Hey! Does anyone knows how to get that crispy drum sounds like Shellback, Martin and Blanco? Are there any sample packs with similar sounds? Thanks!! :)
It might be worth checking out some of the XLN Audio Addictive Drums packs, seeings we now know Max is involved with the company. But aside from that, I definitely think a lot of those sounds are "bit crushed" to give them the crispy sound you're talking about. The drums in "Inside Out" by Britney are a good example.
Hey! I think it's a mixture of good sounding samples and compression / eq / hallrooms...
Obviously the drums are mixed in a drum group that is also compressed together
so they glue and sound like one kit . You can also eq this group track to give it more bottom and
high frequencies. I do this also in my mixes. It really gives power to the drums.
Then there's another thing called parallel compression where you send amounts of
every kitpiece to another bus and smash them really heavy together with a compressor
and mix it to the original drum track a lot quieter of course. Gives it a sort of atmosphere and room
really subtle though!!!
Good mix tips! I thought maybe jv2612 was talking about the overly popular digital distortion that's being used at the moment (thanks to dubstep's influence). Either way, you'll find plenty of samples around that are bit crushed, and there are even sampled acoustic drum kits that are already compressed and equalized if that's not your strong point.
I'm talking about mainly drums like Drop Dead Beautiful or Dynamite, or something like Shellback's last works with martin (Your Body as example)
Thanks for the tips also!!
Definitely check out something like the "Reel Machines" Adpak for Addictive Drums. Of course you have to have Addictive Drums to make use of the samples, but the site says they come bundled for $209 if that's in your ball park. If not there are plenty of other similar electro packs out there. But have a listen to some of the demos for this pack, and remember it's just a small taste of what will be available to you. Most of Max, Shellback and Luke's drums are layered beyond belief with snare hits, hand claps, finger clicks and what not. So if you start with a good electro kit and build up some layers, you will definitely be on your way.
http://www.xlnaudio.com/en/products/view/15 (http://www.xlnaudio.com/en/products/view/15)
Drum sound is definitely an issue for me, but I can't see myself being able to buy Addictive Drums any (life)time soon.
In fact, being lucky enough to have an acoustic drum kit on hand, I'm thinking about trying to sample my own kit. Obviously the unaltered natural sound won't be acceptable for pop production, but with a heavy amount of compression, EQ, layering (eventually) and whatever else I can put it through, I'm very interested to see how my end result turns out.
I think my best chance of getting anything half-decent from the process is probably with kick drum samples, as an acoustic snare will probably always sound a bit natural* no matter what.
The big plus from this process, as I see it, is that it's *not* midi :D so hopefully the fact that they are audio samples means they'll be at least a bit fat sounding!
*pop music no-no! ;)
I can pretty much get all drums sound the same like them :)
That's what they use to get huge drum sounds:
Tons Layering
If you had one kick. They have 8 or nine. Each kick is there for a reason. Either to give the drums a more roomy sound, more bottom. Whatever is needed.
Same with layering for the snare hihats etc.
Panning
I've seen some productions of Max Martin and know they're panning things a lot to get a wider and bigger sound.
Parallel Compression
This has already been mentioned above. Simply strap a compressor over a duplicate of the drum tracks and compress things really hard. Fade in smoothly just to get a larger and tighter drum sound. Keep in mind, that they use outboard gear to process their drums which helps a lot to get a fatter sound.
Sounds
Start with quality and superb pre-mixed samples. I've heard some of Max Drum Samples and they're all already EQd and fit nicely together. As said each sound does add something. Whether it brings a bigger bottom or crispy attack sound. Sometimes I hear pretty old samples layered. Max by the way once said that he's lazy and uses the same drums over and over again and simply adds something new from time to time.
With these tips and hard work you should be able to get all drum sounds like them.
Quote from: growapear on November 22, 2012, 03:42:34 PM
The big plus from this process, as I see it, is that it's *not* midi :D so hopefully the fact that they are audio samples means they'll be at least a bit fat sounding!
Remember though that MIDI is just the means of communicating between devices, so even to trigger your samples you're still using MIDI. :D I know what you're getting at though, it's better to use sampled real instruments rather than synth generated ones! If you're talking about acoustic drum sounds then I'd agree for sure. But as far as electro sounding stuff goes, it's pretty much all synth generated anyway. If you wanted to record a pop/rock track, you could do everything with samples and synths (except for guitars I'd say) and get amazing results. Studios can spend days just tuning and micing a kit to get what they're after, so I'm more than happy to use samples instead haha.
After a few hours of experimenting on drum sounds, all I can say is that it takes a combination of acoustic and electronic drums and serious amount of layering. I would use real drums but I lack the time to get to the studio. For my part I used Toontrack's Superior Drummer2 and specifically I used the Electronic EZX and Vintage & custom kit and had them multi out in separate aux tracks in Pro Tools. Also used some Boom for the snare sounds. After that I used heavy compression (bomb-factory and some limiters) on each kit and some EQ and additional comp. like iZotope Alloy2 and L2. I tried the same pattern with other acoustic kits afterwards and pretty much I made a pretty similar drum sound, I'd say closer to Shellback's drum sounds.
