Where all the cats that take pride in they drumz at?

Kossae said:
The way juan is talking about "sound designing" is throwing it into your sequencer, and adding effects. That's only enhancing the sound, not designing it. It's still not your sound just because you made it hit louder, or threw some crazy phaser effect or something on it.
Making a kick knock is something I'd do during a mix with compression. I agree with you. No, that's not sound designing.

Shaping that kick... layering 2-3 kicks to create a new kick... I can't speak for anyone but me, but I usually layer 2-3 kicks to get a certain sound... something for the thump, something for the pressence... I'm combining and shaping things to get a particular tone. It's related to what a Rock producer would do to get a kick to sound a certain way. He may use a particular mic, put it a certain distance away from the drum, record in a certain room, maybe even suggest certain sticks, ect. What he's doing and what I do is all in the name of getting a particular tone from that kick drum. Doing this for all tracks being recorded is what shapes the sound of the overall tune. That's producing.

Kossae said:
Effects are non-destructive, they only enhance, not change the waveform itself. So really, you don't even have your own sounds.
Effects are only non destructive if you don't print them. Think about a guitarist playing through an effects pedal. The resulting wave will look much different than had he not recorded through that pedal. I admit, it's a fine line. Adding effects while mixing is mixing. Adding effects while recording is producing.

Kossae said:
Not that many "producers" period use their own sounds made from tweaking the waveform. As a matter of fact, you can listen to a lot of commercial beats and find generally some of the same sounds in each. That's not the producer/beat makers job. It's their job to take the sounds and make fire.
I'm interested in your definition of producer or producing. It seems like you're refering to the composing, programming & arranging. Like I said above, if a producer ALSO composes, pragrams, arranges, ect. he's not acting as a producer at that particular time. A producer can produce without touching a single instrument. When he does touch one, unless he's tweaking something, he's probably a performer at that time. It's why you can look at credits for a Kanye tune for example, see keys by xxxxx, strings by xxxxx, bass by xxxx, but still see "produced by K. West".

Kossae said:
It would be a huge waste of time if you were making a beat, had a nice creative flow going, and you realize wait... i have to throw this in the wave editor and spend hours tweaking it so I can throw it back into this beat. By that time, you're not going to even want to make the beat anymore.
That's why there's only one Prince, one Quincy Jones... Not everyone can do it all. I don't think I disagree with any of you. If you're a good writer, keyboard player and programmer, but don't design sounds well, or don't want to shape the sound of a tune, write and play, and leave the producing to someone else.

Kossae said:
It's so much better to have sounds readily available to you, then use things such as layering and effects to make it sound different from the rest.
If I knew how I wanted every song I'd ever write, to sound, I could always have kits & patches prepared in advance. But usually the tune and its sound & feel come to me in a stream of thought. So it's only then that I can create the kits & patches to fit that tune. Of course, there are times when I can reuse kits/patches, but it's not very often.
 
i have the best drums X u know this lol. i just tweak as i go or from the jump if i do drums first, i dont focus on trying to sound diff i just try to make sure they fit the track and come out nice, since MY way of thinking and MY choice of whta sounds good is diff they AUTOMATICLY sound diff then most ppls cos its really comming from me and my soul and MY vision.

why is this getting so deep? dose it REALLY matter? music is about having fun, being entertained, expressing ur self etc. u think ppl are like OH they used the same kit from grinding?? their prob saying if anything OOOOOOOOOOOH THEY USED THAT SAME **** FROM GRINDING I LOVE THAT **** so stfu and make music. nerds :p
 
This is what I do....

I basically use drums that that I copped off the Internet. From a couple of different sources. You guys already know. You can get drums anywhere now. No sound is a bad sound to me. I am always tweaking... Layering, effects, re-sampling... whatever works. I almost never use a sound exactly the way it was produced. When I'm in the mood, I'll chop up some drums from a sample and layers those with the ones I already have. Before I knew it, I was building my own kit. Just a couple of things that I do.

