Yeah! His drums are killing me, I'm listening to Damu for +/- 1 year and I think I'm starting to understand what he is doing to his drums.
Step 1. Get yourself a drumbreak on Vinyl, record that shit (Hot) in your Sampler/DAW (if it's 33 1/3 RPM, record it at 45 RPM, if it's one 45 RPM record at 78, some say it's just a myth but I'm definitely hearing a differences).
Step 2. Chop individual drum sounds off that break (kick, snare, hi-hat, cymbal, bells, tambourine, etc) and layer them with other drum sounds (record the same as Step 1).
Step 3. Filter the sounds where needed, I always re-record my sounds trough "main out" (
MPC 1000 w/ JJ OS1 user), try to make the sounds clip a little bit just to give them that crunch.
Step 4. Creating the drum pattern, my advice is to not quantize, but adjust the note where needed!
This probably is
one of the ways he is getting his drums so punchy but remember, he get's is music
professionally mixed and mastered so you aren't going to get the same sound as him, this is BTW not only a guide for "Damu drums", but Hip Hop drums in general, so don't say I'm biting him.
It's all trial and error, just experimenting with your drums helps a lot, listen to a lot of producers u like and try to think of what they to get their drums to sound so dope.
I also think hip hop producers like Pete Rock, Lord Finesse et cetera. use a technique called New York compression (also known as Parallel Compression), you should look it up, you're (almost) always guaranteed to get some dope drums out of it.
P'z