finding this pretty frustrating. through some trial and error and a little education, i’ve come to the part where one can’t really effectively create until one front-loads a lot of the logistic work to enable that expression. one of those things is building out ready-to-go kits for use in with dt or ot.
it’s not going well.
i’m interested to hear how you folks approach this. i’m not really looking at/using loops, instead preferring to use one-shots to build a cohesive kit on the dt. while i have some “kits” that are basically just “samples from the same drum machine”, i’m trying to put together a decent lofi/downtempo/jazz/hip-hop kit built from live drum samples, and finding this is more difficult than i imagined. i have a couple examples i’m trying to use as inspiration, and have found some great articles that talk about the general approach here (e.g.: start with a backbeat/snare you like, and build around it). for me, i think actually finding sounds i want is proving difficult.
open questions:
where are you finding “good” one shots? there are various places like splice, landr, and others with an obtuse “credit” system, but wading through all of that for hours hasn’t been productive so far. are you all seriously virtual-crate-digging for magic?
do you focus on the core elements first, and slowly amass other things over time? as an example, i’m currently hunting for kick/snare/clap/rimshot/hats/etc. that feel cohesive all at once. is it more rational to allow that kit to come together organically?
is anyone here designing their own kits instead using loop slices, synthesized drums, or generic one-shots crafted with amp/adsr/fx tweaks?
i’m currently focused on just one strong kit i really like and will come back to instead of several. should i be thinking more broadly and just hoarding stuff i find?
really hoping to get some broader perspective here to ensure my expectations are realistic, and that i’m not wasting a ton of time doing the wrong thing.
My favourite drum kit is a bunch of multisamples a friend of mine recorded for me on his vintage kit, but I’ve got a bunch of other things that I use from various sources. It depends what you’re after, but these days I like places like Cult Drum Sounds where they give you a hefty amount of raw drums from various eras that I can then play as if they were my own kit. I sample from loops still - I’ve amassed a stupid amount over the years - particular now that I’ve got things like transient designers in my toolkit to make decent one shots out of them, but that won’t often give you a broad range of you want clean toms, rimshots etc
…u would be amazed what a bunch of kitchen sounds could do, once u treat them with the usual suspects…eq, compressors, resampling…
all what’s wet and spacey u leave for later abuse…
u need a bumm…and a tschakk…some short zap…some long zap…some shizzeling along and some tumbeling along…
A simple way to quickly construct a cool kit is to use a cohesive drum machine pack of sample (like, basic 606) from a reliable source (not too overprocessed, not dull neither). Then you layer samples from other sources (foleys, synth, non-boring stuff) to them. That way you dont have to be afraid of having “discoherent” elements, but your stuff isnt going to sound vanilla neither.
…layering sounds…the big little “secret” to many of most unique sonic stuff out there…!
no unforgetable and most intriguing kik ever, that was just made by one single pick of some “right” single sample…
and when it comes to takt…
it offers ALL what u need and could whish for right from the start…
take a start from there and u can always feel sure that ur essentials are layed out already…
Yup, rather than looking for sample it’s probably be less frustrating, in the long terms, to find your comfy way to layer stuff (will it be through this or that DAW, sampler, a mic pointed at two speakers playing a different sample…).
just want to chime in here that i really appreciate the insight so far, thank you for sharing. learning a lot here. have played with layers/resampling a bit (especially using goldbaby’s dirt+layers), but never considered using that approach specifically to design new sounds.
I used to spend time building cohesive kits in advance, and I think it’s a fine approach if it works for you. But in practice I’ve had more success curating samples without worrying about how they’ll be used later — just pick out 10 kicks you like, 10 snare/claps you like, 10 hats, 10 perc, maybe throw in some textural or weird stuff, etc. and you’re off.
Then, when you feel like making music, you’ve got a nice curated (and limited) list of samples ready, and you can use your ears in the moment to see which elements fit together for the patterns you feel like making. Obviously you’re going to tweak your samples as you work, you’ll find ways to fit them to the pattern, you may end up using a kick as a snare sound or a perc as a kick, who knows.
That’s why I don’t spend too much time up front worrying about how the sounds will be used — you gotta trust the music-making process and know that you’ll figure it out when you’re in the moment. Preparation is just about giving you enough materials to let yourself create freely.
Xln are having a sale. I find XO really good for organising samples, and the sequencer is pretty neat as well. The samples get organized on a map, and if you find one you like, its neighbours should have the same quality. Think they have a demo/trial
noticed that what i’m actually using is mostly from paid sample packs.
free stuff is typically too tiresome to dig.
(YMMV, and i might have genre-specific bias)
I bought the Matt Chamberlain Loop Loft packs and never looked back.
Also Legowelts drum pack.
And while I can’t speak from experience about it yet because I have not picked it up, Revival Drum Shop released some huge sample pack of vintage drums that I’m itching to hear.
As far as approach, I like all that old Gretsch stuff, Rogers and Slingerland etc.
