Let's be honest - A lot of the Drum sounds on synths and modules suck - Period. In addition to playing keys, I play drums and some other instruments.

A lot of the music I listen to stem from the 70s and 80s (Funk, Old School, 80s Pop, Mid 70s Rock, etc). Drum sounds are crucial to me, so I got a sampler (since everyone recommended pikcing up a sampler for sounds that surpass that of a synth).

Fast forward, I ran out and got a Roland S760 Sampler. After messing around with some sample CDs, I figured out that many of the Drum sounds available on Sample CDs suck just as much, and cost several times more! ($200-$300 for shitty sounds).

What gives?! I'm not referring to electronic drum sounds (which a lot of synths do well). I have a Roland XP60 (Fully expanded w/ Hip-Hop, Bass & Drums, Orchestral and Exp II cards) which has decent drum sounds, but the acoustic sounds are terrible.

Now for the point - What are your experiences with realistic sounds on synths. Have you run into anything good? Is there anything you want to recommend to anyone here? What do you use in your sessions or on your recordings?

The only drum collection that I heard that I thought was mind blowing was the Roland SRX-01 Dynamic Drums Board. This drum collection simply blows everything out of the water and is useful for almost any genre.

What do you all think about certain Drum Sample libraries? Ross Garfield? Bob Clearmountain? I thought those sucked as well. The Roland LCDP1 Drum & Cymbal CD sucks major ass as well.

Let's talk people - Share your experiences.

The Infamous Epu.

Hey, I totally agree! ROM drum sounds do suck. I don't have much experience with Sample CDs so Im not gonna comment on that, but I will tell you what works well for me.
I sample my own drum sounds off of a
Korg ER-1, various hand drums, and download sounds off the net. Then I tweak them in Wavelab. This is where the magic happens. I always tweak them in wavelab, you know givem some punch, some originality, maybe even some reverb. Then I put them into my Yamaha A4000 sampler, edit a few parameters, and magically i get kick ass original to somewhat original drum sounds.
So, the way I see it, you can't get away with using drum samples without editing them to your liking, otherwise your gonna have some shitty weak ass drum sounds lacking clarity and punch.
Who makes these samples in the first place? people making weak ass drum samples? forgetit.

What works for everyone else?

Realistic drum samples have always sucked. There's just no way you can add all the little things drummers do, into a sampled set. Listen to the percussion on Autechre's 'Piezo' off the Amber album. That's how sampled drums should sound.

-tek

Interesting Tekimus. See the thing is, I'd rather use drum samples becuase the room I record in sucks and I hate micing my kit. Plus, you get hundreds of kits in a library or in ROM, rather than having one type of drum set in your studio.

Anyway, I'm going to have to look into editing. I already have edited the drum sounds on my Roland XP60 to my liking - I just got bored with those. The drums on that Roland CD ROM suck so much too.

Anymore comments people?

The Infamous Epu.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use them, just that they're not going to fool anyone. Not that they really have to anyway.

-tek

My vibe, like many of you, is to download as much as I can from the Net. The biggest tip I can give is to be creative from where you sample from.

For instance, your average guy looking for drum samples would go to some run of the mill sampling CD or website like samplearena.com or samplenet. The problem, is... most of these loops and samples have gone round the block more times than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and it's not easy to get excited about them.

Recently, I've discovered that with a bit of imagination you can come up with some pretty cool drum sounds, if only you go beyond the usual crud sample libraries that everyone by now has used and abused at some point.

Here's a concrete example from my recent experiences....

about a month ago I was making up some drum sounds for a cover song and I needed a cool 4/4 intro. I sat back and thought for a second if there were any songs I could think of with a cool sounding 4/4beat that I could sample and then chop up. In the end I went for the intro from ZZ Tops sharp dressed man- perhaps one of the most memorable 4/4 drum intros of all time! Then I wanted a cool hi hat sound. I thought about this too and in the end decided to sample Mich Michell's hi hats as played in the intro for Voodoo Chile. Another thing I wanted was a really hard ass kicking crash. So, did I screw around with some crud sample CD? No, I went straight for the jugular and sampled a Jon Bonham (Led Zep) drum solo, zooming in on his crash sounds and helping myself to some real kick ass cymbals.

In the end I took all of this stuff... chopped it up, pasted it together, changed the tempo, added a few fills and some reverb to make it sound like it was all in the same room. The result was, I think... a pretty cool drum track.

