Trouble composing my drums

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Dav19Tav

New member
Hey guys, I generally have to spend a whole lot of time composing the drums in my tracks just to find that I'm not content with them once I actually finish. If you guys could share some tips/resources that helped you become better at composing drums it'd be much appreciated.

Thanks!
 
The best general advice I can give you would be to: a) listen to a _lot_ of music with serious drum grooves of all types and styles, and b) take some drum lessons. You may "catch the bug" and find it interesting enough to pursue on its own, but if not, you will at least have a better understanding of how the instrument works and the challenges a real drummer faces. This will help tremendously when you are called upon to program "realistic" drums, and conversely when you want to do over-the-top, unrealistic type of grooves (like most trap beats).

GJ
 
Try and boost the kick drum at around 50-60 Hz with an equalizer. You can use compression on your kicks to even out the dynamics of your track; there are plenty of tutorials on youtube. In terms of the samples you use, make sure to layer the kick drums for a fatter sound - listen to some of the tracks you are trying to replicate and pick samples that are similar sounding. One trick I use with claps and snares, is to layer them and move them slightly off the beat that they are meant to hit. Pan the layered clap-snare to give stereo width and add reverb and compression to both. Hope this helps!
 
Awesome tips on sound selection and mixing, but how does that help him "compose?" I.E.-- "Come up with drum grooves that work." ???

GJ
 
Hey man,

Grab some drum breaks and loop them in your DAW then select your fav drums sounds from your library and copy the drum break pattern with your own sounds.

When you have done that you can delete the drum break (or eq it and have it sitting real low under your own drums) and start adding/removing extra kicks, snares, claps, etc.

Keep doing this for a while and eventually you will get the general idea and won't need the drum breaks as a guide anymore.

hope this helps

peace
 
Great advice above from all.

Other things you might want to do is to play along with some of the music that you like and appreciate for their drum grooves. Playing your drums assigned to pads of a MIDI controller to some James Brown or The Meters, can't hurt no matter what type of music you are making. Adding some lower volume/velocity snares in there somewhere is great for hitting those ghost snares in a lot of funk and soul drum grooves.

I know it's kinda tough at first to establish your own kind of style and groove with drums, but everyone learns and is influenced by someone that they look up to.

I'm also totally aware that initially, it is tough to come up with drum sounds that contain the driving dynamics and punch that you desire and that inspire you. This also takes some research and practice. Depending on the style of music you are working with, this will demand more or less of your time.

Some genres demand more sound performance from the drums than others. I mostly work with hiphop and sculpting your own drums is a pretty sought after/coveted skill. But some resort to simply buying stuff that people have already made ready-for-production, so this skill is still highly marketable, especially for an age of "instant gratification".
Nothing wrong with that, because it saves a lot of time. I still think it is very beneficial to learn how to do this type of work yourself though, so you do not have to rely on anyone else to do it for you.
 
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