@pete729
I finally got round to recording some samples from my acoustic kit today and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.
I messed around with differing drum head/ reso head tightness, micing and room ambience (or lack of) to try and get a variety of sounds, and I tried to make them sound as good as possible before *anything* had been done from Plug-Ins as I am a firm believer in the necessity to start out with good sounds!
The kick samples I liked I then layered (only 3 or 4 for now) and managed to occupy a decent frequency range, but whether it sounds good sitting in a track remains to be seen. Very happy overall, and I was amazed at how electronic the samples sounded after just EQing.
I also tried recording snare samples, which I had less optimism about. These came out Ok but for now I can't shake the natural sound of an acoustic snare. I mic'd the bottom to really get the 'snares' and was pleased with that, which has given me some nice, trebly 'military' snare type samples which I'll try and throw in somewhere.
"If you had one kick. They have 8 or nine. Each kick is there for a reason. Either to give the drums a more roomy sound, more bottom. Whatever is needed."
be careful though when layering kicks, lower frequencies are really easy to phase cancel and you could lose a lot of punch from layering the wrong sounds. sometimes it's better to use one kick for the bass layer, and then high pass all other layers to mitigate phase problems.
i think everyone in the kemosabe/maratone camp uses bit crushing on a lot of their drums/synths... I don't know why they like it so much :-P but it appears on their bass guitars, kick/snare samples, even vocals.
since addictive drums are being mentioned — i think most of the songs mentioned in this thread do not actually use addictive drums samples (don't quote me on this though hehe), it sounds mostly like single shots rather than library drums.
if you want to sound like benny/shellback/max/luke etc, single shot samples are the way to go. a cool tip: if you have a drum library like addictive drums, mute all of the 'mics' besides the room/overhead, and layer that behind your single shot samples (good for chorus sections, or any part that needs a more open drum sound).
Quote from: rhythmic5 on February 23, 2013, 01:37:44 PM
"If you had one kick. They have 8 or nine. Each kick is there for a reason. Either to give the drums a more roomy sound, more bottom. Whatever is needed."
be careful though when layering kicks, lower frequencies are really easy to phase cancel and you could lose a lot of punch from layering the wrong sounds. sometimes it's better to use one kick for the bass layer, and then high pass all other layers to mitigate phase problems.
You sure should know what you do when playing with techniques the PROs do.
Quote from: rhythmic5 on February 23, 2013, 01:37:44 PM
i think everyone in the kemosabe/maratone camp uses bit crushing on a lot of their drums/synths... I don't know why they like it so much :-P but it appears on their bass guitars, kick/snare samples, even vocals.
Because distortion makes sounds more present in a mix. especially bass. on synths it adds a dirty sound which makes boring synths sound more interesting.
Compression EQ and subtle distortion (Overdrive), specially on the high frequency stuff.
You can make a sub channel filter out lows and keep everything above 1k and then add any distortion effect to it and play with the send knob to add the effect to any sound.
I used a Vengeance kick and a snareclap in the verse and layered with Addictive Drums to make it bigger in the chorus in this pop track I made
https://soundcloud.com/danielsilvestri/go-crazy (https://soundcloud.com/danielsilvestri/go-crazy)
I'm not a huge fan of layering but it is really necessary, but, as Rhytmic5 said, be careful because it's easy to think it sounds more powerful only because you hear it louder or because it's hitting the master limiter harder than a single one... that's why they compress in parallel and CLIP the drum buss in mixing, not in mastering. But the low frequency mess you'll end up with will make your kick weaker in the end ;) make those subs clean as you can and filter anything else (layered kicks too). I filtered the subs of the acoustic drums in that track, wild filtering can make you lose the "glue" (and no, you won't have it back with a 2K$ hardware compressor) but you have to make some order, you can't just throw in a zillion drum hits hoping that it will eventually sound good, just find those 2-3 sounds that perfectly fit together and that's it, quantity doesn't replace quality.
my2cents
Vengeance are some of the best sample library out there, Luke uses these all the time.
You know who omeone who uses a lot of Addictive drums: Ryan Tedder.
They're good but you have to be careful, the problem with commercial sample libraries is that they're not made to do great records... they're made to be appealing, and these 2 things don't always belong the same place. They're heavily processed, limited to hell, I often find myself putting a transient designer just to smoothen up the attack, they are good in solo but then you start compressing on the buss and putting a limiter on the master and the kick start to have less bass than the snare... :-\
Yes, that's right. But it takes some time to build your own sound and the best way to learn is using some "build" stuff -I don't know how to say it well- just to know how to replicate the sound you want to get.
In the Ryan Tedder case, I think he doesn't waste too much time on drums, focusing his craft in songwriting and melodies... just like Max. But I think Cirkut or Luke are more into the sound designing/music production side of music.
