you've missed out layering, apart from that.... they are just beats!

Oh yeah I forgot to say layering. Maybe its more a question of how you go about doing these things?

Just do what you've been doing and you'll get better at it. Professional producers rarely do something 'we' don't do, they often just do it better.

you could try a transient shaper if youre after a bit of extra punch

A good tip is when you layer snares etc, send them to a bus with EQ/compression on it, gives them a more cohesive sound

And then just compression, EQ, transient shapers, bit of reverb/delay, maybe some distortion....just play around, I don't think it's rocket science

I can't believe I'm the first person to say NY COMPRESSION!/PARALLEL COMPRESSION!

i guess the question is do you want to program yourself or use breaks cause breaks can be worked totally different like chopping up reverse etc you could do this with programing too but it always felt easier with actually seeing the waveforms
you could bounce your drum loops though

picking the right samples and NY compression is really all you will ever need.

eq and saturation/shaping to beef it up more. side-chain the drums so the bass ducks for the kick and snare to make it even more noticable.

and another little secret is to slightly stagger your different samples. for example a snare i build has a basic sounding snare drum, on top of a very white-noisy snare, on top of several claps. then i stagger each of the samples a few ms apart from each other. doing this right will result in ridiculously snappy drums.

bassinine wrote:picking the right samples and NY compression is really all you will ever need.

eq and saturation/shaping to beef it up more. side-chain the drums so the bass ducks for the kick and snare to make it even more noticable.

and another little secret is to slightly stagger your different samples. for example a snare i build has a basic sounding snare drum, on top of a very white-noisy snare, on top of several claps. then i stagger each of the samples a few ms apart from each other. doing this right will result in ridiculously snappy drums.

Absolutely agree with all of this.

I'd even go as far as say sample selection should be your main priority. Processing should be used to make something that is inherently good already, shine.

Yeah, I normally sidechain my sub with the kick and snare. I've never really known what parallel compression is though, is it just a maximum ratio and minimum threshold?

Does anyone know any good free transient shapers? Ive wanted one for a while now.

In reply to BudSpencertron I was talking about programming myself.

Thanks for the help

parallel comp is sending your drum buss to an aux send with heavy compression then mixing a little bit back into the mix over the drums.

NY comp is the same except after the compression you place an EQ with the mids cut.

+1 on sample selection. "It doesn't matter how expensive the MIC is a bit of drain pipe with holes in it will always sound shit compared to a clarinet..." or something.

Yeah, I normally sidechain my sub with the kick and snare. I've never really known what parallel compression is though, is it just a maximum ratio and minimum threshold?

Does anyone know any good free transient shapers? Ive wanted one for a while now.

In reply to BudSpencertron I was talking about programming them myself.

Thanks for the help

^Double post, how do I delete it?

Static - your DAW probably has a transient shaper, its just not called a transient shaper. Look under dynamics (what DAW are you using right now btw?)

Parallel compression is a great way to add punch to your drums. Essentially, you are layering a heavily compressed version of your drums with a non compressed version.
Typically you would do this by sending your drums to a bus with a fuckload of compression (so if not maximum ratio/minimum threshold, then at least somewhere close to there).
You then have the punch of the compressed version while still maintaining dynamics and character in the non compressed one.

Hope this helps

This isn't about making drums sound better as an individual sample, and I'm not qualified enough to say so I'm also asking, but what about 'groove', doesn't giving drums a groove, rather than heavily / fully quantised drum patterns make them sound better ?

Sonika wrote:Static - your DAW probably has a transient shaper, its just not called a transient shaper. Look under dynamics (what DAW are you using right now btw?)

Im using Reason 5 and Logic pro 10 but unfortunately i can only use logic at school

Alternatively you could duplicate the drum buss, and squash one buss, and leave the other.

Get Flux bittersweet II if you're after a free transient designer that is high quality.

finerz wrote:doesn't giving drums a groove, rather than heavily / fully quantised drum patterns make them sound better ?

Yes!

seconded/thirded whatever on parallel compression - it works amazingly. Plus good initial samples (can't overstate this)