INSTANT FILLS
After last month’s Part 1 of our huge giveaway, we’re on a roll – and so will you be, once you’ve loaded up this huge new pack of drumbeat ear candy
Punctuate your tracks in no time with this talented pack of 914 ready-baked drum fills,
Beats are the backbone of your tracks, driving the music and keeping the pace. But then, can’t all that repetition get a little bland? That’s where the fill comes in, revitalising the listener’s expectations, and usually indicating that a change is coming.
This issue, we’ve taken on the subject in
The Guide to Drum Fills on page 73, where we show you how to program your own from scratch. But what if that’s not your bag? Well, you’re in the right place. This set of 914 fills, FX and hits is ready to rock your tracks – just drop one in at the end of a section, whether you need inspiration, a placeholder, or a full frantic fill!
This pack of synthesised and acoustic fills has been created exclusively for readers by our two experienced samplesmiths – Robbie Stamp of Cyclick and Oli Bell of Groove Criminals – who are about to fill you in on how they made it…
Cyclick
“This collection is chock full of acoustic drum fills and rolls for dropping into gaps in your tracks, or even for further chopping into breakbeats and assorted rhythmic elements.
“The samples all work as loops and are sorted by BPM: 95, 110, 120, 125, 128, 135, 140, 170 and 175. This makes the collection a good match for last issue’s Ultimate Hi-Hats, which was also split across these same tempos.
“Every tempo folder contains acoustic drum kit fills – raw and with effects, in chopped and glitched versions; kick-snare fills; snare rolls performed on a Ludwig snare; beat rolls and snare rolls; and fills with various accented hits.
“As ever, these are initial parts that can all be taken into deeper sonic realms with plenty of pitching, stretching, distortion, glitching, bitcrushing, modulation and oodles of delay.”
Fill Robbie in on what you think of this month’s pack on Twitter: @CyclickBob.
Groove Criminals
“We’ve concentrated here on the more rhythmic side of the fill,” says Oli Bell, “although we did include some synth hits and multisamples that should do the job when dropped in for a turnaround or break.
“The drum fills were both programmed and played using a Yamaha electronic kit triggering samples and a real drum kit. The glitch fills were created by glitching up a selection of sampled and recorded fills to keep things fresh. We also did some good old-fashioned hand slicing and editing of the fills to get that glitchiness.
“The drum machine fills were extracted from a handful of more esoteric beat machines. These auto backing drum units have never really been in fashion but do a nice line in cheesy, sitting between the pro and toy markets. Shove ’em through some effects and see what happens!”
Get your fill of Oli’s daily musings via the medium of Twitter: @GrooveCriminals.