If you’re composing a standard loop and want to portray a general outline of your song in a fairly straightforward manner, using four bars should be enough. The theme of the song can be condensed into these four musical bars, and the sample should be able to stand on its own; that is, you should not need surrounding music to really give the sample context. You should also add some variance in the drum samples or instruments, and a popular method is to do this toward the end of the forth bar. Keeping the listener comfortable and yet not sure what comes next is the aim of the game here, so remember that variance is key, even in a measly 4-bar loop.

The second most popular number of bars to base a musical loop on is sixteen. Why is this? Well, in hip hop and rap, 16 bars is the standard length for a rapper’s verse. So it turns out that using this figure to structure a loop on is great. Your creative limits are really tested, and to keep things moving through the whole verse length can be quite a challenge. One common tip is to introduce the hi-hats at the half-way point, and this will add another layer to the variance required to develop a great beat. At the end, start working on your pre-chorus skills.

Looking beyond drum samples can expand your horizon a little bit and it actually opens a whole bunch of doors. One common switch-up in a 16 bar loop, for example, is the introduction of a new instrument after 8 bars instead of anything drum-related. However, at this point – or anywhere else in the loop – you could mix up the drums to coincide with this change, and this can be very powerful.

You can even try to see past the instruments and drum hits if you’re serious about arranging a masterpiece. Think vocals! Common techniques include allowing the singer or rapper to vocalize the first few bars in a very boring, monotonous way, before really showering in the feeling after that. Again, anything that keeps the listener guessing is viable.

Having said all of this, though, drum samples are definitely the easiest way to introduce some change into an existing musical piece. Your singer does not have to sing anything different to switch up their vocals and you don’t need to play new harmonies or anything else to add that subtlety.

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The two mistakes often made by music producers regarding the hi-hat are not made exclusively by amateurs, but also by so-called music production veterans and beat making professionals.

The first mistake we need to address is the volume. Hip hop drum samples need to be loud, we all understand that there is a loudness war, but the hi-hat is one exception. It is said by some biology and evolutionary experts that many thousands of years ago aerial predators were attacking us that made noises that have similar frequencies like those in hi-hats and cymbals. We simply have a tendency to hear these sounds more than others, so lowering them a few DB below where you think they should go is a smart move.

Mixing the hi-hats in a little bit lower is great practice – two or three decibels should do. Unless you’re going to ‘mix out’ these samples completely, you can go pretty low and still be sure that your audience will pick them up. Remember that for every six decibels up or down, the sound doubles or halves respectively.

The second mistake that we’re going to look at is a pretty big one. Most of us are in the music production game to really make something that sounds good, but if you’re trying to achieve authenticity with your drum samples, there are certain things you really need to avoid and be wary of. With hi-hats, certain physical limitations prevent rhythmic operations that are perceived in a lot of rap songs. For instance, having a consistent hi-hat pattern playing one hit every 16th is all good, as that can be achieved. But coupling it with a cymbal hit or open hi-hat once a bar and not stopping the hi-hat? Physically impossible for most drum-sets, especially if the snare and toms also hit at the same point. How many arms does your drummer have? If you want to have a believable drum track, you must really pay attention here. If you produce dance music or other music where it is understood that the sample track is not supposed to be realistic, you can do whatever sounds good.

If you can manage to get your hands on professional programs likle BFD (‘Big F’n Drums’) or Toontrack’s EZ Drummer, you can learn a great deal when it comes to organizing and sequencing drums properly for use in live settings, like those for rock and metal songs, for example. Then make note of what appeals to you and what you could implement.

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When considering using this samples, make sure to specify (at least to yourself) the role that the sound is supposed to fulfill. If it’s for a single sound, you run the risk of making the other drum samples take a backseat to the reverb of this one instance. So if it’s a noise that plays all the time and consistently, you should turn down the bleed/return.

The length of the reverb is one of the main points of debate. Some people claim that songs with a slower tempo warrant a longer ‘tail’ (release) on the reverb sound patch, while others ask you to experiment with long and short on both medium and fast tempo songs to see what works for you. Sometimes, a longer reverb will allow the other drum samples to have a little bit more freedom and not need to perform to fill in empty space. If one of the samples takes that burden off the rest, you’ll have a lot more freedom!

