wanting to kick my drums

[Iron Keys]

Right, no matter what I do to my kick drums, layering, eq, compression, whatever, they never hammer. I went through a phase ages ago where they would thump. But I cant for the life of me, no matter what I try/read, get the drum to thump. So yeah, kinda ironic im still asking for yet more advice to get my drums slamming

Not to mention I have the vastest selection of shit samples. But some of them are decent enough to use.

So, how do you guys get your drums to whack with a hefty thump?

~2 Fly

 

[2GooD Productions]

Right, no matter what I do to my kick drums, layering, eq, compression, whatever, they never hammer. I went through a phase ages ago where they would thump. But I cant for the life of me, no matter what I try/read, get the drum to thump. So yeah, kinda ironic im still asking for yet more advice to get my drums slamming

Not to mention I have the vastest selection of shit samples. But some of them are decent enough to use.

So, how do you guys get your drums to whack with a hefty thump?

~2 Fly

Just make sure the kick is the most prominent thing in the mix which means reducing the volume on everything else and boosting around 85hz on an eq on the drum/kick track Sometimes you need to drop off under 45-50hz to give the bassline some room to breathe. Once the kick is the loudest thing in the mix then it will always bang. You have to get the balance right, just takes a little practice, but you will get it.

 

[Relic]

You should go ahead and buy some good sounding kits, investment in quality sounds cannot be overstated.

 

[2GooD Productions]

You should go ahead and buy some good sounding kits, investment in quality sounds cannot be overstated.

Yeah great point. I depend so much on a certain drum selection I take that for granted.

 

[SirSedric]

I would second the idea that quality samples are the place to start... depending on your sequencer/DAW, there's plenty of stuff available.

What do you use to make beats?

 

[skidflow]

layer good kick sounds and utalize the parametric eq fam.

 

[berserk]

yeah compression and parametric eq are key

 

[Iron Keys]

Thanks for the suggestions, family.

Yeah I been needing to get some better quality drum samples. Got a large selection, but a lot of it is random ass sounding drums that pretty much suck anyway.

What I found with eq+compression is I end up squashing the life out of the kick. So my last track I opted for eq+compression (to shape the sound), then a limiter. This seemed to have worked.

I use cubase studio 4 to produce, and have been mixing in sonar (as cubase crashes too much when mixing/producing).

~2FLY

 

[Haze47]

have you tried parallel (New York) compression?

basically send you drums (and bass) to a seperate buss (or line mixer) hook up a compressor/limiter in the classic send return config, squash the fuck out of it, say at least 20db of GR (you can do that a number of ways but ultimately bout 20dbs) then add maybe 10-15db of eq at between 80-200, maybe ger some sub action in there and 10dbs at 15k - at this point it will sound shit) mess with the attack and release of the compressor, start with the slowest attack and the fastest release, then adjust until the the drums "pump" in time with the music (what you are listening for is a big compressed sound on the snare that sucks back up to full volume again just before the next snare hits)


then you blend back in the dry signal as required...best of both worlds, transient attack from the dry, and aggressive punch from the compression....

Safe

 

[Iron Keys]

have you tried parallel (New York) compression?

basically send you drums (and bass) to a seperate buss (or line mixer) hook up a compressor/limiter in the classic send return config, squash the fuck out of it, say at least 20db of GR (you can do that a number of ways but ultimately bout 20dbs) then add maybe 10-15db of eq at between 80-200, maybe ger some sub action in there and 10dbs at 15k - at this point it will sound shit) mess with the attack and release of the compressor, start with the slowest attack and the fastest release, then adjust until the the drums "pump" in time with the music (what you are listening for is a big compressed sound on the snare that sucks back up to full volume again just before the next snare hits)


then you blend back in the dry signal as required...best of both worlds, transient attack from the dry, and aggressive punch from the compression....

Safe

I've tried this... but it doesn't seem to work. I've used various tutorials... but it just doesnt seem to make sense.

For example, if you want the compressed signal to have really loud tails to the drums, and not the snap (because you get that from the dry signal) then why do you put the attack to like say 6ms, this allows the initial hit of the drum to be really loud, and the tail to be really quiet...

