Recording & Production Articles

How to make better sounding Drum Tracks

Getting great sounding drums tracks from a typical home/project studio is not an easy task! Most people in this situation simply don't have the equipment or the right room to get a decent drum sound. MIDI drums usually don't cut it unless you are really good at programming drum parts or you are doing electronic music where it is supposed to sound like a drum machine, and even then you still need to be a good programmer to pull it off. In this article I'll provide you with some hints and tips on how to get a lot more bang out of your drums, whether you are recording acoustic drums or trying to put together a drum track electronically.

First, let's talk about how to record your own acoustic drums. The most important part of a drum sound is the drum kit itself. If the drum kit sounds bad to begin with, no amount of trickery or processing is going to help very much. You absolutely need to have a great sounding kit to start with! If you don't have a good sounding drum kit, then it may be worth the expense to rent one. Also, don't skimp on the heads. Most of the times, the professional drummers will put new heads on their kit when going into the studio to record. Old, worn out heads will sound dull and lifeless and usually will not give you the sound you are looking for (unless you want that dull, lifeless sound). Make sure that all the hardware is in good condition as well, and that nothing is squeaking or rattling. Put the new heads on and check all your hardware carefully well before the session begins.

Assuming you have a great sounding kit, with new heads, and no problems with the hardware, the next thing is to get those drums properly tuned for the room that you will be recording in. Knowing how to tune a drum kit properly is as important as the drum kit itself. Many beginning drummers (and even many advanced ones) simply do not know how to do this properly. Not only do you need to tune the drums so that they sound good by themselves, you need to tune them for the room that you are in as well. All rooms have different sound characteristics, and you need to listen to how the sound of the drums is interacting with the room. Certain frequencies may be emphasized or attenuated by the room itself, and the interaction between the walls and ceiling around the kit will also play a factor in how the drums sound. A good drummer or drum tech will know how to set up the drums properly to take advantage of the good acoustical properties of a room, or to avoid some of the negative aspects of a bad sounding room. If you or your drummer are not that experienced at tuning drums for different rooms, then it may be worth your while to hire a professional drum tech to help you get your kit set up properly. If you ask a lot of questions and observe carefully, you'll even get a valuable lesson to help you do it better yourself in the future. Many high-end professional drummers use drum techs all the time. There is no shame in that at all, particularly when you want your drums to sound the best they possibly can for a recording.

Now we've got a good sounding drum kit that's properly set up and tuned. The next equally important factor in getting a great drum sound is the drummer! Technique and skill are very important. You can get away with sloppy playing and technique while rehearsing or in live situations, but NOT while you're recording! Those microphones capture every little detail, and people listen a lot more closely to CDs and tapes than they do in a live situation, plus, they will hear the same performance over and over again, so they will notice all the flaws and problems with any recorded tracks. A common problem with inexperienced drummers is that they don't hit the drums hard enough in the studio. This is particularly true for heavy metal and other up tempo styles or songs where the drummer is trying to play very fast fills, and they end up just kind of skimming over the heads of each drum. In the studio, less is more! It may be necessary to simplify the drum parts in order to get a better sounding performance. The drummer needs to make solid connections on each and every drum hit to get the proper attack and tone out of the drum. You can still have dynamics in the performance, but generally everything needs to be exaggerated a little more in the studio for it to come across the way it was intended. Also, the timing needs to be much more accurate. Many bands record with a click track in the studio, not only to keep accurate timing, but to make it easier for future overdubs or additional parts. If the drummer is not used to playing with a click track, then it could end up being a disaster. The drummer needs to do a lot of practicing along with a click track long before the recording session to get used to playing with one. Otherwise, if the drummer simply can't perform well with the click track, then it's best to not even use one (but make sure there is at least some sort of count off before the song for doing overdubs later). There is a very good reason why the pro session drummers get paid so well, which you'll quickly find out in a studio situation. If you don't already have a band with a drummer, then consider hiring a pro to play the parts for you rather than wasting a lot of time (and money) with someone that may not have the studio experience to get what you want.

