DnB Neuro Style Drums & Percussion

Almighty Alias

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Apr 24, 2012
I've been making dnb for a wile and don't really have to many issues making drums, but the one thing I can't seem to do is get drums like spor, nasty genius, aphex, and other neuro style producers. I have no issue getting nice kicks and snares going, but I can't ever seem to get the nice percussion sounds and patterns they do.

I always make a nice kick and snare pattern with a few samplers and midi notes, then write in a few ghost snares and high hats. Then I'll drop in either some funk breaks or new school dnb breaks from various sample packs. And also sometimes some hi hat or other percussion loops from sample packs. I always sidechain the hats and other percussions to the kick and snare. I always eq the hell out of any breaks I use to get the sound I want.

The thing is, I always end up with nice sounding drums that sound like 70 percent of the dnb I hear... but that's not what I want, I want that dope spor/neuro sounding drums. I think the issue is the percussion more than the kick and snare.

I was just looking for any tips or ideas on how to get something more like what I'm looking for.

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Those producers drums are all phat because they have perfected them over time. There's no single technique you just need to get everything right. I doubt you'll find many answers from people who aren't spor or aphex.
A couple of things I might suggest:
- not eqing the hell out of breaks???
- not sidechaining percussion to kick and snare
- grab a track with drums you like and analyse it carefully then try to replicate it.
- also remember that your never going to get the perfect completed punchy clean sound that their tracks / drums have without getting ur track mastered.
 
Add different percussion in different layers, don't just bang out patterns with all bongos, shakers, a million hat samples and clickety sounds all togetyher. Group stuff together and make patterns for each group, bus them together and apply filters etc.
 
A couple of things I might suggest:
- not eqing the hell out of breaks???

Not sure why's there's question marks on that, but yea.. eq the hell out of the breaks. That's the only way your gonna keep the frequancys you want and get rid of the rest. I guess maybe most people just drop the break in raw and then layer their kick and snare over it, but you can only get so far that way. I tend to get my kick and snare going, then drop breaks in, chop them up and eq them only include the sounds from the break I want. I guess there's thoughs rare times where the break won't need to much eq'ing to sit right.


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Add different percussion in different layers, don't just bang out patterns with all bongos, shakers, a million hat samples and clickety sounds all togetyher. Group stuff together and make patterns for each group, bus them together and apply filters etc.

Humm, maybe I do need less sounds. A lot of the really good drums I hear don't have to much going on other than the kick, snare, and a few percussions. But the few percussions they have seem to "make" the drums. Some of the really nice neuro kind of drums seem to have this "air" in them. Something that fills the space between the kicks and snares, but at times doesn't even seem audible. I thought this was from carfully eq'ed breaks. I've even messed with differant colors of noise and volume automation.

Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2
 
One key thing is to have percussion hits fill up the space between the kick and snare pattern. What I mean by that is your basic 2 step pattern is occupying only 4 beats out of the 16 in a measure. By placing more single hit's (subtle rimshots, hat hit, etc.) in between the kick and snare, you're going to create more movement within the main kit. Once you have the main kit feeling cohesive & progressive, then high pass some breaks and start experimenting...it's the very subtle high passed breaks that will create the mid-high frequency "air" you're hearing. That "air" can also be achieved by have a continuous cymbal hit playing. If you explore that option, be sure it's properly EQ'd and panned somewhere nice in the mix where you can just barely hear it.

Cheers.
 
Could be you're using the wrong hits for the style you want, trial and error with different samples is what I'd do.
 
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