S
Spin Doctor
New member
anybody have any secrets to recording a drum machine? Do I just plug it in and record? I wish it sounded a little fatter.
B
Benreturns
New member
Run it through a compressor? A little EQ? Try to keep the kick/snare etc... on induvidual tracks to you can mix them induvidually. What kind of machine a re you using?
S
Spin Doctor
New member
Thanks, I'll try that.
I'm using an old Dr 550.
I'm using an old Dr 550.
Dags
New member
Spin Doctor said:
Hiya SD
You could just plug it in and record - no probs. The outputs are at line level so there's no pre-amping needed. As Benreturns mentioned, you could try some compression (though the samples are usually all compressed in drum machines, anyway) or EQing for flavour.
I don't know if you have the ability to switch off samples in the loop, but if you do you could record each percussive element on individual audio tracks so you can treat them differently to your liking.
You could try recording the pattern into your PC (just using the line ins on your card), duplicating the track, compressing the bejeezus out of the copied track and maybe boosting the bottom end, then mixing this treated track (low in volume) with the original track to fatten up the sounds a bit.
Good luck, and have fun!
Dags
noisewreck
New member
If they automatically did, everyone would be BT, Kevin Saunderson, Nittin Sawhney and Amon Tobin... You gotta work HARD for that stuff. You'll be surprised at how raw most instruments sound, including old analog synths. And when something sounds "fat" right out of the box, most of the time it doesn't fit in the mix (many of the Triton sounds come to mind).Spin Doctor said:
S
Spin Doctor
New member
YES! This is the kind of response I wanted. The kind of feedback I needed.
Thanks to ALL of you who responded. It was a tremendous help.
Thanks to ALL of you who responded. It was a tremendous help.
Nandoram
Crom!!!!
I've had the same problem. And there are lots of things you can do. One thing that I do... which is fun... is take "one-shots" (which are individual "snare" samples or "kick drum" samples) and manually double the snare hits. This is time consuming, but I've had some pretty great results, personally.
You can get one shots from loop cds, drum machines, or even existing cds (it's fun trying to isolate snare hits without any noise), or you can record your own.
However you get your sample, you can easily take that one sample and make it sound like 10 different samples by simply adding effects: compression, reverb, etc. So even if you only have 5 samples, you can make that into 50 by just playing around.
I read somewhere that in the 80s, producers would do something like this to really fatten up their snare sounds. I can't imagine how difficult this was, but with today's recording technology, all you have to do is line up your sample with the drum track by matching the waveform. It's pretty easy, just a little time-consuming. But it's worth it to get the sound you're looking for.
You can get one shots from loop cds, drum machines, or even existing cds (it's fun trying to isolate snare hits without any noise), or you can record your own.
However you get your sample, you can easily take that one sample and make it sound like 10 different samples by simply adding effects: compression, reverb, etc. So even if you only have 5 samples, you can make that into 50 by just playing around.
I read somewhere that in the 80s, producers would do something like this to really fatten up their snare sounds. I can't imagine how difficult this was, but with today's recording technology, all you have to do is line up your sample with the drum track by matching the waveform. It's pretty easy, just a little time-consuming. But it's worth it to get the sound you're looking for.
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