If you have everything discussed above taken care of, then the rest should be easy! With a great sounding drum kit properly set up in a good sounding room and played by a great drummer, you can get a great drum sound with almost any recording configuration. There are many different ways to set up microphones for a drum kit, and the method you choose will depend on the type of sound you are going after and the selection of equipment you have available to you. You can go the minimalist route and set up two or three microphones to capture the sound of the entire kit, or you can set up microphones for each and every drum in the kit as well as room microphones as well. The minimalist route is the trickiest. It takes good microphones and a lot of time finding just the right placement to get the sound you are after. Moving a microphone by just a few inches can often make a big difference in the sound. You also need to take into account the relationships between the microphones. While one microphone may sound good by itself, when it is blended in with the signals from the other microphones, you may discover phasing problems or other problems which can adversely affect the sound quality. Many producers and engineers prefer this minimalist style of recording a drum kit if everything is set up correctly and you have a great sounding room, because it can give a more natural and live type of sound than the traditional close miking of every drum. Using one or more microphones on every drum in the kit has it's own advantages and disadvantages as well. In this type of setup, one or more microphones are set up for each individual drum along with several microphones for the overheads and cymbals, and usually some microphones placed further out in the room (if it's a good sounding room). With this type of setup you can get a really tight and punchy drum sound because each drum is being picked up by its own microphone. There is also a lot more flexibility in shaping the sound during the mixing process if everything is recorded to separate tracks. You can also avoid some of the negative aspects of a bad sounding room by close miking the drum kit in this fashion. The disadvantages of this method is that there is a lot more potential for phase problems since you have many more microphones on the kit, each picking up bleed from the rest of the kit. Sometimes excessive bleed from certain microphones needs to be gated out during the mixing process to get a better sound. But, the multiple microphone method is the most common method of recording, especially for that hyped up tight and punchy rock or pop sound. Using fewer microphones seems to be more common for jazz or acoustic types of styles where you want a more open and natural sound. In the future I will add to this article or create a new article with more specific examples on how to set up microphones for a drum kit.

So, what about all of you that don't have the equipment, space, time, experience, or money to record a great acoustic drum sound? There are several ways to get a decent sounding acoustic drum track without having to record an actual drum kit. One way would be to program your own drum tracks via MIDI with some great acoustic drum samples from a drum machine or sampler. I've heard some people create some very convincing drum tracks with just a drum machine, but it takes a lot of talent and a lot of time! If you want the track to be convincing, you really need to spend the time to create all the little variations and nuances that a really drummer would do, and you need to think like a drummer as well. Many inexperienced MIDI programmers forget what is and is not possible for a drummer to do. They only have two hands and two feet to work with, so there is a limited number of things that they can do at the same time. Another common mistake is to quantize everything to rigid timing grids. No matter how good a drummer is, they are never going to play that perfectly! So, loosen up your quantizing! Use the groove or shuffle features, or just do a percentage or iterative quantize instead of quantizing to exact values. Or, you could even go in and move individual hits around slightly to create more of a human feel. In addition, to get a certain energy, many times drummers will play slightly ahead or behind of everyone else. You can create a similar feel by shifting your drum tracks ahead or behind slightly in relation to the other instruments.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of MIDI drum programming. In the time it would take to program a really convincing drum track with a drum machine, I could have recorded a much better performance from a real drummer. I usually only use drum machines when I'm going for an electronic sound. If I want it to sound like a real drummer, then I prefer using a real drummer in one way or another (later on I'll tell you how to get a real drum performance without having to record the drums yourself). But, if you think you have the talent and time to program a great drum track yourself, then it is certainly possible. Just make sure you are using high quality samples and maybe mix in some appropriate room ambience to the whole track to make it even more realistic sounding. If you are planning on using a drum machine, carefully audition the sounds that are packaged with it. To save money, the companies try to use the least amount of memory for the internal samples as possible, and some of the sounds suffer as a result. Pay particular attention to the cymbals as this is where most manufactures skimp the most (since it takes a lot of memory to record a high quality cymbal with the full decay). If you don't already have a drum machine (or even if you do), consider buying a sampler instead. With a sampler that contains a lot of sample memory, you can always purchase some high quality sample CDs that have better sounding drum samples than most drum machines. The Bob Clearmountain sample CD is one of the best selling drum sample CDs of all times, and is just one example of an excellent product that you can use to create your own drum kits on a sampler that you can then program or play your own drum parts via MIDI. But, even with great drum samples, you still have to have the skills to program a convincing drum part.

