getting fluid drums and rolls

Groovestick

Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2010
got break's "resistance" album about 2 weeks ago and been really digging it, especially his style of drums. his drums and percussion sound so fluid and natural, it's unlike any other dnb drums i've heard.

how do you go about getting drums to sound as natural as this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEdeKST-qfA

all the tracks off that album have that awesome feel to them.

secondly, i've really wanted to know how to make a realistic-sounding snare roll. obviously, playing the same snare sample in 16th or 32nd notes with increasing volume doesn't cut it. i've tried using the articulation feature in battery 3 but i can't get it sounding natural.

thirdly, what are some real high quality drum sample packs? i'm willing to buy some good packs, not necessarily dnb sample packs but just high quality drum samples.
 
1) layer your samples. Velocity is key. Look at detuning drums slightly to make them fit perfectly. Keep each drum hit on separate channels, eq each sound, compress what you need to (but not every sound).

Take a look at reverb (really good for giving drums a place in the room - Logic's 'Space Desinger' is funky-fresh.

Delays work well on percussion, you can input like 2 bongo hits and turn it into some jokes patter using echos & delays.

2) Not sure what software your using, I've only ever really used Logic so I'm afraid I can only give you advice fgrom there. But to create snare rolls take a look at the Hyper editor. USe the GM drum Kit or make uyour own, get the snare channel on it's own. Then draw in from there, bounce to audio

3) Vengence house & clubland packs, loopmasters stuff, check record labels websites for artist specific ones i.e "Hospiality resents Nu:tone Sample Pack from Loopmasters blagh blah balh)
 
Why not sample a drum roll and chop it up? The track you posted is one break beat eq'd well and slightly distorted (possibly something layered under the kicks). And imo that will get you the best results and much faster.

If sampling really isn't your thing, find a sample pack with individual snares hit at different intensities. Remember when you hit a snare a different strengths, the volume is not the only thing changing: the shape/duration of the transient will change and frequency content will be altered (typically duller the softer you hit it but more complex than eq).

The packs I have worked with are geared more for rock, so you will need to rely on eq heavily and possibly layering to alter timbres which gets quite tricky when trying to match snare intensities.
If you want it to sound really natural you cannot have your rolls quantized. Luckily if you move hits off the grid even 10ms (< 64th note), the ear will feel this.

If there is just one thing I'm good at, it is chopping drum rolls:
 
Sounds like a drum solo chopped to pieces. No rocket science.

Dont think in one shots, rather phrases (pitch/timestretch on forehand)This will keep it humanized.
 
They Way I personally do my drums is probably different than most people here. Being a drummer of just over 10 years i take 1 shots from my own drumset, and layer them with themselves... So i may record a tom from right next to it and a few feet away then layer them... also drum rolls and double strokes are almost never perfectly in time when played by a human drummer so turn off your snap to grid and make your "perfect" drums a little more imperfect.

Also a way to get real sounding hi hats is to use some sort of sampler like Fl Studios FPC... set it up so that each hi hat sound stops the other hi hat sounds that way if you hit an open hat and then a closed one it sounds more real.

Once you have your real kit 1 shots sounding good you may want to layer in a chopped up break to get a different tone out of your drums. Pitch shifting things slightly can also do this.

Essentially what I'm saying is instead of haven't perfect drums aim for less than perfect... his hi hat samples for instance sound pitch shifted up a bit and his snare rolls aren't perfect in time ... try to emulate a human playing the drums as much as you can.
 
good tips guys.

my method at the moment is to construct a nice sounding snare out of 2 or 3 snare samples each eq'd and processed and tweaked to shit and then find a good kick (i find kick doesn't need as much processing) and real good hi hat samples and then it's all about dynamics and velocities especially in the hats. add in a shaker and just with those elements you can get a real good, simple yet pro sounding dnb sound.

but yeah, i'm looking for a more busy, hectic sound. i have almost zero experience with breaks and chopping or whatever, all the shit i've done has been single note beat construction. i might try getting some breaks and fucking with them.

edit: what i want to avoid though, is constructing beats that sound really obviously like you've just got a break and chopped it up and slapped it in. i'm aiming more for the ultra-processed and thought out noisia sound where every single hit has been processed to shit. think moonway renegade. that shit is amazing.
 
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so when you say 3 breaks and 2 percussion do you mean you used the best bits from 3 breaks and chopped em together then used 2 percussion loops over the top?
 
Actually no. There's 3 breaks playing continuously. There's impeach, amen and one really noisy open hihat funk break, can't remember the name. The amen has been sidechained to the single shot kick and snare to keep it down, just give that hiss between the main hits. Main body of the hihats and the top of the snare comes from the impeach break. There's also a highpassed think in there, and another tambourine loop cut up. Think hits at 8Khz and the other tamb goes a little higher.

Kicks and snares all hit at the same time in all breaks and the single hits. It's only the ghost hits in rolls that have different bits from different breaks to make them sound different from each other. Some small hits have the kick from impeach, some have that small snare roll from the amen and the third break. Some use the think snare.

---------- Post added at 11:31 ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 ----------

Here's the different layers so you can see what's going on inside: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12436744/Reso-layers.rar
 
Actually no. There's 3 breaks playing continuously. There's impeach, amen and one really noisy open hihat funk break, can't remember the name. The amen has been sidechained to the single shot kick and snare to keep it down, just give that hiss between the main hits. Main body of the hihats and the top of the snare comes from the impeach break. There's also a highpassed think in there, and another tambourine loop cut up. Think hits at 8Khz and the other tamb goes a little higher.

Kicks and snares all hit at the same time in all breaks and the single hits. It's only the ghost hits in rolls that have different bits from different breaks to make them sound different from each other. Some small hits have the kick from impeach, some have that small snare roll from the amen and the third break. Some use the think snare.

---------- Post added at 11:31 ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 ----------

Here's the different layers so you can see what's going on inside: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12436744/Reso-layers.rar

ahh, interesting. so they're all playing at once, albeit in different manners of filtering etc. when you say all breaks have the kicks and hits on the same beats, what happens if you have your snare on, say, beat 2 and the and of 4? then obviously all the hits will be off.
 
what happens if you have your snare on, say, beat 2 and the and of 4? then obviously all the hits will be off.

I can't say I understand what you mean :confused:

Obviously you can experiment with moving the hits around. You'll just lose a lot of force from the main hits if you dont land them together. I've cut all these breaks pretty accurately into single hits because I think it would just make a mess if you have 3 breaks going with loose cutting and groove.
 
what i meant was, you are saying that basically all breaks have the snare on 2 and 4 and the kick on at least 1 and 3 or maybe 3 and. what i meant was, what if your tune has the snare on beat 2 and 4 and but obviously then you'd chop the break to how you feel.

i got some breaks a few hours ago and experimented, even just adding a break over a simple beat adds so much to it without even any processing.
 
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