Can someone tell me what im doing wrong here??

J

jakeshiftzw

Shiftz
Joined
Sep 23, 2011
Location
Cambridge
I've been trying to make decent jump-up drums for ages, sort of with the offbeat kick, a bit like Tyke, Crystal Clear etc. I normally layer 3 kicks, one sitting over 50hz boosted at around 80hz for a bit of weight, then one sitting over 70hz boosted at around 100hz and then another sitting above around 220hz and boosted in the presence regions and around 6khz. The snare, i have a punchy one sitting above 100hz and boosted around 180 and then a snappy one sitting above about 250hz and boosted in the presence regions with a high shelf to open it up. I compress all these hits seperately, and then compress the snares together to 'glue' them and then the same with kicks. The hats, i hi-pass anywhere between 500-1000hz depending on the sample, give it a high shelf at around 8000hz and boost in the presence regions again, and around 6000hz, adding distortion, saturation, compression and noise gates to try give it a crisp sound. I do the same kinda thing with my rides, shakers etc, and also hi-pass a break and distort etc. After all this....it still sounds fucking shit. What am i missing here? there has got to be something.

http://soundcloud.com/jakeshiftz/jump-up-drums-off-beat-kick
 
That's a few too many kicks stacked within low end frequency range my friend. When layering kicks, you need to be a more "aggressive" with the EQs. For example, you would want one kick to provide the thump (cut to around 70-90Hz, boost around 100Hz, cut top end) and one kick to provide the "clicky" high end frequencies (Low cut the hell out this sample, up to around 1000Hz should do the trick). A third kick can be added if you're missing a bit of middle frequency, but you'll more than likely wind up with muddiness.

When you stack multiple instrument hits within a short range of one another within the frequency spectrum, they're going to cancel one another out or worse, muddy up the sound. Setup two channel strips, one for the high kick and one for the low kick–each one with their respective EQ cuts. Then assign the output of these channel strips to a bus. Then, add a bit of overdrive (go easy on the settings, a little goes along way) because the overdrive will add a bit of thickness to the whole layer, a bit of saturation if you will. Finally, add a very gentle compressor to "glue" the kick together. Bounce the sound down and there's your layered kick. If you find the bounced kick to be a bit "boxy" sounding, apply a liberal notch cut between 250Hz and 600Hz, as this is where that box-mud realm tends to plague many a drum hit.

Also, don't boost around the 200Hz range. If anything, add a bit of a notch cut–that range is key for achieving the low-end punch of the snare, so we don't that snare and kick to be fighting one another.

Cheers.
 
Yep Lost has pretty much hit the nail on the head there mate! I would also add that you should be fine just compressing the layered group together- no real need to compress the individual hits. And compression is not gonna get your kick sounding phatter its really just a subtle mastering technique. If you want a little bit more punch to the kick try a tiny bit of transient shaping as well!
Also do you reverb your drums? If they sound a bit unnatural and cut up it might be you want to lengthen the individual hits a slight bit with a little bit of tail using reverb- I'd probably sidechain the reverb to your overall drum bus and high pass it- that might work...
If your drums are still sounding shit then it must be that your drum samples are piss poor- try and listen to jump up tracks with sick drums and then have a look for some drum hits that come close to those
 
marcelkennard said:
Yep Lost has pretty much hit the nail on the head there mate! I would also add that you should be fine just compressing the layered group together- no real need to compress the individual hits. And compression is not gonna get your kick sounding phatter its really just a subtle mastering technique. If you want a little bit more punch to the kick try a tiny bit of transient shaping as well!
Also do you reverb your drums? If they sound a bit unnatural and cut up it might be you want to lengthen the individual hits a slight bit with a little bit of tail using reverb- I'd probably sidechain the reverb to your overall drum bus and high pass it- that might work...
If your drums are still sounding shit then it must be that your drum samples are piss poor- try and listen to jump up tracks with sick drums and then have a look for some drum hits that come close to those
Click to expand...

/\ This. If you find yourself spending over 20 minutes trying to get a hit to sound "right," your time is better suited looking for another sample. The golden rule of digital audio production: "shit in, shit out."
 
Ok cheers guys! I saw on a tutorial by DC Breaks - Creeper and they used a 'Sub' kick, is that quite a rare thing to go for? Also, you said about sidechaining a reverb to the drums? Would it be best to do it by adding a reverb on my kick bus and then sidechaining the verb to my main drum bus? If so, how would i then go about hi-passing it? And is transient shaping just using an envelope to play around with the attack and release? Cheers
 
jakeshiftzw said:
Ok cheers guys! I saw on a tutorial by DC Breaks - Creeper and they used a 'Sub' kick, is that quite a rare thing to go for? Also, you said about sidechaining a reverb to the drums? Would it be best to do it by adding a reverb on my kick bus and then sidechaining the verb to my main drum bus? If so, how would i then go about hi-passing it? And is transient shaping just using an envelope to play around with the attack and release? Cheers
Click to expand...

Sub Kick sounds messy to me - I would stick to leaving the sub area of 40-70 hz (roughly) just for your sub bass.
Sidechaining Reverb = Easier than that mate- on your OVERALL DRUM BUS just add a send to a new bus. On that bus just add a reverb, turn the mix up 100% then add the compressor and choose your OVERALL DRUM BUS as the sidechain input. This allows you to have the reverb come on for a tad after the drums hits end! To highpass it just add an eq to this new bus.
Transient shaping is yeah just giving it more attack - only if your sample needs it really! And yeah browse around for some nice drum hits!
 
marcelkennard said:
Sub Kick sounds messy to me - I would stick to leaving the sub area of 40-70 hz (roughly) just for your sub bass.
Sidechaining Reverb = Easier than that mate- on your OVERALL DRUM BUS just add a send to a new bus. On that bus just add a reverb, turn the mix up 100% then add the compressor and choose your OVERALL DRUM BUS as the sidechain input. This allows you to have the reverb come on for a tad after the drums hits end! To highpass it just add an eq to this new bus.
Transient shaping is yeah just giving it more attack - only if your sample needs it really! And yeah browse around for some nice drum hits!
Click to expand...

Ok man, thanks alot! One more question, sorry to keep bothering and asking, but when you send your drum bus, would you still have the output coming out of your drum bus, or would you have the output coming out of the reverb bus? Probably not the latter? Because if so that would mean you would end up hi-passing all of your drums surely? If that makes sense lol
 
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