How do you guys layer your drums? I have NI's Maschine and Battery 3 so I have a decent drum library. I just don't know how to layer properly to get a nice banging sound. I'll layer around 3-4 kick drums and then I don't know what to do. I do all my sequencing in Maschine so I wont be applying compression or EQ until it's mixing time when I transfer everything to Protools. When I get around 5+ drum samples it starts to just sound big, boxy, and floppy. Do you guys layer a bunch of samples together and then comp/eq them as one? Or do so separately?
How to layer drums?
- Thread starter typhy
- Start date
Desmond *A*
New member
you're doing too much.....the most kicks I've ever stacked is 2. I'm on FL Studio so stacking sounds on the fly is super easy.
Isk2009
DamnSonWhere'dYaFindThis?
I do fairly often. Typically If I have multiple kick sounds playing the same exact pattern throughout the beat I'll either eq them seperately to bring certain elements out of each individual sound or eq them together because it sounds fine as is. I'll usually compress them as one.
Now if the kick sounds are drastically different (Like a big boomy kick vs. a compact punchy one) and/or they play different patterns, I usually eq and compress them seperately.
In your case I assume you're stacking your kicks for a purpose and not just for the sake of stacking sounds on sounds, so since you're dealing with five different kick sounds hitting at once (that's usually my max but with boomy/hollow kicks only), I'd probably eq them seperately, adjust the volume faders till it sounds like they're gelling right, and then route them all to one send to compress them as a unit. Then I'd mess with the faders again if need be.
But that's just me. Like Desmond said it's pretty unnecessary to need to stack so many kicks on a regular basis.
Now if the kick sounds are drastically different (Like a big boomy kick vs. a compact punchy one) and/or they play different patterns, I usually eq and compress them seperately.
In your case I assume you're stacking your kicks for a purpose and not just for the sake of stacking sounds on sounds, so since you're dealing with five different kick sounds hitting at once (that's usually my max but with boomy/hollow kicks only), I'd probably eq them seperately, adjust the volume faders till it sounds like they're gelling right, and then route them all to one send to compress them as a unit. Then I'd mess with the faders again if need be.
But that's just me. Like Desmond said it's pretty unnecessary to need to stack so many kicks on a regular basis.
Griffin Avid
Media Editor
Do you guys layer a bunch of samples together and then...
Sounds like you do know how to layer, but you don't know WHY and WHEN.
Sorta like you're layering sounds because you read somewhere that Layering was the answer to dope drums.
Well, you can be technical in your approach like a sound designer or you can just freestyle it and use your 'ear'.
2. When? You layer when all the other tools fail. EQ may fail because you can't enhance or subtract from frequencies that just aren't then to be adjusted. Some drums are light in certain ranges or too bottom heavy to have an even tone. Tonal kicks (like some 808-types) can have an even, steady tone and lack punch at the start. And so maybe the attack is where you want to add some action and so you add another kick underneath that has a lot of energy (loudness [a spike in volume]) at it's beginning.
Compression may fail because the drum sound is ALREADY SQUASHED to ...You be using volume to lessen it's overall impact, but now it's lost presence in your mix. You grab another sound with more Dynamics (variation in volume) to add life to a boxy drum element.
3) Technically, you could be using a wave editor and looking at the drum waveform up close and noting the attack. Drums tend to lose something when the timing is thrown off from the editing (truncation) and the shape of the attack. In other words, one drum may begin quickly from the sample start and the next drum layer may have a slight space before the sample drops in. That will lead to a slight blurring and a mish-mosh kind of sound. Sloppiness that sometimes works with snares tends to not sound too good with kicks.
Editing the Transients is also a practice that some employ.
Transient control and excitment to get a killer drum sound - Gearslutz.com
You can also use the various wave-shaping tools of your DAW or Wave Editor to make drum sounds longer, shorter and control pitch. Sometimes it's not about how many drums or drum libraries you collect, it's about how well you can manipulate your drum sound on a track by track basis.
4) By Ear, you can just listen carefully and match ONLY drums that enhance when added.
