I can’t stress how important layering your drum samples when building your tracks. Some tracks I produce have three kicks, three snares and maybe two hats going on. The reason for this? Some drums lack certain frequencies and can be filled out with other samples that support those lacking freqeuncies. Beat making starts with your drums, so you have to make sure they’re tight before building on top of them.

First make sure not to have all your samples at full volume. There’s a fine balance to mixing them. A good blend of kicks that works well for me is to have an 808 kick on one pad with a low pass filter on it. This gives you a really smooth bottom. Then on another pad I’ll have two kicks, one that has good bottom/midrange balance, and one that has a snappy top end and some air in it. Tweak the volume and eq’s to your taste. Now you might think, why does my kick need high end? This helps it become more pronounced and cut through the mix. You’d be suprised how much this helps your kick sit in the mix.

For snares I’ll do the same thing. I’ll find a few that compliment each other and them mix until they sound right to me. This is a very common technique, but I think few producers fully utilize this. I love breaks to death, but I always have to layer some drums on top to get the track pounding.

Now don’t get crazy with EQ, remember, always look to cut freqeuncies than boost them. You should have a full sounding drum track with each drum being clear and defined, not muddy or muffled.

I know many of you only chop your samples inside your MPC. I’ve done this for a while and I’ve never been completely happy with the results. The samples never seem as clean on the tail end as they do when chopping in Recycle. I’ve started using Recycle more and transferring back and fourth the MPC via the usb connection.

For those of you that have never used Recycle, it’s a stand alone program from Propellerheads (makers of Reason and other great software) that allows you to chop or slice your samples in a way that retains the original pitch while being able to change tempo. This takes some processing power to stretch the sample out while maintaining the quality of the sound. This is where I think the MPC falls short. I’ve taken up tempo drum breaks and slowed them down almost to a half time tempo while retaining a clean sounding loop. Recycle does this by adding a slight amount of reversed delay on the very end of each slice which fills in the gaps that normally would be present when chopping on the MPC. To get the same result in the  MPC, you’d have to chop and then time stretch which takes several times to get it right.

From a workflow point of view, I like getting things done quick to keep the creative process flowing. I don’t like to be hung up on tweaking. There are a lot of other features in Recycle I haven’t even begun to use yet, but for beat making and chopping, this had made my life a lot easier.

Producers are always on the look out to add some new sounds to their drum libraries. Here’s a little project that is pretty easy to do and you can get new and original samples from. This works best if you have a buddy who plays the drums, but even doing this solo with no drumming experience can give decent results.

Find an affordable studio or rehearsal space with a decent sound room and drum kit (in nyc where I live they’re a dime a dozen).  Book a few hours. Bring your laptop if you have one, or have the studio set you up to record on their gear. Experiment with tuning and placement, have your mics on the kick snare and hi hat. Start recording and play each drum one by one at different velocities. Play until you think you have what you need.

There you go. If you have some experience under your belt, you can try different mic’ing techniques, turning some gain up on the mic pre’s and compressing a little to get a grittier sound.

Layer the sound under some of your favorite drum kits to add some flavor, or… let them sit on their own for your own personalized kit.

I’m starting to regularly put up some free drum breaks and drum samples I’ve collected. I made a new section called Free Breaks. I’m not sure If I’ll do this once a week or more often than that. This break has a decent drum sound and has some piano in it. I suggest tuning it down in your sampler to lengthen it since it is uptempo. All I ask for in return is for some comments on the site and suggestions on how to improve it.

FREE BREAKS

Thanks,

Here’s a good debate, should drum samples be in Stereo or Mono?

Coming from an engineering background, live drums are 99% of the time recorded mono. Yes they may be multitracked (microphones on the top, bottom snare and snare overhead) but these are panned dead center except for paired cymbals and toms. The reason why overhead and room mics are usually tracked in stereo pairs is because of the left to right detail that is being captured. The engineer is trying to give the full stereo perception of the kit. There is no stereo detail when a snare is hit by itself in the middle of the room, but if a drummer is playing a full kit and does a tom roll with cymbal crashes, you hear the stereo detail.

