The drum dilemma

T

twranks

New member
Hey guys/galz,
I've been making beats for a few months now. I don't know why but it just seem like my drums could sound a LOT better than they are are right now. The music group I produce for suggests that I change my laptop (intel celeron processor, 160GB HDD) but, being a very musically inclined person, I really doubt that will change anything. I am very good with the instrumentals but the drums always sound mediocre. I'm wondering if there's an effect (or a particular type of drum set) you guys use to make your drums sound professional?

Thanks for all the feedback in advance :)
 
First of all, changing your laptop is going to do absolutely squat for your drum programming.. sure it might allow you to do much more in terms of making actual beats, but I'm blatantly assuming that your drums don't sound "mediocre" because you're running low on processing power..

Second, you've only been intro production for such a short period of time, if I were you I wouldn't expect to be any real good at it for at least a few more years.

Third, what kind of drums are you talking about? Without knowing what you are referring to there is no telling what's going on, and how you'd be able to do something similar. There is no one effect or particular drum set that will automatically make your drums sound "professional".
 
Options:
Sample some drums off songs already made.
synthesize some with a module digital, kong tremor etc (making a clap will be the hard part)
download some of free and paid websites like loopmasters and vengeance.
record yourself hitting something, moving something around, noises, crickets blah blah.
And toy around with every knob till it does something you like and remember it

These would be best combined, more isn't always better but at the same time it wouldnt hurt to have a sizeable place to start with.
Now if you talking about drum patterns the only advice i gots for this is imitate drummers until you can doa fairly hard pattern for at least 4 seconds.if you can do that, you set.
 
Wallengard said:
First of all, changing your laptop is going to do absolutely squat for your drum programming.. sure it might allow you to do much more in terms of making actual beats, but I'm blatantly assuming that your drums don't sound "mediocre" because you're running low on processing power..

Second, you've only been intro production for such a short period of time, if I were you I wouldn't expect to be any real good at it for at least a few more years.

Third, what kind of drums are you talking about? Without knowing what you are referring to there is no telling what's going on, and how you'd be able to do something similar. There is no one effect or particular drum set that will automatically make your drums sound "professional".
Click to expand...

Looool Dont be so harsh on homie....

Making drums sound "professional" that is process called mixing

As far as timing thats a diff thing. Are you trying to make them sound realistic?

KonKossKang said:
Now if you talking about drum patterns the only advice i gots for this is imitate drummers until you can do a fairly hard pattern for at least 4 seconds.if you can do that, you set.
Click to expand...

Kind of the best advice until I can hear something
 
I use FL and I have tried playing around with some of the mixing presets such as the compressors, EQs and even bass boost. It doesnt seen to help so much. Also, in regards to Untamed Productions' request (cool name!) I'm not too sure how to put my link to my soundcloud up. If you can help me out with that it would be great too. I'm still a newb on the forum :)
 
You need 5 posts first before you can post links. :-)

Playing around with eq and compressor presets is hardly a good way to do anything, unless you specifically know why you'd want to use that preset. The thing is that you need to know why you are putting eqs, compressors and what not on your channels before you can learn how to apply them in different scenarios. Each drum is different, and each track is different.. In context, you virtually need to eq and compress (if at all) every sound differently every time, because the sounds (for example a hi-hat.. or anything really) in relation to each other change with every track.

I'd suggest you educate yourself on the subject (google), to understand what your tools are, how they work and how you can use them to shape your sounds. There are a ton of different techniques producers use to beef up their drums. Most of a tracks sound, i.e weather it sounds professional or not, I'd say is about 75% production, 20% mixing and 5% mastering. With that said, not even knowing how compressors and EQ's work will get you the sound that you want. You just gotta give yourself some time to figure out how the music is supposed to sound, and how to arrange things.

I've said this many times on this forum before; a few months into making music is nothing .
 
Last edited:
I don't know how anyone is giving you advice without knowing WTF you are talking about.
How you make your drums now....
WHY you friends point at your laptop - apparently as "musically inclined" as you are, they all think THAT is where your drums come from.
I don't even know how that happens.

What gear do you use? And yeah, how are you making your drums now?
What's wrong with your drums? The sound? The programming? The groove? Do they even match the 'musically inclined' music?

Okay, maybe I'm losing it today. Maybe it's really as simple to answer this question and EVERYONE is reading too much into this.
Let's rewind selector.

I'm wondering if there's an effect

Effects:
Reverb - sends drums backward into the mix and creates a natural space
Delays - used with an envelope or editing to add extra ghost notes that add a little ear candy spice
EQ - Accents/subtracts frequencies to enhance or mask aspects of the drum sound.
Compression - reigns in dynamics and evens out the peaks and valleys or the difference in perceived volume of the snares and kicks etc.
Transients - shaping the attack of a drum sound or aiding the matching of drum hits during layering.
Distortion - increasing the trashiness and overall bigness to a drum sound
Maximizers/Drum Limiters/CoolDrumPlugsIns -usually are a combination of these effects with easy controls.

or a particular type of drum set
One that was captured or created at a very high quality level. The reason is that the above effects won't work properly and you will struggle.
You will attempt to EQ frequencies that are not there because someone never captured the full range or bands have been stripped out due to processing.
Compression won't get you more bang because the dynamics are already squashed to hell. etc
Some of the hurdles is about KITS verse HITS. Some cats like to audition snare after snare after snare looking for one that fits and sometimes you end up with a drum sound that still sounds like parts. Either you are good at matching or you stick to kits, which are drums that are grouped together by sonic cohesiveness. Sometimes it's as simple as using drum hits from an actual drum set or captured/sampled from a single drum kit in play.

And it could be taste as in choosing electronic kits over acoustic over ...orchestral over ....funk or jazz or rock or.....
And that's not even discussing styles.
And even with audio, who is to say how many things we would nit pick that you would say "Nah, that's just my style" to....
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top