An often better, and certainly quicker, solution to creating drum parts electronically is to use sample CDs of drum loops (as opposed to simply individual drum hits and sounds). With drum loops the part has already been played and recorded for you. The trick is to find the right loops to fit your song. Using drum loops (and other musical loops) has been a common practice for a long time, particularly with rap and dance music, but it is becoming more and more common in many other styles of music as well. Many of the songs that you here on the radio today, especially in the rap genre, use entire musical loops from older songs. But, be careful! If you want to do something similar and create a loop from someone else's song, you need to get that sample cleared before you can release it in any form! Failing to do so will cause you a lot of legal trouble and will end up costing you a lot of money. If you aren't already a signed artist with the power and resources of a major label to help you clear your samples and pay for them, then it's best to stick with license free samples. There are many companies that sell sample CDs with all sorts of loops and samples that you can use license free in your own productions! When you buy the sample CD from them, you are buying a license to use the samples in any original production, as long as you don't repackage them and sell them as is. Big Fish Audio is one of the biggest and most well known distributor of these types of sample CDs, and there are many other companies as well.

So, let's concentrate on how to create a realistic sounding drum track using loops from sample CDs. The problem that arises with many sample CDs of drum loops is that all, or at least most, of the loops are not related at all to each other. This is because the primary market for these products is the rap and dance music producers who are just going to use one or two loops that repeat over and over throughout the whole song. This is fine if you are going for that looped sound that has no variations. But, if you want to make a more realistic sounding drum track, then you are usually out of luck since most of the sample CDs don't give you enough variations and fills from the same kit and in the same style to create a realistic sounding performance. (Now comes the shameless self-promotion part of this article).

That's why I came up with the Performance Loops series of sample CDs. I decided to put together a collection of drum loops, variations, fills, and individual hits, that could be used to create a realistic sounding acoustic drum track. Instead of just assembling a random collection of unrelated drum loops, I went back to the master tapes of songs that I produced and recorded and chopped up the drum tracks from each song into many different loops, variations, fills, and hits. The idea was that I could then take many different loops from one song and arrange them in the order I wanted to recreate a new drum track that fits the song that I'm trying to create the drum track for. The results were even better than I had hoped, and I found myself using my collection of loops all the time in my project studio for commercial jingles, song demos, and even my own album projects where I didn't have the time or money to hire and record a pro drummer. Everybody that I used them for loved the results so much, that I decided to package the loops and sell them so that other artists and producers could get the same money and time saving results that I'm getting. That's how the Performance Loops series was born. Big Fish Audio is selling all my Performance Loops products, and you can order direct from them at the Big Fish Audio web site . (End of shameless plug… lets get on with how to use these types of loops to make a drum track).

If you search very hard, you can find some other sample products out there that are similar to the Performance Loops series, so there are some choices, but not too many at this point. The real key to creating a realistic sounding drum track using these sort of drum loops is to use some sort of computer software to arrange the audio loops. Any digital audio sequencer or workstation will work. You simply figure out which loops, variations, and fills you want where, and then just drag and drop them into place in most of these software programs. The key is to use enough variations to make it sound realistic. If you use the same loop over and over, then it will be easily identified as just that. However, if you carefully arrange enough different loops, variations, and fills throughout the song, then no one will be able to tell that it wasn't played by a real drummer, because essentially that's what it is anyway! In fact, on many pop and rock albums that use real drummers, there is a lot of digital manipulation going on behind the scenes. If the producer or band isn't entirely happy with a drum performance, but likes everything else, they may dump the drum tracks into a compute and cut, copy, and paste the best parts together to make a tighter sounding drum track. Some of them even go so far as to chop up each individual drum hit and move it around to make the playing tighter!

