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I just remembered a few sites mentioning that we should EQ snares with a boost at the same note frequency (or an octave below) of the main melody the song was playing in (or something like that) so that the snare fits in with the song? I'm not sure whether they were also talking about that for the kicks but I'm 100% sure they were saying that for snares.

Should I be doing this? plus do I need to do that for my kicks as well? I mean that would sound odd right ?

Snares and kicks are obviously at a pitch in some way but I've never heard of EQing them based on the pitch of the song... sounds a little "new age-y" and pedantic if you ask me, you should be EQing them based on the frequency content they possess afaik.

I've gotten into tuning my drums. It sounds great! Really brings the track together. I recently got a kick maker that rules (and lets you tune everything from the transient all the way down).

For everything else, this -

waves H-EQ has a piano roll in the spectrum window so you can see the note that way.

Dub Fiend wrote:Snares and kicks are obviously at a pitch in some way but I've never heard of EQing them based on the pitch of the song... sounds a little "new age-y" and pedantic if you ask me, you should be EQing them based on the frequency content they possess afaik.

That being said; Try and find drums that fit in the context of your song. Usually i pick a key i want to work in and then find drum samples that work or are not far off from working.

Kinda depends really, if you have a snare that is very harmonically rich/noisy then boosting at the pitch can be a nice way to bring out some harmonic definition (can make it a little cleaner)

However if it's a fairly harmonically simple sound (say from a drum machine with a few uneven harmonics) then you may get a better results boosting around the note to bring up some of the "dirt" as it were.

for me it depends on how long the drum rings out. if a snare is just a quick 'Chh' or the kick is just a quick thud then i probably wont bother, but if the sample is longer, with a bit of a note you can hear...like a snare that goes 'toong' ... or a booming kick, then yes tune it to the key of the song and/or boost the eq freq. of the key

LilWUB wrote:I recently got a kick maker that rules (and lets you tune everything from the transient all the way down).

what kick maker might this be?

Sonic Academy Nicky Romero KICK

My 2 Cent.

1. Use Bazzism with that chart to make a perfectly tuned low kick.
2. Layer that Low Kick with a real (High passed) kick with good attack.
3. Compress them together.
4. Transient Shape.

most kick and snare samples will have a 'note' already, but of course it will be less defined than a sample from an instrument like a piano. but it will still have a fundamental. so it's already "boosted" at that note (the fundamental) so unless you feel it doesn't have enough amplitude at that note, then it's not something you need to do.

if the fundamental is not part of your song's key, i would not try to boost at your root note, because then you would end up with 2 fundamentals - the natural one and a new artificial one. that would just sound bad. if it sounds out of key with the rest of your song then i would consider just getting a new sample or transposing it.

LilWUB wrote:Sonic Academy Nicky Romero KICK

Googling......