It just don't make sense to me, i copied every tutorial, but all it results in is a quiet tail and loud hit, and doesn't change anything at all, it just makes me have two drum signals. and I dont get nothing like the results the tutorials have, though im copying them exactly.

Why the fuck?

Heres the setting i was using on the compressor... (from rough average from tutorials

Threshold: 10db (any lower and it dont really get any change)
Ratio: 20
Attack: 6.00 (doing this just gives me really loud initial hits [which if im right, you don't want in the compressed signal?])
Release: 90


Now heres the setting I AM using... (still don't sound any good, but sounds closer...

Threshold: 20db (any lower and it dont really get any change)
Ratio: 20
Attack: 0.01 (I've done this now because it's the only way shit sounds squashed.
Release: 100


I don't get why it doesn't work. !?!!?!?!!:!@:!@!?!?!?!!!?!

Much Love

~2FLY

 

[slik da relic]

add a muffled snare, or other percussion to weak kick drums... works for me... when done right, u'll never know its there.

da relic

 

[UNORTHODOX]

LOL how yall know the problem without hearin it?? OP post an example!! lol

 

[slik da relic]

me personally, is goin by what he's sayin... but i cant understand why ANYONE is havin a prob like that these days, with all the high quality FREE shit u stumble on, on the net... maybe its time to just throw all those useless sounds away, and start anew... no?

da relic

 

[P Floyd]

High Quality Sounds First....

 

[mono]

i don't believe there's a compressor-preset-recipe for hard hitting and good sounding drums, not in my experience. depends on what sounds you work with, what other sounds there are in the beat, what tools you use and what monitoring equipment you have. i'd start with the sounds. there's plenty of drum kits with good drums on the net, like slik said. and in most cases it's not a single compressor on a kick or on a stack of layered kicks that'll make them stick out and fit. it can be much more (reverb, a little mixing, panning, compression on the sum etc.). imo, drums do not always have to stick out for a beat to sound nice. but for that boom bap style it's mostly layering

 

[Icemanbeats]

boosting high frequencies of your kick drum helps them sound punchier.. i like to throw 75hz freqwuency boost on my kicks to get em punchy but also around 100-500 or even further down for more air

also - use punchy samples

what i use is urban fire 4 for a lot of my drums and the cool thing with these is you get stuff amazing kick drums straight away... also u get tools with them like kick enhancers which are juz lil blips of sound that u can add to ur kick like a smaller kick that u can layer on... compression isn't rly necessary if your samples are already big.. but layering is always gonna help if you're stuck.. i find that compression works well on layered drums...

one thing that used to always get my drums muffled was having the bass and kick not separated
make sure you are either EQing/reducing the bass frequencies where ur kick is thumping through or using side chain to allow the kick to cut through.. or both

also - try adding saturation.. you are using cubase 4.. i dunno if u use battery, but it comes with a saturation fx, jus turn up the dial on saturation.. rly helps ur drums sound phatter if needed

 

[Icemanbeats]

also.. forgot to say.. look at your drums in a spectrum analyser vst.. (find a free download spectrum analyser, they are everywhere)

what frequencies are most prominent in your kick drum? the spectrum analyser will tell u.... u can then use this knowledge when arranging your track... don't let anything else conflict too much with that frequency range

 

[scandal]

I would try a plugin like RBass or MaxxBass on your kicks. It will add some thump to your kicks if you tweak em right.

 

[UNORTHODOX]

Just incase you ARE looking for random tips and tricks for thumpage. Heres the greatest thing I've learn in my 4 years of mixing: Mixing is Perception!!! I'll repeate

Mixing Is Perception. what may seem to thump may actually be a weak and soft as a newborn baby. If your outher tracks are Softer that kick will SEEM to thump.
Your bass not seeming "LOW" enough? Cut the lows from everything else! simple.

Every problem you can have can be fixed through changing everything elses perception. If a track is posted THEN we can get specific.

 

[DJ EThical]

I honestly believe is just a issue with the samples or kit you are using. What hardware or software are you using. What are you using for you mixing and EQ?