Here's a plug that I get absolutely nothing out of: If you want to work with loops in your computer, you need to get the software ACID from Sonic Foundry! It is the absolute easiest and quickest way to create drum tracks (or complete songs) using loops. I use this software extensively! If you get a sample CD, such as the Performance Loops series, on CD-ROM that has the files in wave format and has pre-defined the ACID properties (all of my loops come this way in addition to also being available on an audio CD format), then ACID can automatically determine the number of beats in each loop and the tempo the loops were recorded at, and then will adjust each loop to fit the tempo that you desire! It will also work with loops that don't have the ACID properties pre-defined, but it may sometimes guess wrong and you'll have to manually adjust the properties. What this allows you to do is to take a collection of loops recorded at ANY tempo and automatically adjust them to the tempo that you want them to be at. In the past, people had to try to match the tempos of their loops manually using time stretching or pitch shifting, and doing it a little bit at a time by trial and error until they got them to match up. It was a very time consuming and not always accurate process. ACID does all this work for you, instantly! In addition, if you are working with pitched loops (such as guitar, keyboards, bass,etc.) and the root pitch of the loop is defined, then ACID will also shift the pitch of the loop to match the key that you set for each section of your song. There are ways to achieve similar results with other software and a calculator, but it's much easier and faster to just let ACID do it for you. Besides all that, ACID is a really great program! It's very intuitive and easy to get started with, and it allows you to even record hard disk tracks (for vocals, guitars, or other live parts) along with your looped tracks. You can add effects from within the program and even do a complete mix direct to CD-R all without having to use any other software. Personally, I like to switch back and forth between ACID and Cubase VST when I'm working on my own songs or music productions. I use ACID to build my drum tracks and any other parts that I'm using loops for, and then I import those tracks into Cubase where I do all my MIDI work and my live track recordings. Basically, getting back to the topic of creating drum tracks, ACID is extremely valuable because it will greatly extend the flexibility of a sample CD such as my Performance Loops - Drums collection. Using ACID, you are not stuck with using the loops at the tempo they were recorded at, and thus you have a much wider range of possible uses for each loop. You can achieve the same results with just a sampler or other computer software, but it takes a bit longer.

If you do not yet have a computer, or can't afford to set it up properly for audio work, then you can still do some great work with just a sampler and the loops from sample CDs. For example, if you wanted to create a drum track using the Performance Loops sample CD, you can figure out all the different loops, variations, fills, and hits that you want to use for the song, sample them into your sampler, and then create your own kit with a different loop assigned to each key. Then you can simple "play" the loops from your keyboard or program them into your MIDI sequencer. You can also adjust them to other tempos by applying pitch shift or time stretching to the samples. Many of the sample CDs (such as the Performance Loops series) are available on audio CD format for sampling into your sampler, or, if your sampler can read standard wave files from PC format CD-ROMs, then you can save yourself a lot of work by purchasing the CD-ROM version and directly loading the loops.

Lastly, let's briefly discuss how to spice up your electronic drum tracks. If you aren't going for a realistic sounding acoustic drum track, then many of the methods discussed above can still help you create better sounding electronic drum tracks. If you don't have the talent or time to program your own electronic drum tracks, then sample CDs may be able to help you out again. There are many more sample CDs out there with electronic drum loops than there are with acoustic drum loops. The trick to using these is to be creative with the loops. Don't use the loops simply as is if you can avoid it, because any other artist that has the same sample library can probably easily recognize the loop (but that's not always a concern anyway). I learned from working with many rap artists that the best way to use loops is to combine two or more loops on top of each other to create something different, or to otherwise process the loop into something different than what it originally was. Stacking drum loops on top of each other is a very popular thing to do, and there are some things you can do to make that technique work even better. One common idea is to filter or EQ the loops differently so that they work better together. For example, you may filter out all the mid and high frequencies from one loop so that you mostly here the kicks and the low end from it, while filtering out just the low end on another loop so that you here everything except the kicks. When you blend the two together, they are not both competing in the same frequency ranges and can often sound like they are really just one unique loop. If you aren't the greatest MIDI drum programmer (I'm not), and yet you want to use some programmed electronic drums, then consider stacking some drum loops on top of your programmed drums to help breathe some life into them. My favorite trick for dance/techno music that I produce is to program an electronic drum part using my drum machines and then take one of the acoustic drum loops from my Performance Loops collection and speed it up using ACID, and then layer it with my programmed parts. Taking an acoustic drum loop that was recorded at a slower tempo (less than 100 bpm), and speeding it up to speeds of 130 to 140 bpm and layering it with my programmed drums gives the whole thing much more energy and a very unique sound and feel. The key is to be creative and find new ways of using the loops rather than just plopping them into the track as is.

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