| Drum Samples: Uncompressed and Beautiful |
| Articles - Lifestyle |
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For true audio connoisseurs, uncompressed audio is an absolute must. Or, at the very least, audio or songs that have only had parts of them compressed, and not to maximize volume but for creative purposes that serve to heighten a song's emotional impact. Compression, at its essence, is a technique that involves certain equipment called compressors, and basically makes sounds that have quiet parts more even in terms of volume.
For true audio connoisseurs, uncompressed audio is an absolute must. Or, at the very least, audio or songs that have only had parts of them compressed, and not to maximize volume but for creative purposes that serve to heighten a song's emotional impact. Compression, at its essence, is a technique that involves certain equipment called compressors, and basically makes sounds that have quiet parts more even in terms of volume. Compression on drum samples can come into your workflow at two stages. The first is the drum sample selection process. This is where you'll find the samples that were appropriately compressed by the library manufacturer, and hopefully not overly compressed. If you're finding that a lot of your samples are 'banging' and very loud before even coming into your song, you're probably dealing with samples that have had all the life sucked out of them already. The second phase at which the compression could meet you is the mixing stage. The way that this would happen in this case is if you, yourself, elected to use compression selected drum samples or other instruments. The main difference here is that instead of being subjected to reckless compression by sound library editors, you are making creative decisions and have no limits. You can choose to keep, remove or outline the subtleties of any samples quite easily. Just about every song in the top 40 these days has a great drum samples pattern that has effective compression that cuts through the mix, as this is vital for radio-viable songs in this modern age. While compression is often frowned upon by a lot of audiophiles, it has plenty of creative uses, even in electronic music. For instance, using a chained-in effect to achieve a 'ducking' sound like in dance music is quite popular. If any of the sounds you pick are necessary but overly compressed nonetheless, there are ways of adding some color back onto the canvas, and one of the first steps you could look at is editing the actual wav sample. You should be able to see the spike at the start of the sample if it does not encompass all of it. Then lower the volume of that section but allow it to blend in. What you may want to do is mix this with a similar, uncompressed sample and set the latter to about 30% mix. This will give the sample some extra crispness, and while some of the same frequencies will be boosted, the overall effect will be much more natural. A popular compression process that many Rock n Roll and Hip Hop producers are huge advocates of is the NY Compression technique. At its most basic level, it's simply taking the same sample, one version of which has been compressed to the maximum amount and mixing it with itself. So you have a drum sample that is very punchy and cutting, while it still shows signs of the original variance. DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice. If you're after some great-sounding hip hop drum samples or simply want to know how to make hip hop beats, just remember that you shouldn't settle for second best! |