MastaMnd Productions
 
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JuanJuanGiovann said:
Cuz it seems like alot of cats in general are just downloading free "hip hop" kits of the web and just throwing um in the machine. Me personally, I love tweaking drumz and making my own kicks, snares,and crisp hats. I think that definately works in my favor cuz crisp drums can definately hold a track together. I just wanted to know if any other cats on here are like this with there drums.

My nig I feel u 100% on drum pride. I DO fess up to downloading a couple of kits; but whatever drums I'm using I'm goin' to make sure that they blend in with the track by means of tweaking, effects, and what not. To sum it up, in the end, it whether you're using downloaded kits or the stock kits that came with the software, they won't do you no good if the drums stand out on the track with no tweaking or FXing.<----------that last line goes out to these half-assers who only used FL Studio for a couple of weeks and call themselves doing somethin and call themselves making beats.

Speaking of the topic, has anyone ever thought of making their OWN drum sounds from scratch....
 
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I play drums......that's the answer. No further explanation needed.
 
Young Noble said:
My nig I feel u 100% on drum pride. I DO fess up to downloading a couple of kits; but whatever drums I'm using I'm goin' to make sure that they blend in with the track by means of tweaking, effects, and what not. To sum it up, in the end, it whether you're using downloaded kits or the stock kits that came with the software, they won't do you no good if the drums stand out on the track with no tweaking or FXing.<----------that last line goes out to these half-assers who only used FL Studio for a couple of weeks and call themselves doing somethin and call themselves making beats.

Speaking of the topic, has anyone ever thought of making their OWN drum sounds from scratch....

I've thought about hiring a drummer, renting out some time at a studio with nice analog equipment and recording him playing breakbeats and one shots. I may still do this.
 
Young Noble said:
Speaking of the topic, has anyone ever thought of making their OWN drum sounds from scratch....
im playing wtih the idea actually. Im waiting until i get a new place tho. Then I will be multisampling my own drums from my production room. I need a house
 
Funny thing is i have an electronic drum kit, but i havent played it live on any tracks
 
I feel like u get what i'm saying

Young Noble said:
My nig I feel u 100% on drum pride. I DO fess up to downloading a couple of kits; but whatever drums I'm using I'm goin' to make sure that they blend in with the track by means of tweaking, effects, and what not. To sum it up, in the end, it whether you're using downloaded kits or the stock kits that came with the software, they won't do you no good if the drums stand out on the track with no tweaking or FXing.<----------that last line goes out to these half-assers who only used FL Studio for a couple of weeks and call themselves doing somethin and call themselves making beats.

Speaking of the topic, has anyone ever thought of making their OWN drum sounds from scratch....

I download kits off the net too. Its nothing wrong with it. All I'm saying is have some fun with it, get creative. If I had the cake, I would definately cop a live drum kit. I think will-i-am uses live drums on alot of the tracks that he's been selling like that Busta Rhymes joint "I love My *****".
 
We used to have this little Gretch mini kit at G.C. when I worked there. I think it only ran about $400 and it sounded nice. Would make a nice little kit for hip hop. I'll probably pick a drum kit up eventually. Not sure I have the coordination for it though...lol
 
i think imma try playing my drum kit on one of my beats. i'm not very good but i can play some things. i make a kit out of my drum set and posted it up here awhile ago but it wasn't very good quality.
 
I tweak my drums weather they are chopped from other albums or from a kit which I dont use to often. My brother in law is a drummer and I have recorded him playing and sampled his set which I also use.

But yes I work my drums big time I feel they are one of the most important elements of my tracks and I cant stand hearing those same preset drum sounds producers are using today.

