Ways to make dnb kick

i dont think weve ever tuned drums. and we record our own (by banging pots and pans in the kitchen), but from what i hear its a very common thing to be doing with.

innovine you know the cardigans right? they never tune their drums. and they did quite well. not that they done any good music, but they did make bank with their generic pop bullshit. so its a minor point.

and if i start changing the pitch of my drums in a song i just get confused. it sounds different thats for sure, maybe better, maybe worse, but its hard to tell really.
having said htat, the relationship between the kick and the snare does seem important to me.


you use the f word an awful lot, you know that? makes you seem teen angsty and hostile. but usually make up for it with knowledge, look, its just an idea. pull back on the f word.
 
When you sample, you often are using sounds that are already tuned to suit a particular track, so you can often get lucky too. And I'd bet that when you're picking samples, you're looking for drums that sound good together. So you're likely to pick ones that are in tune without maybe even thinking about it. Then later it's like 'well, I never tune my drums'..
 
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Neurofunk Drums in NI massive - KICK

<font size="2">[video=youtube_share;F-d2kpuh9fs]http://youtu.be/F-d2kpuh9fs[/video]

 
logikz said:
and if i start changing the pitch of my drums in a song i just get confused. it sounds different thats for sure, maybe better, maybe worse, but its hard to tell really.
having said htat, the relationship between the kick and the snare does seem important to me.
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I'm wondering if there's a theory behind that kick&snare relationship. I mean, for example: maybe the body of the snare has to be 5 semi-tones higher than the kick.

Or maybe it's just something you can't explain theoretical.
Would you be able to pitch any snare XY as perfect as it would fit to any kick YZ?
So many questions!
 
[MENTION=97225]Saftstein[/MENTION] i think innovine just mentioned the most regularly occuring difference in frequency between kick and snare in hz. full of useful info, that man.
[MENTION=31672]Innovine[/MENTION], guess youre right haha. also, rules are fun to break. even if it usually sounds shit.
 
The whole tuning kicks thing is a matter of opinion really. It's far more important for EDM and techno where the tone of the kick is a major part of the track. I find it less crucial in D&B or dubstep where really its just the initial attack part that's involved, a short D&B kick has very little of the tone anyway.

That said though, having drums well tuned together will make them sound a lot more complementary and like they are part of the same kit. I try to tune my kicks to the root and make sure the rest of the drums fit with it, nothing too intensive, just whatever sounds right by ear. There's a couple of Sample Magic tuned kick packs that are pretty good, although i usually end up making my own later on down the line.
 
Innovine said:
Yeah it makes a massive fucking difference if you tune your instrument or not. Toms are tuned a fifth or a third apart for the most part. The interval between your kick and snare is pretty important to get right. True that you don't do tuning to a kit between songs, but thats cos the kit has been tuned to ge the best compromise between sounding in tune (e,a,g,c and d are common guitar keys, d# less so...), resonance and damping. For the keys that DO suit, you need the drums tuned to some note, not just any random pitch. Better to be a semitone off than 38.2hz or something. Now, you're using a sampler, so you don't have to make those kinds of compromises, so quit being lazy and start to use your ears. It's r ally easy to notice when the amateurs ignore this.
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Looks like the anwser to my question is right in this post. But no matter how many times i read through it, i don't really get it.

So the relation of my kick&snare depends on the key of my tune?
What i'm looking for is this is a simple way, like if you have a tune in c#m your kick has to peak 5 semitones under your snare (just an example)
 
Know One said:
When you guys are talking about tuning drums, are you making your kick and snare the same key as the song? So if your song is written in F, are you making sure your kick and your snare are both hitting in F?
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No, they only have to be in the same scale. So if your bassline root note is F, then for your drums you can use F, G, A, B flat, C, D and E as thats the F major scale.

But if you are talking about layering drum hits on top of each other, then they need to be in the same chord, which for F major is F, A and C.
 
mr meh said:
No, they only have to be in the same scale. So if your bassline root note is F, then for your drums you can use F, G, A, B flat, C, D and E as thats the F major scale.

But if you are talking about layering drum hits on top of each other, then they need to be in the same chord, which for F major is F, A and C.
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This! Hell yea man, THIS. Simple & short. Now i start to get it :)
 
mr meh said:
No, they only have to be in the same scale. So if your bassline root note is F, then for your drums you can use F, G, A, B flat, C, D and E as thats the F major scale.