Yeah that's what I really like about Cirkut since I come from EDM, sound design is so important to me :P
What I DON'T like about Tedder drums is that they don't allow any build up or progression of the arrangement, it's like ON/OFF on the rhythmic, I guess this give him much more freedom on composition and leaves room for the singer performance but I find this as an improved 101 technique of producing records. I think Max Martin is a good compromise in between these 2, he tends to create progression with arrangement and tiny particulars but at least he does! :D
Quote from: j.fco.morales on August 26, 2013, 02:23:54 AM
Yes, that's right. But it takes some time to build your own sound and the best way to learn is using some "build" stuff -I don't know how to say it well- just to know how to replicate the sound you want to get.
In the Ryan Tedder case, I think he doesn't waste too much time on drums, focusing his craft in songwriting and melodies... just like Max. But I think Cirkut or Luke are more into the sound designing/music production side of music.
You're right, and that's exactly why Luke loves a writing/production team for every song, because he wants the best song possible in every aspect and with every record he's involved in. I'd say Luke is much more involved in the songwriting process and is the watching eye of each project, but having Cirkut and other songwriters by his side enables him to do it. That's why his records are a notch above everyone else.
Max is kinda the same way, but his approach is much more similar to a singer/songwriter's since he used to be one.
Quote from: j.fco.morales on August 26, 2013, 12:32:15 AM
Vengeance are some of the best sample library out there, Luke uses these all the time.
You know who omeone who uses a lot of Addictive drums: Ryan Tedder.
i hear the evengeance libraries are ready and processed all you need to do is apply just some eq. they compress and eq everything
does max martin use vengeance libraries too? Really?
Quote from: nznexus on September 27, 2013, 10:02:47 AM
i hear the evengeance libraries are ready and processed all you need to do is apply just some eq. they compress and eq everything
does max martin use vengeance libraries too? Really?
I'm not sure about Max, but Luke does. He said that on the ASCAP conference some time ago, you can find it on full on Youtube!
Pretty sure they all more or less use Vengeance's stuff from time to time as they're industry standard. Vengeance has a sample pack called Pop Essentials that is really good for the Max Martin-y kind of drums. And yes he does shit loads of layering, but that takes good ear and skill. You could use two kicks and get a fat sound, the problem is that you won't get a very "one of a kind" sound. Parallel compression is a very good tip I read some posts back. Little bit of room etc.
also vengeance millenium pop 1 and 2 for synths and organs in nexus vst.
for drums akai 2500 samples layered with other samples like addictive drums from xln audio i think
You guys would be surprised of the samples they use, you probably have them yourselves. It's all about layering and processing. Really heavy processing. Don't be scared to fvck things up; Try everything on drums, from distortion to saturation to bitcrushing even guitar amps, who cares? It gives more character to your sounds. Start with your drums, process them and when you have something you feel excited about, you can start building everything up.
Vengeance, the Deadmau5 drum pack, Ueberschall, Hy2rogen full phat drums series, they cut samples from other songs and from their own songs too.
Quote from: J_A24 on October 21, 2013, 05:38:52 PM
You guys would be surprised of the samples they use, you probably have them yourselves. It's all about layering and processing. Really heavy processing. Don't be scared to fvck things up; Try everything on drums, from distortion to saturation to bitcrushing even guitar amps, who cares? It gives more character to your sounds. Start with your drums, process them and when you have something you feel excited about, you can start building everything up.
Vengeance, the Deadmau5 drum pack, Ueberschall, Hy2rogen full phat drums series, they cut samples from other songs and from their own songs too.
i spoke to a guy who knows swedish house mafia axwell, and asked if he layered his drums they said they were sampling alot of kicks... there is no rules, it just sounds good..
ueberschall is old samples from like 2005...
I'm not that into layering drums in electronic stuff, but in other genres of course...
I'm really feeling the Greg Kurstin drums, but I'm not really sure about the way he makes his sounds: sometimes sounds like a patch, but he recorded drums live... so, maybe he uses both layered.
What do you guys think? Have you heard the Tegan and Sara last record? That's what I mean.
Quote from: j.fco.morales on October 22, 2013, 04:07:25 PM
I'm not that into layering drums in electronic stuff, but in other genres of course...
I'm really feeling the Greg Kurstin drums, but I'm not really sure about the way he makes his sounds: sometimes sounds like a patch, but he recorded drums live... so, maybe he uses both layered.
What do you guys think? Have you heard the Tegan and Sara last record? That's what I mean.
Producers that use live drums, usually they mix the overheads with electronic beats in the chorus of the song to give more power
Quote from: pete729 on October 22, 2013, 04:11:17 PM
Producers that use live drums, usually they mix the overheads with electronic beats in the chorus of the song to give more power
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjgDuImuD_4
Check this out, these kind of drums :)
Quote from: nznexus on October 22, 2013, 09:43:32 AM
i spoke to a guy who knows swedish house mafia axwell, and asked if he layered his drums they said they were sampling alot of kicks... there is no rules, it just sounds good..
ueberschall is old samples from like 2005...
You can make old samples sound new. Specially percussive loops, those are always good to have in hand.