Ableton Forum

How do you go about making your beats "fat."

Never thought I'd actually ask that..

Do you layer the kicks and snares? Do you overdub them or are they all in separate tracks?

Impulse, drum rack, etc?

Also what types of music are you making just so I can ID certain techniques with different genres.

Thanks!!

i've been trying to achieve this for a while now For me atm i would say my drums sound the worst out of my instruments in the mix imo.

i usually use sampler to host my drum hits and drop them into a drum rack. i layer kicks & snare/claps and occasionally hi-hats. i usually use at least one acoustic kick and one acoustic snare in the layers to give it a grittier/"realer" sound. i almost always put a drum compressor on a return track and sidechain the various hits.

that being said, i'm still never 100% happy with the drum mix. there's always some sort of trade-off, its seems!

Side chain compression and proper choice of accompanying bass.

Well....I make a variety of noise and crap.

Some kind of crappy music that has a mix of industrial, EBM, Drum and Bass, Noise, 8 bit, Trash, Heavy Metal, and IDM.

Realistic drums: I use one instance of "Drum Kit From Hell" and one instance of "Addictive Drums." I use only the snare and bass from Addictive Drums. The first plug(DKFH) is for attack. It has a really hard crack to it. The bass drum almost has no bass in it. The second plug (Addictive) has all of the tone and warmth.

Pumping Drums: (EBM....anything with 4 on the floor) I do something similar but with samples instead. On sample has the crack and the other has the tone. (Battery, Maschine, Reaktor, Live racks, and loops)

All other drums: I choose the samples wisely. I don't have a lot of samples so I used to take libraries from Reason or Battery and run them through a bunch of plugs then cut em out. (same as above)

Remember it's not so much EQ'ing that helps but it's remembering that there is only a limited space for sound. When making a track tuning a kick or making sure you don't have 2 bass lines hogging up the low end is important. In my case I love distortion and bit reduction to death but I have to choose when to use them. I can't have it on both the bass and the drums. It just sounds like mush.

My basic advice: always at least 2 sounds. 1 for feel and 1 for sound (character).

aizo wrote: My basic advice: always at least 2 sounds. 1 for feel and 1 for sound (character).

I like this advice! It's kind of the same concept as adding sub bass with your actual bass line - one you can hear, the other you can feel. I definitely think it's all about layering complimentary samples, and eq'ing them to work with eachother so they don't clash or get muddy. For a snare, you'll want one sample that is really snappy, while the other one is softer with a longer decay/sustain to fill it out. Sometimes you have to edit them to make sure they hit at the right time, and tune them if one is slightly off pitch. Can anyone elaborate on the sidechaining? I know you want to sidechain your bass with the kick in some cases, but what other sidechaining do you do with your drums?

the most important thing is to start with the right sounds I think. If you pick the right kick and snare, you almost don't need to do anything from basic eqing, some compression, or not even. Really its like cooking, if the ingredients are not good, it won't work. Spend some time making your own, or just going through samples and you will get to/find what you need. Don't go too crazy with eq, compression, processing because it won't make much difference if you are starting out with the 'wrong' sounds

http://bit.ly/sz2EOT

I've recently been trying to figure this out for dubstep/dnb drums, and I've found the following tutorial, and the rack that is linked in the info section, to be pretty useful for getting a solid kick with lots of presence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs94kiOlR3c
you can also modify it a bit to make a good snare layering rack, just make sure you drop your individual samples into the simpler instruments 3 sample load windows and tweak to taste.

Serra wrote:the most important thing is to start with the right sounds I think. If you pick the right kick and snare, you almost don't need to do anything from basic eqing, some compression, or not even. Really its like cooking, if the ingredients are not good, it won't work. Spend some time making your own, or just going through samples and you will get to/find what you need. Don't go too crazy with eq, compression, processing because it won't make much difference if you are starting out with the 'wrong' sounds

http://bit.ly/sz2EOT

^^^This!

Who layers kicks and drums? I tried it a few times and it almost blew out my speakers. All you have to do is pick decent samples and learn how to mix, which means learning how to adjust gain. I wish someone had told me that when I started.

You should be able to make a decent mix without any compression and just using hp filters. Adding compression and effects after that....should make it soar.

vvaterspots wrote: Who layers kicks and drums? I tried it a few times and it almost blew out my speakers.

Well then my suggestion to you would be:

vvaterspots wrote:learn how to mix, which means learning how to adjust gain.

you know, and use EQ, multiband dynamics, etc, which will let you isolate the parts you like from multiple samples, and then use those to build your own unique hits. It's not about smashing 3 full drum sounds on top of one another, nobody would do that (you being the exception apparently), but plenty of people layer hits, it has more to do with crafting your own unique sound from the best parts of different samples, surely one could synthesize their own as well, or use single samples, but this method is just as valid. Sure you could just go out and buy a vengeance pack and use the same kick/snare hit everyone else is using, but why not take 3 separate ones and turn them into something new?

*bookmark*

another great tut....vespers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka39zTpP ... re=related

good samples to start with is key...