getting the most out of loops

[sixways]

Hey guys,

I have been eq'ing, tweaking, effecting, and losing a battle to get my drum loops up to par. My current situation is: I don't have a real drummer (not that I have enough in's to record one if I did) so I purchased 2 drum loop CD's from http://www.betamonkeymusic.com. His drum loops are recorded bone dry so you can tweak them how you want (or so the website says). I'm basically wanting to know, am I wasting my time trying to get these sounding "pro"? I'm going for a regular rock drum sound (think Counting Crows, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band). I'm using protools M-powered.

I've done some eq'ing, as recommeded by several books I've read on what frequencies to bring up or cut on individual drums, although it is obviously affecting all the drums in this case. Am I wasting my time?

Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I look toward midi drums (sampletank and etc)?

Thanks,
6

[sixways]

anyone..anyone..??

Bueller? Bueller?

[Dogman]

I haven't heard these specific samples, but you should be able to get some good sounds with a bit of tweaking. Eq, compression, reverb.....might try all these things, depending on how dry they are. It will take a bit of experimenting on your part, but these samples should sound better than most machines. I use samples some times, and DFHS more recently. Just takes some work to tweak them for your own use. Do you have a sample of just some drums, to post?

[sixways]

Do you mean just straight from the Cd-Rom?

6

[Creamyapples1]

I use Betamonkey loops too, and they sound pretty decent imo


www.soundclick.com/murf

[Dags]

Yo, sixways.

Something you could try is to make a copy of the loop you're using and cut and place elements of the loop around the place to add extra fills or grooves.
Extra kick here, additional snare there.

If you completely cut the loop up into its individual components, you can create a totally new groove and/or put each element onto its own audio track then treat the percussive elements differently, as if they were recorded onto separate channels.

I also have been known to cut out snares and pasting them onto other audio tracks (removing them from the original loop) that have been slightly detuned to give a more 'randomness' to the loop.

Have fun experimenting!
Dags