Do you change the pitch of the drum samples?

dominic94

dominic94

New member
Do you change the pitches of the kicks, hihats, claps and the other drums ? I am producing for a while, but I never changed the drums pitches, but now I am a little bit confused, because claps, hi hats and etc have tones too, I never changed drum sample pitches, but I think I have to, yes ? If yes, so how do you detect the pitches of the drums ? I use FL studio so I tried edison and newtone to detect it. It is okay if there is a low end on the kicks and etc., their results are the same, but if there is a snapy drums such as hihat or other cymbals the result sometimes is different or there are no results at all, also it shows that the most of hi hats are on the C. So yes, somebody please give me some information about that, because today all day I was thinking about that and still do not know the right answer.
 
You don't "have to" do anything when it comes to music. It's all about what you prefer and what sounds good to "your ear".

That being said, I have changed the pitch on drum samples (when I felt like it), but most of the time I don't.
 
Like James said, you certainly don't need to, but it's perfectly fine and sometimes even desirable to do so. I do it all the time, that's not to say I tune all my drums to be in the root note of my project, but I would in most cases like to have drum samples that have a more distinct tone to them to be at least in the same scale as I use, to give it a more cohesive sound.

The best way for me to detect the pitch of a sample is to use a spectrum analyzer, see where the fundamental peaks and if your spectrum analyzer has a feature that lets you hover the mouse over it and display the correct note for any given frequency, then you're all set and can easily determine how many semitones up or down you need to pitch your sample (if at all).
 
Yeah I rarely do this as well but I almost always eq them to make them sound better in relation to the rest of the track. Especially hi hats.
 
I do it allmost every time! Kicks i always pitch down to give them a deeper sound . hats claps and cyms i ussualy use in there original use or pitch them sligHtly up. Snares depends on what sample i use or how the snare sounds original ... All that said. There isnt a correct wat to do it it depens on your style, gerne, taste etc
 
Ever since reading an interview with RJD2 where he was asked how he got his drums to sound so good (he pitch-shifts a lot, often blindly) I tend to pitch my break cuts down between 2-6 semi-tones depending on the sound I get after doing so.
 
a drummer would tune his drum kit, so it only makes sense to tune your drum samples. when in doubt use your ears, if it sounds good its fine.
 
Rekordhead said:
a drummer would tune his drum kit, so it only makes sense to tune your drum samples.
Click to expand...

It's nice that you mention "real drummers" here. But what exactly do they do and why? I know they tune their drums, but just because to achieve their wanted sound in general (e.g. let the kickdrum have a longer sustain/release or let it sound brighter) or really to individually match the key or a certain note of the track their drumkit is used within? If the second alternative is the case, a drummer would probably have to tune his kit differently for every song?! At least in live performances I have never seen this.
 
i used to pitch my snares down back in the day but i stopped doing cause it looses its punch when you pitch it down. especially kicks
 
I pitch down drum breaks often. I do my drums after my chops, so I just make it sound good and adjust it by ear.
 
I usually pitch my hats and shakers up and down to fit the mood of the song; uptempo, lighter songs get pitched up a few semitones, while heavier stuff sometimes get pitched down. If you have a midi controller with a knob ( this mainly applies to ableton, but other DAW users can do it too), sometimes you can even assign it to the pitch for your sample and tweak it marginally while recording your automation to get a nice tonal variation. I do this when I'm playing fast hats mostly.
 
In fl studio, where would you go to pitch them up or down. Are you saving them like that or are you talking about in the mixing stage is when you pitch up and down on certain drums.
 
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