Help with making better sounding drums

[mattus123]

Hey guys

jsut wondering if there are any little tips and tricks you have (and would like to share) in regards to making the drum kit. The more ive gotten into production, the more ive realised how much of the track relies on the drums (especially the kick).

I have also noticed that mine just dont sound quite as nice as the professional sounding tracks

I basically just use vengeance samples and apply the odd effect (most often just a compresser) to them with a little bit of EQing

Occasionally i have tried making my own kick drum by sampling a sine wave, but that didnt work too well for me

Is that kind of on the right track, or are there some things im missing?

Cheers

[wrxfiend]

I usually sample mine from break records, but hip hop calls for a crustier type of drum. Heaps of good drum kits out there, check some out on you tube before you buy any tho. I've heard a lot of guys mention tuning the kick to match the root key of your track, but i havent managed to do this myself yet. I just eq my drums, maybe add some reverb or echo to stretch out my snares too.

(edit) forgot to mention layering, this is putting a few samples on each pad (mpc) or triggering multiples in your daw.

for example one long kick, one short pan them each way a bit, delay one etc. adds depth to your sound.

[russell]

what DAW do you use?

[GREMM1S]

I like a really punchy kick so mine are usually two or three sounds.

A basic kick, a snare and a ride or something.

[street]

Try and find isolated kicks from Hardwell/Hard Rock Sofa type tracks and use them as a reference.

[mattus123]

cheers for the tips guys

russle: i use Ableton, but i figure the idea behind creating good drums can be replicated the same over all DAWs

Street: i do use other tracks as a reference for creating a kick, thats how i notice mine dont sound as great. i was wondering if there are any tips you know of that would make them sound better?

u should know.. ur kicks are baws!

[street]

If you do find a good kick there is no reason you can't use it. I'm sure Hardwell has just used a Vengeance sample anyway.

Just don't try and over complicate it. I used to layer and process like 3-4 kick drums thinking that was the way to get the biggest kick drum possible, but now I just try and find 1 kick which is good enough that it doesn't need any processing or layering.

[mattus123]

ahk maybe thats the problem, im trying to do too much to it

Cheers

[legunner]

I have like 5 kick drums I like that I use in most tracks. I usually eq and compress, sometimes.