Cameron Thomas said:
We used to have this little Gretch mini kit at G.C. when I worked there. I think it only ran about $400 and it sounded nice. Would make a nice little kit for hip hop. I'll probably pick a drum kit up eventually. Not sure I have the coordination for it though...lol


If you can make drum patterns with a drum machine, Midi controller etc. you deffinetly will have the coordination to play a real drum set. You got the basics down. Now as for as drawing drum patterns up in fl or something like that it doesnt give you the feel for drumming on a real set.

Nice to know somethings remain the same nothing beats real drum sets.
 
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Pure Hype Production said:
If you can make drum patterns with a drum machine, Midi controller etc. you deffinetly will have the coordination to play a real drum set. You got the basics down. Now as for as drawing drum patterns up in fl or something like that it doesnt give you the feel for drumming on a real set.

Nice to know somethings remain the same nothing beats real drum sets.
i disagree. I was a drummer in high school i can play drums on my mpd and on a keyboard just fine but dont have the right coordination to play a set. But it has helped me on congas and bongos. I need a bigger place so I can buy some and use them in my tracks
 
Cameron Thomas said:
I use a little of my own tweaked drums as well as drums from people like elab, Zero-G, bangin' beats, etc.

One thing you need to understand is that sometimes other people can do a better job than you. I'm novice when it comes to sound design. I like tweaking my own drums and synth patches, etc. but sometimes I find kicks, snares, hats, etc. someone else has done that I like too. I'm not going to not use it just because I didn't design it.

Professional sound designers usually have more resources to shape sounds as well. Alot of them have analog processing that you just aren't going to find in your average home studio. I know elab has run alot of samples through the sp-1200 as well to give them that grit and punch. They usually tend to have nicer monitoring systems as well.

Too many people on this site think you need to create everthing from scratch, tweak everything as much as you can, don't loop, don't do this, blah blah blah. Just make some ****in' music. Enough with the rules. Like I said sometimes other people are better than yourself at certain things. You wouldn't start doing your own dental work at home would ya?

Another thing. Alot of cats like Dre and Timbo have sound designers. Don't think those drums you hear is from them sitting at home cutting up their own breaks and tweaking them in some wave editor. They have professionals who do that for them. The only difference between Dre's drums and a sample cd is that Dre's drums aren't available to anyone else.

If your comfortable with using others drum sounds thats fine. I create my own drums and I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to drums but I feel real confident with the outcome. your wrong about dre he is a real perfectionist and especially on drums and he does the tweaking himself. Sometimes he uses samples from a recorded drummer on a drum set other times he chops from albums and he has a massive library to choose from.

You shouldnt be considering yourself a producer if your not concerned with every espect of the project. If you dont srive to make it perfect then you are just playing around and arent serious about it. which is fine but dont knock real producers with real producing skills who aim for that perfect sound.

Xabiton said:
i disagree. I was a drummer in high school i can play drums on my mpd and on a keyboard just fine but dont have the right coordination to play a set. But it has helped me on congas and bongos. I need a bigger place so I can buy some and use them in my tracks

You will be suprised at how quickly you can pick it up. Since you say it helped you on the congas and bongos its just the feet and hand coordination you need to work on basically kick and snare. You have to have some good microphones and good microphone placement techniques to record live drums well. But thats the same as anything else practice makes perfect.

I dont own my own set either but my brother in law does and I just let him play since he been doing it for years now. I record him then chop it up to build my own kits.
 
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thats my point entirely tho just because u can do it all by hand which im good with doesnt mean i have the foot coordination which i dont
 
I don't tweak, don't use anything but factory kits(Triton Rack, MPC Library, Reason Drums, and what came in FL, and I'm still constantly told my drums are distinctive and intricate(not blowing my own horn, that's what others say). I think just like with other instruments(pianos, strings, synths, ect), if you do more intricate work with drums, you don't have to "make" them individual. If all you use is a kick, snare and hat, you may have to murk them up, quantize/swing, and tweak them to make them sound interesting.
 
^

Or run em in the ASR-10 :D (man I love that board)

True, that's true, depends on how you SELECT them for what beat/style you doing as well.
 
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