But if you are talking about layering drum hits on top of each other, then they need to be in the same chord, which for F major is F, A and C.
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So your kick doesn't need to be the same key as the root key of the track, just the same scale hu? And your kick and snare dont need to be the same key as eachother, just a key from the same scale of your tunes root key? I never really tried to tune my drums so much and constantly look at the spectrum analyzer all the time while doing it.... but recently have been kinda obsessed with it. I remember people always used to say your kick should peak around 100-120hz a wile back. I've been messing with nothing but drum loops for weeks and weeks trying to get things to be a key I want, and messing with having my kick and snare be the same key. Kinda driving myself mad a little in the process.

Having your kick be the exact same key as the root of your song seems like it would give you more trouble in the long run since it would conflict with your bass frequancy's, so they'd always be fighting each other for room. I guess the best thing to do would be to have the kick be the next in scale key above your root key, or even one about that? I'm trying to dial in some nice drum loops to use, making my own breaks from drum samplers and synthetic drum synths combined. I tend to write most of my tunes in the key of F or F#, so I'm trying to make a nice sample folder of drum loops that will work perfect for those keys.



Side note: Do you think using the software "mixed in key" and having it scan all the break samples I have would yield good\correct results. I know the program is made for scanning entire songs, so I'm not sure how whatever algorithm it's using would react to just a 2 second sample of only drums.
 
Sounds like you got it mate (y) But tbh, I dont bother much with the tuning of the drums anymore, I only pitch them if I think they need it. I've learnt not to get caught up in all the technical stuff and just use my ears.....if the drum hits sound good and work in the tune, then go with it! Like someone else said earlier, dnb drums are generally short and fast, so having them all in key doesn't matter like it does in slower genres with bigger drums.

Not tried mixed in key but don't reckon it would work with breaks as their not exactly musical. Let us know if you try it though, would be interesting to see the results.
 
mr meh said:
Sounds like you got it mate (y) But tbh, I dont bother much with the tuning of the drums anymore, I only pitch them if I think they need it. I've learnt not to get caught up in all the technical stuff and just use my ears.....if the drum hits sound good and work in the tune, then go with it! Like someone else said earlier, dnb drums are generally short and fast, so having them all in key doesn't matter like it does in slower genres with bigger drums.

Not tried mixed in key but don't reckon it would work with breaks as their not exactly musical. Let us know if you try it though, would be interesting to see the results.
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Yeah, I'm tempted to give the mixed in key thing a shot and see what it comes up with. It's funny, with all the talk of tuning drums in DnB it makes you wonder why no sample pack ever shows the key info for breaks or kicks & snares. You pick up these random packs and all the bass, pads, stabs, leads, etc. all show the key they are in.... but I've yet to see one that showed the key for breaks or one shots.
 
Know One said:
Yeah, I'm tempted to give the mixed in key thing a shot and see what it comes up with. It's funny, with all the talk of tuning drums in DnB it makes you wonder why no sample pack ever shows the key info for breaks or kicks & snares. You pick up these random packs and all the bass, pads, stabs, leads, etc. all show the key they are in.... but I've yet to see one that showed the key for breaks or one shots.
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Decent kick packs have the Key in the file
 
What I am usally pretty happy with is taking some kicks from a vengeance pack or even boom-bap drum kits and take a kick that is very dull and deep and layer a one over it that has more attack in the highs and sort of a click sound. Then i shorten the sustain and release of the deep kick a bit, mix the volumes right, do some EQing on the deep kick, cutting off some of the highs that the other one already provides and highpass both kicks at around 60-80Hz.
Of course, you should not forget sidechaining/peak-controlling and sidechain the other elements in your track that have a lot of power in the low end to your kick, so the kick punches through them in the mix.
 
Don't over complicate this. just layer a break kick with an 808 and roll off any transient that might be present. . . . .instant thump. if side chaining is absolutely necessary, side chain to the 808.
 
do you mean tail? roll off the tail with a short env? because rolling off the transient will literally remove the punch, so its important you say the right words in the right place. besides, yes, adding some sub to your kick is a good idea, but there are way punchier things to layer your kick with. this kind of reminds me a little of that compression article in the lossless music mixing disucssion EAHEAHEHAEHEAHEA what an utter tool he got file compression (f.e mp3ing a wav) confused with dynamics compression and based a lengthy article on how terrible mp3s are because of this and that and blah blah blah the entire premise of his article was a total fuck up. oh well, weve all been there, i once lost an argument online to a guy saying that compression was shit but HARD LIMITING was where it was at and was what all the pros used etc etc. file under "another case of me coming up with what i shouldve said two months later"
 
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