Make Drum Samples Yourself

By John Gellei

Anybody with a PC or Macintosh computer can indeed make their own drum samples quite easily. Sometimes to start with, the learning curve can be a bit daunting, but once you get the hang of it, it is quite easy to edit and crop different sounds to make your own unique samples that you will then be able to use for all of your production efforts.

Tools for the task can be found online, but if you are into audio then you may already have some of the programs installed. If you have some drum samples to start with, that is the best way to go at the beginning instead of synthesizing your own sounds. You can grab free audio editors like Audacity, which is a free software program that can be downloaded (just Google it, it will be the first result!) and installed within seconds (it only works on PCs, though). If you are on a Mac, there are some free programs as well. The operations that need to be performed can be as varied as you want them to be, from cropping to equalization and more.

You can also develop your drum samples in programs like Propellerheads' Reason and FL Studio. Simply make the changes you want in the programs using the in-built editors, effects units and reverb before exporting just the channel for that one sound and its associated effects. Then crop it up if you set the length to be the whole song, otherwise export just a single bar or beat if the sound occupies that amount.

When editing drum samples, you obviously need some sources. One place to get some great drums and other sounds is off old records. Simply connect a turntable to your audio interface and start recording the parts of the songs where drum breaks exist (with no other instruments) and then crop to your desire. This is called sampling, and it's actually more popular now than it has ever been, and you can get started today if you have the equipment. You can get great samples out of this process!

Synthesizing drum samples is another option for the budding music sample connoisseur. The machines with this capability also date back many decades, including old Roland and Korg drum groove boxes with synthesizer functionality. Usually, a number of parameters are there to be modified by the user, and the traditional sound offered by that particular box usually remains with any changes, generating a nice mix between the structure of that sound and the special characteristics assigned to it.

Now that you know how to source the different drum samples, you need to be able to manipulate and alter to your liking. There are plenty of effects to change the sound of a sample, including equalization and compression techniques, so you'll need to experiment. You will come across some methods that go well with your workflow, so just keep an open mind and try any and all recommendations until you can make your own judgment. - 29968

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