Drums and percussion question(about sampling and writing drums)

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Mr.Alavi

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Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Hi i was wandering a lot about making dnb breaks,and i've been trying to make a good one for some time now,and no matter what i do it just doesnt sound as good as the ones from pro/labeled artist..so my question is do artists like future propecies,high contrast/pendulum etc. sample breaks,and then filter them and/or re arange them,or do they actualy create breaks using VSTi drums??? Because as ive said i tried allot with just writing dnb breaks and its just doesnt have the flow,and it feels kinda empty..(i have used battery 3 and cubase halion dnb kit)...so i would appreciate if you could tell me is it ok to sample shit what kinda shit should i sample,any rules about sampling i should know and stuff like that...


http://soundcloud.com/amburator/serbian-drum-and-bass

this is an example of my dnb track and you can hear the drums..

and when i wanted to try and copy this break:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCmUXOoh3Fs by arranging my own hihats,and snares it ended up like this:http://www.sendspace.com/file/2fmm3t which is shit...:) (its a small file it will download fast)

so if you had the patience to read thes can you set me ond the right path,becouse i have some sick and twisted ideas for dnb and the only thing that is standing in the way are the shitty breaks that i dont like(and im a perfectionist) so i cant cope with shitty in my tracks ...thanks in advance!
 
every drum you ever use, minus live drums, will more than likely be a sample. so yes, they use samples. But you must understand that there are absolutely no limits, you need to cast off that black and white view of production ;)

DnB is largely about the swing of the drums, so try using ghost snares and kicks, and using bits of drum breaks - the small fills are what i usually go for.

First off, your drum samples are very mellow. They don't hit very hard, so start by looking at the source - you need a punchy fast kick, a tight snare, short and sharp hihats. Replace the samples with something a little tougher, and then shorten them a little so they hit faster - short kick and snare samples will give you a sense of groove in your track.

Try grabbing a break, EQing the bass out of it (200hz and below) and gating the fuck out of it with attack, hold and release set to zero (or close to it.) Bring Threshold down until you only get small amounts of percussion.

You might wanna look into Parallel Compression and Sidechain Compression to chunk up your drums too but only use it when you're happy with your drum groove!
 
Not sure what DAW you are using.... however, I was trying my hardest to make professional style drum arrangements when I discovered this video

This mainly applies to ableton, very useful for taking apart drum patterns and their parts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiNiOSgiwwo&playnext=1&list=PLBFAD4CCD29847D11

It works best if you can find a 4 or 8 bar drum pattern with no vocals or synths or bass on it
probably near the intro or outro

And I can say this a million times, watch the chase and status producer masterclass, teaches you alot about breaks
 
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Make your own beat loop out of single drum hits, snares and hi-hats. Then layer it with a break from you sample folder. Then you will have that 'shuffle' sound in your drums.
 
i think youre close enough to copying that sigma-logistics tune with the amburator serbian drum and bass song, the difference is absolutely minimal. if thats the sound you were after, you got it. congrats. im bitter because i tried writing last night for a very important project and the inspiration didnt come. so i came up with bup-kiss and it sucks
 
Ok,thanks for the answers!
So:Make my own drum pattern, layer samples,play with sidechain and equing mix it up..got it :)
Im using cubase by the way
 
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