drum breaks

C

cactopus

Producer
Joined
Apr 30, 2011
Location
Erie, PA
do you guys loop one break throughout the song or do you mix it with sample kits of your own? and if you have sample kits, does anyone have a free drum sample kit that sounds like the amen break? i would like to create drum patterns to go with the amen break but none of my drum samples sound anything close to the kit used in the amen. thanks
 
i used to have a file where id continuously try and recreate the amen break in different ways. its fun and creative, lead to a deep affection for cymbals. but i never got very close of course.
but it varies, depends on the song. on our last project the break is almost wholly built from sounds we recorded round reactor grits living room, banging his table and stuff, and thats a straight techstep tune. oh and from akira kurosawas yojimbo. lots of percussion in japanese films.
look for the meanbeat kit, its a nice collection of drum sounds im told.
 
lazy forum? lazy OP, this question is easily answered by searching. just about everybody on here has written some form of drum tutorial.

the answer is that it depends. minimal songs may only use individual hits, while a busy dancefloor track could be individual hits with 10 or more breaks/percussion layers. it all depends on how thick you want your sounds. it seems like what you are looking for is to have individual hits for your kicks and snares, and then layer a few breaks over top. you will want to add a high pass filter of some sort to the breakbeats, so you are just using the shuffle-y top end, and the meat should come from your drums, not the loops.

sample kits vary widely, the vengeance packs are probably the most used for big drums, requiring very little work to sound good. however, almost any of the commercial sample packs will have usable drum hits, even if they need some processing. how long have you been producing? it takes a long time to get fat beats.
 
logikz said:
i used to have a file where id continuously try and recreate the amen break in different ways. its fun and creative, lead to a deep affection for cymbals. but i never got very close of course.
but it varies, depends on the song. on our last project the break is almost wholly built from sounds we recorded round reactor grits living room, banging his table and stuff, and thats a straight techstep tune. oh and from akira kurosawas yojimbo. lots of percussion in japanese films.
look for the meanbeat kit, its a nice collection of drum sounds im told.
Click to expand...

very deep, i purposely avoid them now unless completely necessary!

Also imo get the best break samples u can find (quality) and don't touch it... if it aint broke... etc. imo all this processing and layering totaly kills the vibe of a break. Remember, a break is drummed live by a drummer, over process it and you start to lose what makes it great. Take the amen, 4 bars long, all the same kit, yet every hit has a subtle difference because of the way the drummer played it... absolutely beautiful. A concept which seems to be lost amongst alot of producers these days but not so back in the day.
Or i'm just lazy and good with excuses, take ur pick :)
 
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I swear there's always a question like this floating about in production..

and yeah, crispy said what i was thinking. my best breaks have always been when i didn't f**k with the samples tooo much.
 
umm if you want individual hits that sound identical/fit with the original amen break. why not just steal the kick & snare from your amen break. then add them as new tracks and build up the beat with them ontop of the original break. then eq and mess with as much as u want till u get the sound u want.
 
i write all my breaks, way more fun, and much more versatile, i've built up 5 drum kits, samples from all over the place, each one with 5-6 kicks, upto 10 snares, and lots of hats n other bits, it does take allot of work to get things rolling properly, and after about 4-5 months practice i think i'm finally gettin them to hit right most of the time, its worth the effort in the end!
 
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