And like folks are saying, layer them up and resample.
Here’s what I do. I go to my local music shop. Rent out snares/hats etc as cheap as I can find them for one day. Sample the shit out of individual hits. You’re even more in luck if you got access to a friend with a drum kit.
You should also consider synthesizing a bunch of synth drums. Cymbals are the hardest to make ( Usually just winds up being noise or FM-y jank ), which is why at minimum you should record some real cymbals from somewhere.
The third thing is just to record a bunch of other random sounds and objects around the house or whatnot. You wanna find things that resonate, or have a good texture for layering. Easiest to get is kick sounds, as finding things that thud is pretty easy.
Will this take a long time? Yes, but the sounds will all be your own and you can make whatever you want.
The biggest problem for me is finding possible drum kit parts to record without spending money. Each piece of kit has a certain tone to it and there’s only a few ways you can really change the articulation for one shots. As a joke in my mind I always want to go to the music shop, buy the entire wall of snares and cymbals, then abuse the return policy to return all of them XD
I also go through all of this effort in order to be sure I’m 100% free of copyright. If you look in the fine print of pretty much every VST terms of service, they all say something to the effect of you can’t use it to create sample libraries for sale or redistribution.
I’ve got a big record collection that I’ve been building and pulling drums from for about 20 years now. That’s where I get most of my drum sounds. I’ve also got a few live drum sessions that I recorded, and a few J-Zone break records.
Lately I’ve also made some of my own drum sounds on my synths. I’ve made some really great sounds on my Uno synth in particular. If I use these, I usually put them under my acoustic drum samples to beef them up a little bit. I’ve also got a 606 kit that I use for this.
When I’m actually getting down to business, I start from a break. Sometimes I’ll chop it up on track 1 on the Digitakt. What I wind up doing most often is just using the kick and snare. I’ll layer that with a kick and snare from another sample on track 2. And then I’ll have the hi-hats on track 3. They might come from the same sample as the kicks and snares. They might not. The only rule I tend to follow there is that I’ll mainly use hi-hats from one sample. I don’t mix and match those.
I think drum breaks work better for the Digitakt just because the primary limitation is sample slots not sample time. If I were more into one shots, I’d probably use short drum chains.
Also for context I make sample based hip-hop stuff primarily. And I like to chop my sample first and then figure out the drums. Because I know my samples pretty well it’s easy to let the sample determine the sound of the drums.
I’ve never gotten into building kits personally. I’ll usually just start from scratch picking drum sounds based on what I’m making. A lot of times I’ve made kits beforehand and use them, some of the sounds I end up replacing, so for me it’s like what’s the point of having a kit anyway. Sometimes some of the sounds will work and some won’t depending on what else is going on in the track. So picking samples and sounds on a track by track basis is the way to go for me
Younger me made d&b from classic breaks, then sorta funk/slowed-down-broken-beat stuff using Reason’s built-in kits.
These days I mostly make techno and electro, mostly using an ARmkii for the drums. I tend to make one kit per track and rarely re-use sounds or kits. I usually make a kick with roughly the tone I want first, then the hats or the snare, then go from there. Or I watch sound design tutorials, copy the techniques and build a sketch (usually just a one-bar loop) around that. The mood of the track (and my mood) determines the sounds I make. If the track uses a thick, distorted kick, the rest of the percs will probably have some distortion, or a be clean sound through some reverb for contrast. If the track’s tighter, or groovier, then the kick will be snappier (often FM-y), with less fizz and the other percs could go any which way. I’ve tried copying the 909 rides with the AR cynbals so many times and consistently fail. I’m not that into “rumble bass” but I’ve tried a few times. I don’t like “wasting” the AR’s delay on it, and using samples feels like letting go of the “liveliness” of the AR’s synth engines.
I’m avoiding snares and claps, these days. I want to learn (by doing) more about making stuff groove along without using the backbeat (snare/clap on 2 & 4). This means more use of hats, bell-like tones, drums with body (toms, congas, bongos), their synthetic equivalents, buzzy tones, bleeps and rimshot type sounds.
I’ve tried layering samples, but I suck at it, currently. Recording smacking household tat is fun tho’.
Alot of it hinges on your interface. Eg, drums racks in ableton, one shots on DT, sample chains on OT etc.
When i used the OT as a drum machine, I used sample chains. So all my kicks on 1 track, all snares on 1 track etc. This meant I could quickly build a kit per part, and expand it per track via slice locks.
Over time I found I dont like relying on samples for drum sounds.
I use a TR8-S for all drum duties now. Couldnt be happier. I mainly use the ACB and FM synths, with the odd sample layered in (usually a kick or snare) i save all my kits, and use 1 per track.
I dont care about collecting samples. I have one drum machine, and I use it. The samples I do use, are few.
There’s way too much emphasis on drum sound design in electronic music in my opnion.
Sounds like your workflow is holding you back. Figure out what you enjoy the most. And follow the quickest route to that end.