There are so many practical applications for using this effect with the kinds of samples we’ve got. You can apply special files called IR files (Impulse Responses) which are environment simulators. What this means is that you could make your drum samples sound like they were recorded in a famous museum, like the Louvre, for instance, or anywhere else. IR files even exist for Grand Canyon locations and more spots – your creativity is the limit here. You can also apply the impulse response to other tracks for coherence.

Having said all of this, though, just about anything goes with certain types of electronic music. As long as something actually works for the song, nobody can tell you that it’s not worthy of inclusion as an effect.

If you experiment and see what works for you, you’ll be well off to a natural instinct for applying effects like reverb to your drum samples in a way that is unobtrusive and even adds character to your tracks. Start by testing out the effects of it on single sample tracks and then to the drums as a unit, before moving on to the whole song in varying degrees of application. Also make sure to try different types, like plate and room reverb, then hall and open spaces. You’ll find that each adds something else and once you know when to use a specific type of patch, you’ll be ready for any beat making situation.

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Compression as it applies to drum samples can meet you at several points of a beat making session. The earliest stage possible is probably the process where you select your drum sounds. As you’re browsing, you probably realize that most of the samples sound very loud. This is the compression in action. Most samples have already had all their subtleties and creative tendencies removed by whoever made this sound library. It can be very tiresome to try to locate samples that you can modify, knowing that the original characteristics will still shine through.

The second point at which compression will play apart is the final mixing process. This is where you would electively apply some compression using software or hardware audio compressors on drum samples or slight applications to soft instruments like the piano. The main creative difference here is that you are not subject to the over-compression used by many sound editors. Your decisions from here are truly coming from you.

Just about every song at the top of the charts today has very compressed drum samples that really cut through any mix. The loudness war is indeed a big drive for this. While compression removes a lot of the dynamics of drum samples and other instruments, it has its creative uses, and certain techniques like ducking compression can produce bass and drum interplay known in dance music as ‘pumping.’

If any of the sounds you pick are necessary but overly compressed nonetheless, there are ways of adding some color back onto the canvas, and one of the first steps you could look at is editing the actual wav sample. You should be able to see the spike at the start of the sample if it does not encompass all of it. Then lower the volume of that section but allow it to blend in. What you may want to do is mix this with a similar, uncompressed sample and set the latter to about 30% mix. This will give the sample some extra crispness, and while some of the same frequencies will be boosted, the overall effect will be much more natural.

One of the popular compression techniques used in urban and rock music these days is called the New York Compression process. How can you replicate it? Grab a sample, and copy it. Now, one of the copies should be compressed beyond recognition, as sharp as it can be, while the other sample is left alone. Combine the two, and you’ll have a great, punchy sample that still retains some characteristics.

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A kick drum sample has a few phases, the first being the start or attack. If the attack is very strong, you will be able to hear the introduction of the kick through many other instruments and sound layers, and if it is not that strong, you will still feel it but not be made aware to its presence immediately every time. Rap music producers (and others, too) often use compressor tools to really spike up the start of kick and snare drums, and this can be a powerful choice for drum-centric tracks.

The sustained sound of the kick is very different depending on the type of drum sample that is chosen. One of the more famous sustains can be found in the sounds made by the famous TR-808 sampler and synthesizer by Roland. It has a very long booming sound that degrades in volume with time and yet keeps everything moving. The TR-808 actually has kicks of varying lengths for different applications, too.

Adjusting the volume envelope of a kick drum sample is very easy with the right tools. Most samplers will include an envelope modifier for the volume or can be modified to do this very easily. If your drum sampler or sequencer does not permit this, look for some free tools that will help you; there are literally thousands of free virtual sound generators and effects plug-ins available on the internet for free personal use.

If you don’t want to use a volume envelope or volume filter to adjust the volume, there are other programs that can help you crop and tighten a drum sample. An audio editor would be a good start, as the cropping feature in most of these is truly excellent and requires little pre-developed knowledge in audio. Simply crop and then fade out the last few seconds, and you will have an adjusted sample with the volume you want.

