another amen question

[Verva]

this is an example, you hear this type of amen in lots of dnb. Ive tried using psp vintage warmer but this particular amen has a good flow about it. Any one have any ideas?

 

[Boooke]

Have you tried bus compression? Can help a lot. Generally, a lot of bus processing can help make it sound cohesive, like distortion and small reverbs, but compression is probably one of the more transparent ways. Also, volume levels should fit each other.

 

[johneysvk]

try gating it

 

[tv_g]

the dominant kick/snare do not sound like they are from the amen. regardless, the hats from the amen are on a different layer or bus in 8th note pattern. the flow doesn't sound natural, so try having the hits out of order from the original break (although it might just be a result of dropping the kicks and snares from the original).

 

[cohma101]

If you're using Ableton, you can slice to new MIDI track at 1/16. Then select all the clips (command A) and shorten them about a bit. It takes about 20 seconds to do this and it goes a long way. Don't compress too much, the highs will cut your ears off. instead, Sidechain a compressor with a low pass/high cut before it in the bus to add warmth and beef. your not relying on the amen for a "up front" beat so add a little reverb to glide the slices together and set it back a little from the main break. Low and high cut it to get some of the energy out of it. Its "behind" the main drums, not just quieter.
Also, When you work on the amen you want to process the highs as little as possible, if anything, just a slight chorus above 2khz if you plan on keeping the highs in there.

 

[BassGorilla.com]

I agree with Cohma101 - adding a slight amount of shores to your amen break or hi hats might help to make them sit better in the mix and gel with the whole drum group.
You can compress the entire drums group slightly to help it gel together (kick, snare, amen break) but don't go overboard with compression.
Also, when compressing drums, it is good to use a slow attack time so that the initial transient comes through uncompressed. I recommend something like 20 - 35 ms for attack time.
For release time, make it long enough to hold down each note (hi hat hit, snare hit, kick hit, etc.), but short enough that the compressor will be released before the next hit. This is tricky in dnb because it is so fast, so one idea is to have your snare on its own channel, with its own compressor, and your kick on another channel, and so on.
You can also try sending your amen to a bus (or return track in Ableton) that has a distortion plugin like camel crusher (free), and put an EQ in front of the distortion unit to low cut it, so it won't distort the low end of your kick drum (as this sounds crap).
Hope this helps