Sample prep and editing
So, you’ve selected a bunch of great samples for your track. In theory, you’re ready to go! But in practice, you may need to do a little prep work on the sounds first, depending on how well crafted they are. Or perhaps you want to have a little more creative control over how they actually sound. Let’s check out a few options for basic sample prep and manipulation.
First off, you ought to zoom right in to the very start of the sample and check it out. Do you see any ‘dead air’ before the sample starts? It’ll look like Fig 1. If you do, then the sample will not play back precisely on the beat – it’ll always be slightly late. There are a few ways to fix it. First, you can edit the sample directly and delete the dead air, as in Fig 2. Or you can use your DAW’s slip tool or sampler’s ‘sample start’ parameter to make the sound begin playback at the correct point. Do ensure that the sample starts on a zero-crossing (the horizontal line that represents silence), otherwise you may hear a click at the start.
Likewise, check out how your samples end. If there’s dead air there too, you can safely chop it off, though you might want to zoom in vertically to ensure the sample really has faded to silence. And if the sample doesn’t end on a zero crossing ( Fig 3), you will likely hear a digital click, so either cut the sample on the last zero crossing, or apply a tiny fade ( Fig 4).
Having said all that, sometimes the little ‘breaths’ of noise and whatnot before and after a drum sample can add real character to your beats. You could always keep them as they are, but then compensate for the timing offset.
Alternatively, just go with the wonky groove! This is, in fact, the real secret of the ‘famous’ Akai MPC groove/swing/shuffle. Contrary to popular belief, the MPC does not have a ‘special’ swing algorithm – indeed, MPC-designer Roger Linn himself confirmed in our 157 interview that it’s a standard swing function. The real source of the unusual grooves many heard coming from their MPCs was down to the imprecise nature of the samples they’d chucked into it – with unchecked dead air at the start, samples did not play bang on the beat, leading to the loping rhythms that hip-hop heads loved!
Attack, attack!
Amplitude envelopes and fades are great for shaping the front end of your drums – that is, the transient attack. If you’ve got a sound that has the right character but the transient is too hard and distracting, try applying a short fadein or raising the attack of your sampler’s amplitude envelope to soften the attack. This can also be a great technique when layering sounds. Let’s say you want to layer two snares: one has plenty of top and transient bite, but the other you only really want for its body, and you’re finding that mixing the two together is causing transient blurring as the attack of both sounds don’t sit well together. Try adding a fairly lengthy fade-in/attack to the ‘body’ snare, turning it into more of an ‘oof’ than a ‘doof’. You can see this in Fig 5, where we’ve also used a fade-out to make the red snare’s tail cut off in time to the beat. Similarly, by using the decay and sustain parameters of an amplitude envelope, you can enhance transients by reducing the level of the body of a sound.
If you’re using a sampler, think about using a filter in conjunction with these techniques. Got a kick that has a great attack and perfect lowend but too much top-end mush going on throughout it? This can happen if you sample a kick drum from a loop or someone else’s song – hi-hats and other elements on top can ruin it. Try adding a filter that starts off fully open but closes down quickly – you’ll still get the initial snap and click, but the unwanted treble during the sound’s body will be quickly suppressed.
Finally, tuning drums can really transform their character and make them slot together better. It can be vital once you start combining them with melodic elements – try tuning your drums so they fit with the key of the track and see what a difference it can make.