Lastly, you should know that different programs include different drum samples. The libraries that ship with Reason and FL Studio, for example, are vastly different. They are both good, but if you find yourself making beats with the same drum samples over and over, look for some expansion packs or third party sounds to expand your choice, or modify the samples yourself if you have the time and skill.

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Adjusting the volume is possible in multiple places in most major sequencers and on keyboard workstations. For instance, Propellerheads’ Reason allows you to adjust volume on each bus for each drum sample, on the Redrum drum console and also in the main sequencer mixer, making it easy to make major and minor changes on the fly. This certainly helps the creative process as you can be altering this whenever you feel like it at a moment’s notice.

On the most important mixing ‘rules’ considering volume is that if the instrument or drum sample is so quiet that it really cannot be heard with the other instruments, it should probably go, because you’re just filling the sonic space with garbage that could be used for instruments that actually contribute to the mix. This does make sense, and any mixing engineer will offer a similar viewpoint, so ensure that if you keep lowering decibels and realize that something is not identifiable in a complete mix, it adds nothing and could actually be lowering the value of your instrument selection.

You can expect lowering something six decibels will halve its volume, and increasing by the same amount actually doubles the volume of an instrument or drum sample. When mixing hi-hats, it is a good thing to make it slightly lower than you think as you’re mixing, because humans have a tendency to easily distinguish frequencies that are around the range of the hi-hat.

Velocity is a different beast altogether. It is different than volume in the fact that the drum samples sound is not always just lowered in volume. Sure, a lower volume is a given with low sound and low velocity, but the velocity could also trigger the actual samples played. With multi-sampled patches, a lower velocity could play a different sound altogether; it won’t just be quieter.

Adjusting the volume should be a task you pay close attention to. Never recklessly increase the volume of parts you would like to sound louder. It is common practice to focus mainly on lowering the volume of things you do not want so loud. This will minimize distortion and keep your mix nice and smooth, so that each drum sample will stand out on its own and add its flavor to the mix and song as a whole.

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There are ten drum samples in every instance of Redrum. In fact, you can load up multiple instances of the window to really have as many as your processor can handle at any one time. But one window at a time to start with, of course! Now, there are ten strips, with each one having their own controls. This means that you can modify ten samples at the same time, and make each complement the others. To the side of the Redrum instance, there is a volume dial that modified the volume of that instrument as it pertains to the entire project that is currently open.

Looking at the channel strips available in Redrum, we can see that some knobs and levels are more self-explanatory than certain others. One of the more straightforward controls is the length. What does the length control pertain to? It affects the length of any of the drum samples. If you find that one of the hi-hats has an unnecessary reverb tail, you can cut it off by lowering the length (turn the knob to the left). This will help you sculpt samples creatively.

Going a bit further in our analysis, we’re presented with the Pan control. This really speaks for itself; it pans the drum samples! In an early mixing stage, you can organize your drums as they pertain to panning – and quite easily so. Another great feature of Redrum is that everything is on the same screen. Have you ever gotten frustrated going through twenty different menus looking for something? Not with Redrum – it’s all on the same page. While it can be confusing to some people that have not used it extensively, it quickly becomes a necessity – something you won’t be able to forget when trying different programs out in the future.

You might think that picking out ten different drum samples by yourself every time will be a tiresome task, you could be right. It all really depends on the person and how much patience you have at that point in time. But relax! There is something that will help you. Redrum comes with many pre-selected and pre-matched samples ready for your picking, and they are included in the factory Refills that are included with the sound libraries that comes with Reason. These samples have all been selected because they complement each other, so it’s unlikely that you’ll have to go looking much further.

One last thing about the Redrum interface that we have not touched on is the drum samples sequencer. It is laid out in step fashion which is very intuitive. Since you are never able to see and compare the entirety of device-specific tracks at the same time, you will be forced to listen with your ear and only make decisions on a sonic level. This is absolutely great for training the discerning musician and audio engineer in you. Redrum works very well to provide you an overview of the way things work in the real world.

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