chopping up and eq'ing loops

P

pete_c

New Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
just wondered what peoples thoughts are on this, im a bit of a noob,

ive been trying to get a cleaner sounding loop, say for example an amen. ive been chopping the loop into 3 parts, kick snare and cymbals/perc, then splitting them onto 3 different channels, then trying to eq each channel accordingly, then bus them all back into one channel. is this worth doing or am i wasting my time?? i know there is never really a hard and fast rule when it comes to producing, but does anyone do this and do you have any tips? guess im going for some narly sounding amens in the style of b-key or technical itch.

nice one
 
I always cut pretty much all the low end from my breaks, apply compression and / or distortion to taste, just try to get the rides / hats and the snares sounding okay and you should be good to go.

Nothing's really a waste of time if it suits your workflow and you get the sound that you're looking for.
 
beware that tail of snare and kick and ride in amen is playing into things that follow after..... like the closed hat/rim shuffle
in amen,the closed hat contains awfull mud from snare tail so when you duplicate it you will have that mud in the closed hat everytime and it sounds fucked up if the snare isnt right before it

also amen have probably biggest number of harst sounding spikes freqency wise..... one is around 700hz,the worst crap is around 3200hz and then theres awfull ringing around 10khz... but thats when its pitched up to 164bpm,if its lower or higher these spikes will be higher or lower too
 
ApeCat said:
I always cut pretty much all the low end from my breaks, apply compression and / or distortion to taste, just try to get the rides / hats and the snares sounding okay and you should be good to go.

Nothing's really a waste of time if it suits your workflow and you get the sound that you're looking for.
Click to expand...

i usually hi pass if im layering underneath some drum hits, but im kind of aiming for a more full amen sound, if i high pass i will lose all the beefyness and punch. maybe i should use a hi passed amen as a base, then layer some kicks and snares cut from another amen over it? i dunno i just find it hard to turn a rickety old amen into something evil, for example tech itch - heavy metal (b key remix) think someone posted it on here the other day
 
gingerDoe said:
beware that tail of snare and kick and ride in amen is playing into things that follow after..... like the closed hat/rim shuffle
in amen,the closed hat contains awfull mud from snare tail so when you duplicate it you will have that mud in the closed hat everytime and it sounds fucked up if the snare isnt right before it

also amen have probably biggest number of harst sounding spikes freqency wise..... one is around 700hz,the worst crap is around 3200hz and then theres awfull ringing around 10khz... but thats when its pitched up to 164bpm,if its lower or higher these spikes will be higher or lower too
Click to expand...

refering to snare and kick tails, this is why im moving the kicks and snares onto their own channel, so i can eq and compress if needed. just wondering if this technique is worth doing, i still cant seem to get the sound i want! guess its just years if practice/trial and error
 
Tech Itch amens have been processed heavily, you won't get that sound with just a bit of EQ. Gonna take layering, compression, distortion, eqing, bouncing it down and then doing it all over again.

But yes, you will need to layer other drums over it. There is no low end in the original amen sample, so you can boost it all you want but it won't sound good. You need to get the right sort of kick to layer underneath it.

It also depends on what amen sample you are using, there are so many.
 
@whizzkidd yeah i did think the kick was lacking low end, but when i try layering another kick over the loop it just sounds messy, guess i just need to spend more time choosing the right kick and snare. and more time on processing. thanks for the input ; )
 
DJWhizzkidd said:
But yes, you will need to layer other drums over it. There is no low end in the original amen sample, so you can boost it all you want but it won't sound good. You need to get the right sort of kick to layer underneath it.
Click to expand...

The low end is there. You need to clear out the mud in the 100hz range and then you have some lovely sounding low kicks that can be boosted. Of course layering can give some interesting results.
 
pete_c said:
refering to snare and kick tails, this is why im moving the kicks and snares onto their own channel, so i can eq and compress if needed. just wondering if this technique is worth doing, i still cant seem to get the sound i want! guess its just years if practice/trial and error
Click to expand...

if it is worth doing? I always process every single hit of everything separtely,yes its worth it....
 
gingerDoe said:
if it is worth doing? I always process every single hit of everything separtely,yes its worth it....
Click to expand...

at least in half going in the right direction then! the problem i find is once ive split the loop and added some eq and compression on each hit, it doesnt jel as well as the original loop when played back (does not sound as natural) ive just seen a tutorial on this where the guy adds a little overdrive to each part which he says makes it sound more like a complete loop rather than separate hits. will give this a go later.
 
pete_c said:
at least in half going in the right direction then! the problem i find is once ive split the loop and added some eq and compression on each hit, it doesnt jel as well as the original loop when played back (does not sound as natural) ive just seen a tutorial on this where the guy adds a little overdrive to each part which he says makes it sound more like a complete loop rather than separate hits. will give this a go later.
Click to expand...

Well, if you process each hit on it's own, it will end up sounding a bit disjointed. You could maybe bus all the parts back onto a single track in the mixer, and then compress/distort there so it effects the whole loop, not just bits. You don't really want different effects on each part of the loop, it will sound weird.
 
DJWhizzkidd said:
Well, if you process each hit on it's own, it will end up sounding a bit disjointed. You could maybe bus all the parts back onto a single track in the mixer, and then compress/distort there so it effects the whole loop, not just bits. You don't really want different effects on each part of the loop, it will sound weird.
Click to expand...

This.
 
DJWhizzkidd said:
Well, if you process each hit on it's own, it will end up sounding a bit disjointed. You could maybe bus all the parts back onto a single track in the mixer, and then compress/distort there so it effects the whole loop, not just bits. You don't really want different effects on each part of the loop, it will sound weird.
Click to expand...

yeah he used the same settings on each hit but sending them to a ground seems more straight forward. to be honest i wasnt that impressed with the sound that he ended up with but i took on board what he did. the disjointed sound is exactly what im talking about, will have a go at what you suggested later. nice one!
 
Back
Top Bottom