My method for beat making is to keep my single hits mono (snares, kicks, hats) and leave my pre-recorded drum breaks and samples stereo because there is stereo information associated with the mix. Mono hits sound pretty good layered on top of a stereo break, has more focus and the snare seems to stick out in a good way. Mono files also cut down on the size of your sample which is important if you’re limited with RAM in your sampler.

I’m assuming most of us producing Hip Hop is that we mix “In the Box”. The term means that everything is mixed in a software application and is never routed out to a physical mixer. The negative side affect of this is your mix will be “flatter” and not as “big” sounding as a commercially mixed song. The reason for this is dynamic range and unique circuitry that’s inherent in mixers. I’m not saying that if you buy a cheap behringer mixer that your tracks will sound better. But your mix will benefit from a decent mixer (older ones preferably), Some brands to check out are Spirit, Allen & Heath and some of the older Tascam mixers.

Older mixers have better components and some have no digital circuit boards that reduce sound quality (remember less path to go through the better the signal will retain quality). If you have a big home studio budget, check out the Dangerous 2 Bus mixer. 

If you have a small budget, once your track is mixed as best it can be in your software application, bring your session to a studio that has a good board and mixdown from there. You’ll notice the tracks will sound more separated, clearer and sonically bigger with better imaging and detail. The reason for this is your audio engine and summing processor in your audio application is limited. In the digital realm your headroom is limited and digital distortion produces harsh sounding artifacts which is different from analog distortion which can be desired and more musical.

Now also keep in mind, you’ll need to route the signal back through to your audio software for the two track master or if you have an external cd recorder or reel to reel would work also.

So next time you have a great track mixed and want to take it to the next level, give this a try.

I think this is pretty amazing, amusing and confusing. Timb consults Kanye on making his kick drums hit harder in the club. These are the questions amateurs like myself wonder about and ask on forums. Judge for yourself.

P.S. Before playing the video, stop the track in the above right navigation or you’ll hear both tracks at the same time.

Stronger Revisited from Kanye West on Vimeo.

The mic was definitly rocked on this one. My man Devon aka Terror Dome torched this track. Has an old school party song vibe to it. You’ll probably notice the sample, Steve Millers Fly Like an Eagle. Most noticeably on Biz Markie’s Nobody Beats the Biz. I had to flip it since I had the vinyl on hand, and I’ve had this idea in my head for a while. Now it’s not the final version yet. I have to do some small edits and fade outs and didn’t have the time over the weekend. The real real real final version will be up tonight.

I got a copy of the new Logic Studio yesterday. Holy Shit! Amazing! Apple thank you! I’ve been using Logic since it’s early days, I think 3.5.  Logic is the only audio suite I’ve worked with. The new version of Logic has a re-designed interface which was long overdue. I see workflow improvements all around. There’s new plug-ins and instruments. I’m going to have alot of good experiences with the new version.

http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/

Depending on what style of music you’re into it will mainly fall under two categories, full band or solo artist. If you have a band you’ll need more gear, if you’re a solo artist, you have it easy but you’ll need to fund purchases by yourself.

This article is intended for artists who focus on vocals.

The most crucial piece of recording gear in my opinion is your microphone. I think this is the most important link in the signal chain no matter what genre of music you’re in. If you capture a great sound with a bad mic, then the sound suffers and you end up with a bad recording. For vocals, I suggest a condenser mic. Condensers have a wider frequency range and are more suitable for vocals. If you have a decent budget, I would look into an older used Neuman or AKG. I myself have a Rode NT-1 which is an affordable condenser that is considerably decent in comparison to the more expensive mics.

The next critical link is your mic preamp. If you don’t have one, I suggest investing in one. Mic preamps boost your signal and have better quality components than an average mixers mic preamp. One preamp out now, the Universal Audio Solo 110 is an excellent mic preamp for around $700. It’s a single channel tube preamp which warms up your vocal tone. Universal Audio is highly regarded in the audio production realm for quality products. So if you’re an artist that focuses on vocals, I hope these suggestions help in your pursuit of a better recording