Drum Samples – Effective Cycling
Most music producers today, especially those just getting into the game, are overwhelmed by the thousands of drum samples and sounds offered by the multiple drum libraries offered through programs like Fruity Loops, Native Instruments’ Battery and Redrum (by Propellerheads, and included in their flagship program, Reason). So what can we do about it to prevent hair loss and allow us to get on with beat making?
One of the best ways to get organized is actually to sort through and organize the different drum samples to your liking. Sometimes this can be extremely difficult if the manufacturer of the software has locked down the sound library (or sound database). Extracting drum sounds from these files can be a nightmare, and this is true with the Propellerheads Reason music production system; Reason utilizes ‘refills’ which are files that are locked, the only program having access to them being the actual Reason program. In these cases, it can help to simply make your own kits from within the program or remember the locations of good samples.
If you have successfully saved all the drum samples you can and have access to the rest, you can try to take up this organization system. Name all of your drum samples with descriptive names but also place them into folders that describes just the sound type. So for instance, the hi-hats would all go into a folder named ‘hi-hats.’ Do this with all of them!
The next level of this sorting system is to make parent folders to these ones. So, for instance, if you had the kick, snare and hi-hat drum samples folders visible, you can create a new folder for Rap or Dance (to illustrate my point), and move the dance-specific kicks into the kick folder within the Dance folder. Do the same for the snares, hats and other percussion.
This sort of a system will ensure that your creativity is never sapped when looking for a particular drum sample. Imagine needing a decent sound and spending 15 minutes auditioning one hundred or more different samples before finding one that could possibly work and could possibly match what you hear in your head. With this system, you simply go into the genre’s folder (like ‘Rap’) and check out the drum samples folder (ie. ‘Snares’) and test out a handful of samples before deciding on one.
You can apply these strategies to sounds other than drum samples as well. Think how much time it could save you if you were going to have all of your sound patches and drums organized by genre and then also by the type of sound or drum? Only one disadvantage is on the mind right now: what if the sound is good for two different genres? Well, what you can do is include it in both folders or simply have a transitional folder, labeled, perhaps, Rap-Dance-Drums. This would indicate that the drums are good for rap music and dance at the same time.
If you want to start to make hip hop beats, consider getting some professional rap drum samples first. These sounds will inspire you to create cool grooves.
