Drum Sampling: collecting drum samples.
0 Comments Published by the missing link on 9.06.2006 at 6:19 AM.
So, how is it done?
Ok, first of all - you need a serious bank of samples.
thought 30 bass drums samples will do? definitely not. i have more than 5 gigs of drums samples, and i keep collecting them.
What are we looking for?
1. shiny clean laboratory created high quality samples.
2. dirty and grimy samples.
3. hip hop sounding drums.
4. other drums - could be sounds made for electro\trance music, old drum machine sounds, synthesised samples, rock drum samples, and generally weird noises we might find useful or inspiring.
Where do we find all this?
1. that's the easiest. there are so many drums sound on the Internet.
if you spend enough time looking you can always find more free samples.
2. drum kits and banks for sell.
Tip: Download everything you find. don't filter out samples that you don't think are useful, or samples that sound bad or dirty. I'll explain later.
3. BEST: old records. just hook up your turntable (or even grandma's old one) to your computer and record drum shot off the songs.
4. Cd's also work well. just go over all your Cd's, and sample even full songs, then go over the song in your favorite sound editor (this one's mine - a free simple one), look for quiet spots and 'clean' hits - a free bass drum, a clean snare, a hat, crash, cow bell... whatever you can find.
Notice: - these are be your most used and most powerful samples. get as much as you can. i guess these days young kids have more MP3's then Cd's, but try to ask around - take albums from your older brothers, from friends, parents, start buying, whatever... Don't sample off MP3's, unless its a really good shot and the file is 320Kbps.
5. synthesize sounds. there a lot of ways to do this, I'll have another post about that.
6. record sounds. beatboxing, banging on pots, clapping your hands, whatever.
What do you do with those sample?
First of all, make sure you have a Directory ready on your hard drive (i recommend having a separate hard drive for samples, more about that in the optimization post).
You need to have a separate directory for each category you think of - BD (bass drum) , SD, HH, percussion, rides, drums machines, real drums, etc.
Its really a pain in the ass trying to find a bass drum in a general mixed directory, when you have thousands of wav files.
Speaking of which - try to keep all your samples in .wav or aiff format files, 44,100Khz, and 16 or 24bits. If you have the time, its a good idea to make sure all your BD samples are mono, it might save you a lot of trouble later.
Next thing you wanna do is edit the samples. try to chop them up in your wave editor and
1. cut the quite parts out.
2. try to keep all the tails, not chopping the sample before it ends.
3. if there's a little bit of noise before or after the sample, keep a couple of milliseconds of it. I'll explain later.
4. If you are editing a loop, try to keep all the samples you chop in the same directory. you could use this later as a chopped loop. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll talk about that in some other post).
5. normalize them. make sure they are playing at the highest volume without being distorted.
(Sometimes i use the normalize function, some time i manually turn up the gain step by step to avoid distortion).
6. play with them. try to get as many different samples from each sample. Try EQing, or compressing, cutting, reversing, putting it through equipment you have - tubes, amps, compressors, effects, anything you can think of.
Creativity starts here, with the samples you use. unique sounding samples might inspire you while working on a beat, or make your work sound more interesting and unique.
Sound like hard work? Well, it is. What i usually do is when i hear a song with a great sample on it, i save it to my hard disk and leave it in a "Ready to chop" folder.
Every 8-10 weeks, when i have a bad day and none of the beats i'm working on sound good (more on this here *link coming soon*), i'll just sit and chop up samples the whole day. i enjoy it very much, i don't know if i'm sick, are are we all sound freaks and gearsluts.:)
I'll have some free samples out of my own collection posted from time to time, and i'll have some links to great free resources on the net, so keep posting.
I know most samples you buy for money suck (why is that??), but i hope i would able to recommend some banks one day, it is the easiest way to get clean samples.
Ok, first of all - you need a serious bank of samples.
thought 30 bass drums samples will do? definitely not. i have more than 5 gigs of drums samples, and i keep collecting them.
What are we looking for?
1. shiny clean laboratory created high quality samples.
2. dirty and grimy samples.
3. hip hop sounding drums.
4. other drums - could be sounds made for electro\trance music, old drum machine sounds, synthesised samples, rock drum samples, and generally weird noises we might find useful or inspiring.
Where do we find all this?
1. that's the easiest. there are so many drums sound on the Internet.
if you spend enough time looking you can always find more free samples.
2. drum kits and banks for sell.
Tip: Download everything you find. don't filter out samples that you don't think are useful, or samples that sound bad or dirty. I'll explain later.
3. BEST: old records. just hook up your turntable (or even grandma's old one) to your computer and record drum shot off the songs.
4. Cd's also work well. just go over all your Cd's, and sample even full songs, then go over the song in your favorite sound editor (this one's mine - a free simple one), look for quiet spots and 'clean' hits - a free bass drum, a clean snare, a hat, crash, cow bell... whatever you can find.
Notice: - these are be your most used and most powerful samples. get as much as you can. i guess these days young kids have more MP3's then Cd's, but try to ask around - take albums from your older brothers, from friends, parents, start buying, whatever... Don't sample off MP3's, unless its a really good shot and the file is 320Kbps.
5. synthesize sounds. there a lot of ways to do this, I'll have another post about that.
6. record sounds. beatboxing, banging on pots, clapping your hands, whatever.
What do you do with those sample?
First of all, make sure you have a Directory ready on your hard drive (i recommend having a separate hard drive for samples, more about that in the optimization post).
You need to have a separate directory for each category you think of - BD (bass drum) , SD, HH, percussion, rides, drums machines, real drums, etc.
Its really a pain in the ass trying to find a bass drum in a general mixed directory, when you have thousands of wav files.
Speaking of which - try to keep all your samples in .wav or aiff format files, 44,100Khz, and 16 or 24bits. If you have the time, its a good idea to make sure all your BD samples are mono, it might save you a lot of trouble later.
Next thing you wanna do is edit the samples. try to chop them up in your wave editor and
1. cut the quite parts out.
2. try to keep all the tails, not chopping the sample before it ends.
3. if there's a little bit of noise before or after the sample, keep a couple of milliseconds of it. I'll explain later.
4. If you are editing a loop, try to keep all the samples you chop in the same directory. you could use this later as a chopped loop. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll talk about that in some other post).
5. normalize them. make sure they are playing at the highest volume without being distorted.
(Sometimes i use the normalize function, some time i manually turn up the gain step by step to avoid distortion).
6. play with them. try to get as many different samples from each sample. Try EQing, or compressing, cutting, reversing, putting it through equipment you have - tubes, amps, compressors, effects, anything you can think of.
Creativity starts here, with the samples you use. unique sounding samples might inspire you while working on a beat, or make your work sound more interesting and unique.
Sound like hard work? Well, it is. What i usually do is when i hear a song with a great sample on it, i save it to my hard disk and leave it in a "Ready to chop" folder.
Every 8-10 weeks, when i have a bad day and none of the beats i'm working on sound good (more on this here *link coming soon*), i'll just sit and chop up samples the whole day. i enjoy it very much, i don't know if i'm sick, are are we all sound freaks and gearsluts.:)
I'll have some free samples out of my own collection posted from time to time, and i'll have some links to great free resources on the net, so keep posting.
I know most samples you buy for money suck (why is that??), but i hope i would able to recommend some banks one day, it is the easiest way to get clean samples.
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