There's a general sound to layered drums that do sound "beatish", but even then there's a way to do it right. When you begin to lose clarity, punch and overall your drum sound is NOT improving- go backwards and remove the drums that aint working. No shame is taking one step back to move two more forward.
You really should be reading Producer's Edge Magazine.
There's a huge 4 or 5 parts series on drums. From timing to creating them from scratch to layering...processing it's pretty comprehensive. It's called Drum Works.
Sounds like you do know how to layer, but you don't know WHY and WHEN.
Sorta like you're layering sounds because you read somewhere that Layering was the answer to dope drums.
Well, you can be technical in your approach like a sound designer or you can just freestyle it and use your 'ear'.
4 Part answer
1. WHY? You layer when something is MISSING from a drum sound. Adding another sound can sometimes supply the missing tone, frequency or ADSR adjustment.
2. When? You layer when all the other tools fail. EQ may fail because you can't enhance or subtract from frequencies that just aren't then to be adjusted. Some drums are light in certain ranges or too bottom heavy to have an even tone. Tonal kicks (like some 808-types) can have an even, steady tone and lack punch at the start. And so maybe the attack is where you want to add some action and so you add another kick underneath that has a lot of energy (loudness [a spike in volume]) at it's beginning.
Compression may fail because the drum sound is ALREADY SQUASHED to ...You be using volume to lessen it's overall impact, but now it's lost presence in your mix. You grab another sound with more Dynamics (variation in volume) to add life to a boxy drum element.
3) Technically, you could be using a wave editor and looking at the drum waveform up close and noting the attack. Drums tend to lose something when the timing is thrown off from the editing (truncation) and the shape of the attack. In other words, one drum may begin quickly from the sample start and the next drum layer may have a slight space before the sample drops in. That will lead to a slight blurring and a mish-mosh kind of sound. Sloppiness that sometimes works with snares tends to not sound too good with kicks.
Editing the Transients is also a practice that some employ.
Transient control and excitment to get a killer drum sound - Gearslutz.com
You can also use the various wave-shaping tools of your DAW or Wave Editor to make drum sounds longer, shorter and control pitch. Sometimes it's not about how many drums or drum libraries you collect, it's about how well you can manipulate your drum sound on a track by track basis.
4) By Ear, you can just listen carefully and match ONLY drums that enhance when added.
There's a general sound to layered drums that do sound "beatish", but even then there's a way to do it right. When you begin to lose clarity, punch and overall your drum sound is NOT improving- go backwards and remove the drums that aint working. No shame is taking one step back to move two more forward.
You really should be reading Producer's Edge Magazine.
There's a huge 4 or 5 parts series on drums. From timing to creating them from scratch to layering...processing it's pretty comprehensive. It's called Drum Works.
digiskunk
New member
You can layer as much as you want as long as you control the output.
LostProfit
New member
I am an avid reader of the "layering drums" column however, I will say, they didn't layer drums in the 70s and they had some really good drums, or so I've heard.
W.A.I.S. Krew
!The Future Of Music!
i usually layer 3-4 sounds max. the drums to the beat in my signature are layered. the snare is a real acoustic snare, a run of the mill hip hop clap and snare and a gunshot. the kick is a metal type drum mixed with a couple hip hop drums. then i just mixed together using my ears and volume knobs.
I
IanMathews
Guest
Yeah like it was said earlier, there are times when I need to layer, and times when I don't. Sometimes I layer when I make transitions, like maybe adding a clap or rimshot under my snare to bring in some extra brightness for the hook. Bass drum... I usually don't go more than 2, and I'll EQ them differently. If it's just not working out, I would rather look for 1 or 2 better sounds than piling on 4 or 5.
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J
JimbaFrosty
Guest
I wouldnt layer sounds to get thump or snap in a kick snare or clap, its just more of a sound design thing.
