When I put together samples to form a sort of drum kit, I often have a hard time getting them to sit nicely with each other so they sound cohesive, and I end up discarding a lot of projects because the drums don't sound nice. I understand that a lot of it comes down to how the sample itself sounds, but I was wondering if any of you had any tips and tricks that help when doing anything similar? On a similar topic, if there are any handy techniques you use to make overheads more interesting in terms of the mix (not arrangement), I'd love to hear about them!
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Check out some of my 2x Eq presets for drum sounds. They are listed under "ARC". IT's very generalized. But I find it can help to add 1 or 2 narrow "peaks" in the eq to make sounds pop. For example I usually put a medium Q boost on Snares around 130 hz. You'll see in the presets. You may also want to layer sounds. Drums always have a transient and a body. Really compressed drums can sound loud, but the lack punch. All transient sounds crisp but kind of quiet. Staple two sounds like that, a transient sound and a full bodied sound together and you get the best of both. Layer sounds together helps them sound less dry and boring. For example you may want to layer a big upfront kick with a stereo kick, layer the stereo kick in at like 10% volume just to add a barely there steroization to the main kick. The key to layering is using contrasting sounds and varying the volumes or pannings, not just slamming everythign together same timing same volumes.
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Mix the drums instead of just loading them all into machiniste verbatim. For example have sounds on the left and right. Have one sound with a small reverb. Have a sound dry and middle, and a sound spread left and right. Have a couple louder sounds ( usually kick and snares ) and compliment them with quieter sounds. You can do all this on the machiniste without having to route out to a centroid. Also don't be afraid to use the built in filters to save yourself EQs. For example, you can highpass hats to remove the low end from them ( yes there is low end and it does matter even if you don't really hear it ). You can also use the resonance on the filter to create a small peak at a certain frequency to accentuate a drum sound.
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In my experience, it helps a lot to select samples that come from the same sample pack. Usually sample publishers like Loopmasters and Newloops create packs that cover specific genres and contain similarly treated samples that already sound cohesive. It doesn't work to pair a TR-505 kick with a Dubstep snare. So limiting your choices to a well produced sample pack goes a very long way towards a cohesive, appropriate drum sound. If you chose well, usually you don't have to do much more than light EQ, compression and maybe distortion/exciting to fit it into your track. About overheads, I found this video: (link is only visible to registered users)
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A lot of times it comes down to EQ. If you are putting together a kit and a few of the samples are EQued drastically different than the rest, they could sound incohesive. Same deal with volume levels. Sample selection does often play the biggest role, but subtle issues can be fixed with eq. Also, consider compressing the entire kit. You shouldn't compress anything aggressively, and the goal isn't to make things loud. The goal is to "paste" together the dynamics of the drums so it sounds like the samples go together. Use a light ratio and adjust the threshold so it only compresses very lightly. The end listener should barely hear the effect, but it will make a significant difference. Adjust the other controls on the compressor to taste.
I use a little reverb to my advantage as a band-aid, if the samples are of similar sound quality.