Anybody with a computer (both desktop and laptop styles) can these days develop their own drum samples. While it may take some amateurs a lot of time to come to grips with the technology and settings, the workflow is quite adaptive after a few weeks and you can be making your own signature sounds. You can start today if you have an audio editor.
To make your own drum samples, you obviously need some tools. There are a lot of different software solutions to help you edit audio and develop your own sounds, and if you are on a PC, a great free program is called Audacity - you can Google it and hit the first returned website. It installs quite quickly and the download is not that heavy, so get it installed. Once it is on your machine, there are really only a few operations that you need to perform to manipulate audio beyond the original spectrum. You can start by cropping and applying effects like delay and stereo modulation. If you're on a Mac, there are also some free programs to download, so there is no excuse on either platform!
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.
To find source drum samples, there are a few places you can look. Sampling is still very popular (if not more than it was at any point!) and you can get into the sample game as fast as you want. Get yourself a turntable, some old records and look for drum breaks, where the sounds are not obscured by instrument layers. You just need to cut samples out of here, and if you get some from the 60s and 70s you could have some nice unaltered samples ready for modification.
Now that we've discussed sampling, we should probably look at the other extreme, which is to synthesize your own drum samples. Yep, everything from kicks to conga sounds and hi-hats can be replicated on drum machine hardware quite easily. You can get a very inexpensive drum machine from eBay, but if, like some people, you'd like something from the 80s or 70s, be prepared to pay a lot more money than this. Being able to alter a lot of the parameters, you can certainly get some unique sounds.
We now know how to find drum samples, what sort of equipment goes into modifying them and sourcing them, but how do we alter them? Well, you can start with effects like compression and EQ; these are techniques that have been around for decades and still work wonders today. If you can experiment with the different styles, you'll definitely be better for it, as you'll have your own opinion on the technology and processes and will be able to help others.
To make your own drum samples, you obviously need some tools. There are a lot of different software solutions to help you edit audio and develop your own sounds, and if you are on a PC, a great free program is called Audacity - you can Google it and hit the first returned website. It installs quite quickly and the download is not that heavy, so get it installed. Once it is on your machine, there are really only a few operations that you need to perform to manipulate audio beyond the original spectrum. You can start by cropping and applying effects like delay and stereo modulation. If you're on a Mac, there are also some free programs to download, so there is no excuse on either platform!
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.
To find source drum samples, there are a few places you can look. Sampling is still very popular (if not more than it was at any point!) and you can get into the sample game as fast as you want. Get yourself a turntable, some old records and look for drum breaks, where the sounds are not obscured by instrument layers. You just need to cut samples out of here, and if you get some from the 60s and 70s you could have some nice unaltered samples ready for modification.
Now that we've discussed sampling, we should probably look at the other extreme, which is to synthesize your own drum samples. Yep, everything from kicks to conga sounds and hi-hats can be replicated on drum machine hardware quite easily. You can get a very inexpensive drum machine from eBay, but if, like some people, you'd like something from the 80s or 70s, be prepared to pay a lot more money than this. Being able to alter a lot of the parameters, you can certainly get some unique sounds.
We now know how to find drum samples, what sort of equipment goes into modifying them and sourcing them, but how do we alter them? Well, you can start with effects like compression and EQ; these are techniques that have been around for decades and still work wonders today. If you can experiment with the different styles, you'll definitely be better for it, as you'll have your own opinion on the technology and processes and will be able to help others.
About the Author:
Time for you to find out how to make your own beats! Start with a beginner's tutorial, grab some nice sounds and let creativity do the rest. You'll never ask "how can I make my own beats" again.
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