The way ur gonna make ur sounds like that is eq and compression. for kicks u really only wanna layer 2 diff sounds. anything after that is over kill and pointless. k maybe 3.
for claps and snares go nuts.
as for kicks u have 3 layers, the boom, punch and attack.
the boom is the bassy part, like an 808, but suby but just a lil put of bass to complement the punch of a kick, then a sample thats gonna be the main sound and punch, ull eq out alot of low end bass and compress. then the attack is most of the lows and mids gone. think of it as a septate sound thats just the hit of the drum head, ull eq and compress that sound too
at the end of it still sounds like a whole bunch of kicks together and not one solid kick, adjust volume and if need be buss them all to another mixer channel and use a very light not noticeable compression to glue it all together
The way ur gonna make ur sounds like that is eq and compression. for kicks u really only wanna layer 2 diff sounds. anything after that is over kill and pointless. k maybe 3.
for claps and snares go nuts.
as for kicks u have 3 layers, the boom, punch and attack.
the boom is the bassy part, like an 808, but suby but just a lil put of bass to complement the punch of a kick, then a sample thats gonna be the main sound and punch, ull eq out alot of low end bass and compress. then the attack is most of the lows and mids gone. think of it as a septate sound thats just the hit of the drum head, ull eq and compress that sound too
at the end of it still sounds like a whole bunch of kicks together and not one solid kick, adjust volume and if need be buss them all to another mixer channel and use a very light not noticeable compression to glue it all together
ReanzStarr
New member
What you put in is what you get out imo. It isn't always the exact sound you want, but personally, having a single great sounding kick drum is better than having two pretty standard kicks you're trying to put together to make a good sounding one. Any other minor tweaking can be done as stated before by eq/compression, but generally as the sample will be processed to hell and back in the first place, then there's no point over processing it. Remember, you chose that specific drum sample for a reason, probably because it sounded good as it was.
With that said, there has been a few times when I've layered up specific sounds. Snares I will try and find two samples which stand well together so I don't have to go out my way to cut the frequencies, i.e. A snare with a nice mid-range punch but quite a lousy top end and mix it with a snare that is the exact opposite. Minor processing then follows.
A good technique to also try is one used in some DnB/House and that's to not do it by the standard slam two sounds on top of each other and eq, but to instead do little tweaks to the ASDR.
For example, I have a nice snappy kick and a pretty heavy 909 there after. I'll reduce the sustain, decay and release on the snappy kick whilst increasing (by very small amounts) the attack on the 909. With careful tweaking the two kicks should mix excellently with the snap of the first and the fullness of the 909. Maybe add a bit of distortion/bit crushing to the first kick to help bring out the desired nature whilst leaving the 909 at stock. You would be surprised with the end result.
And a final note, saturation is your friend. Battery's stock saturator is pretty cool. Everything sounds better when it's louder right?
With that said, there has been a few times when I've layered up specific sounds. Snares I will try and find two samples which stand well together so I don't have to go out my way to cut the frequencies, i.e. A snare with a nice mid-range punch but quite a lousy top end and mix it with a snare that is the exact opposite. Minor processing then follows.
A good technique to also try is one used in some DnB/House and that's to not do it by the standard slam two sounds on top of each other and eq, but to instead do little tweaks to the ASDR.
For example, I have a nice snappy kick and a pretty heavy 909 there after. I'll reduce the sustain, decay and release on the snappy kick whilst increasing (by very small amounts) the attack on the 909. With careful tweaking the two kicks should mix excellently with the snap of the first and the fullness of the 909. Maybe add a bit of distortion/bit crushing to the first kick to help bring out the desired nature whilst leaving the 909 at stock. You would be surprised with the end result.
And a final note, saturation is your friend. Battery's stock saturator is pretty cool. Everything sounds better when it's louder right?
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RighteousRob
Digging till its done.
Agree 100%. I would take it a step further and say that when layering choosing quality sounds to layer is 85% of the work. You can't smash two turds together end expect to make a diamond.
I generally stick to the principle of layering two sounds for my kicks: i use a low pass filter on a boomy deep kick and combine that with the another kick with faster attack and more punch ( then high pass that).
Check out this blog article I wrote on the secrets of effective layering. It goes into a lot of detail on how to avoid creating a muddy mess when layering kicks.