Layering multiple breaks

[oquie]

Hey everyone,

I'm brand new to this forum but not production. I have a question that i know a lot of you may find basic but i have been struggling with.


What have some of you found to be the best way to layer two breakbeats/mash up. Say the Think and Amen or whatnot. Any tips? Say i slice them up in ReCycle and have them running at the same tempo?

Is it always best to program a two step for them both to run to first?

EQ/Compression tricks?

Any tips on sequencing?

Anything would be great as I'm struggling to get them sounding right when running together at the same time



Thanks in advance, oquie

 

[logikz]

if you cut the break up hit by hit and reseqence it, youll almost certainly loose the drummers original flow. doesnt have to be a bad thing at all, im just saying. if you want jungle and not drummachine, cut the break up in bigger chunks.

a typical cut up for me looks like this:
sample1: kick+hi
sample2: snare1+roll
sample3: roll
sample4: snare2+hi+shaker
pretty obvious i know, but it keeps the flow.

if you do have two breaks running on top of each other, just see to it that a) they dont sound all too similar and b) the breaks have their impact on different frequency groups. get a parametric EQ and a multiband compressor and tweak them right.

 

[oquie]

Hey,

Thanks so much for responding.

When you said multipress and EQ do you mean by sending both track signals that the breaks occupy to a bus to go through at once or individually?


Thanks, and anymore deails? People come on!


I'm sure tons of you have tips or comments/questions concerning this.


Thanks, oquie

 

[kama]

I'd suggest two eq's and one compressor. So you can boost a certain area in the other break while decreasing the other on the same area, then the compressor takes car of the rest.

 

[· ideal ·]

yo,

also new to this forum, but not to production....


it's all about gating breaks....by setting a gate with high threshold, you can cut the hi-hats and mid-range percussion out of layerd breaks while still keeping their flava....nothing sounds worse than 500 hi-hats all at once

 

[puzl munkey]

I usually use sliced/chopped breaks as layer decorations or as fills. I pretty much always have stronger (more pronounced) sounding drums as a 2 step sort of anchor. these are pretty much always single drum hit samples rather than chopped breaks. like an 808 boom kick for instance layered with some other kick drum. then the break mash ups can be used as flavor to provide a certain type of swing or movement.

as far as layering multiple breaks.... definitely play with eq's and filters.... for example, you could have one break with a high pass and another with a low pass; so that neither are really conflicting on the same frequency. distortion is also fun to play with.... combined with a filter and compression or whatever. tons of possibilities.

anyways, hope something in there helped. experimentation is usually the key to finding your own particular sound..

 

[moka]

The secret to layering breaks is: 1) proper level'n and EQ'n 2) picking two breaks that work with each other. I've found that cutting breaks up and trying to quantize them usually ends up taking away from the flow of the break, which is why I am using it in the first place. As for Eq'n, remember it is distructive to your overall sound. If you're doing more than a simple notch or low/high pass shelf, you probably need another break or to cut out the hit that you're trying to eq out all together.

 

[Serum]

Make sure you only got one main kick and snare with low end in them for impact, then other high end stuff to give it whatever kind of flow you're looking for, or to add character to the main kick and snare.

To make a real hard hitting kick and snare i distort them loads, then apply a big boost to the main impact frequency of the drum (about 100hz for kick 250 for snare usually works) and on a snare take out the real low freqs (below 150hz, possibly higher) then compress them back to a normal shape again (before comp it will sound terrible, then afterwards it will sound great).
Good comp settings are

Attack 10-20
Release - doesn't tend to matter on a single drum hit unless it's a long one, do to taste
Threshold - Drop quite a bit below the peak, need to shave a lot off in this case
Ratio - 1 : 5 (or is it 5 : 1)

I tend to sequence the break, apply all the FX to get it the way I like then turn the bpm right down and bounce to a wav, before taking it into recycle and turning it to a soundfont drumkit, so you got all the sounds you made but aren't tied down to a certain pattern or BPM or pitch etc