Optinone talks about tweaking everything in Wavlab and says that's where the magic happens. For me, there is no need to worry about time consuming tweaking- I leave the tweaking to Jon Bonhams drum engineer (or whoever it may be I'm sampling from). As, I say, the only thing I ever need to tweak is reverb so that the parts that make up my kits sound like they're from the same kit instead of having half my kit in the Albert Hall and the other half in some studio.

If anybody wants to come forward and say that my drums sound thin or tinny or something then they are basically slagging some of the best drummers in the history of popular music, so screw them.

As for copyright? Well, by the time you've chopped it, changed the tempo, added your own fills, added reverb and submerged it in your own music then there's no way on Earth anyone could ever pin you down for it- unless they have ears like Spock!

[This message has been edited by Equalizer (edited 04-22-2002).]

I'm using the on-board percussion on my T3 in conjunction with my Roland R8. I might choose to create patterns or I might hand-bomb them in measure by measure, depending on the intracacy of the piece.
Just my thots....

Thats what Im saying! Taking drum samples from other loops, tweakin' em! With Sampling real drums/drum machines, the sky is the limit with a sampler. I'll never use a drum machine again(except for sampling)ROM synth Drum libraries suck! Well, there are probably some good ones, but I'll never use em.
As for Realistic drum samples <-- they do suck, thats why I like to F#&% Samples UP! Thats what the software is for isn't it?

See, that's the thing about getting samples off of records - When you sample and process them, a lot of them sound chopped off and somewhat un-playable since they have chopped off tails. Do you guys get my drift?

Do any of you have examples on the web of the stuff you sampled off of records and used them in recordings?

Remember, my music is reminiscent of the old disco-funk sound. Realism is crucial. Chopped off tails sound terrible when isolated. What do you people think of the Roland SRX01 Dynamic Drums board? That is one hell of a kit collection.

As a matter of fact, my sampler is getting so unused since I'm not getting what I wanted out of it. I was even thinking of swapping my VS840 and S760 to get a complete VS1680 setup. Besides, there aren't may Roland compatible sounds out there on the net.

The Infamous Epu.

Opti- I can dig what you're saying. Respect.

Epu- who said anything about chopped off tails??? If you spend more than ten minutes on this you can get it sounding very convincing indeed. If you're using Cubase check out the functions "get M points" and "snip at M points"- that'll give you a clean break.

... I just re read what you said and in answer... yes, I do have some examples I can upload for you.

I'm going out just now, but first thing tomorrow I'll post up some stuff for you to listen to.

Stay cool

Epu, you can add new reverb-tails yourself, if you have the gear. I saw a tutorial on this a long time ago in Future Music. The results were pretty impressive.

-tek

THanks for the info Tek and Eq. hat are the legalities from sampling kits off of records. Supposed I sampled hits (meaning the bass drum and snare drum) from Stevie Wonder's Superstition (there is a four measure drum intro if you remember). Wouldn't someone be able to pick up on that right away? Could one get in trouble for that.

I've always stayed away from doing this for fair of legal issues.

Thanks,
The Infamous Epu.

EPU-
That is why I sample just the sounds and not the whole loop. Takes some Drum hits/sounds from a bunch of different recordings, tweak em in your favorite software or sampler and Bada Bing---> new drum loops! I don't know how well this works with using Stevie W's Recording, but hey, it works for me, and the samples are FREE!!!!!

Opti- but don't you find that using loops produces more realistic results?

Whenever I've tried making a drum beat up piece by tiny piece it's often ended up sounding like it's coming from a drum machine.

EQ-
Ya know, when I try putting a loop together in Wavelab, I don't get very good results(probably cause im not good at that). So I just put the drum hit sample in my sampler and then sequence a "loop" using midi. Its probably not the right way, but It works good for me. As for sounding like a drum machine, Yes it does, but I use all Electronic sounding drum samples anyway. Im not concerned with what sounds "real" and what sounds like a Drum machine. Im tickled pink by the fact that my sampler sounds like a drum machine, a drum machine nobody has. Also, It offers way more sounds than any drummer has demonstrated with there puny 5 peice and 7 peice drum sets. (they always be speedin up too!)

"As for copyright?"

Hey, it might be fun to rip samples from commercial recordings for your own personal use, and you can probably get away with using them in a live gig. But no one who is going to produce anything on a commercial level is going to do this without getting a license from the original publisher. Otherwise, you are indeed breaking the law and are asking for trouble down the road. That's why it's SOOO hard to get clean samples, loop libraries. And why so many that sell them advertise "clean". This way they are telling the end user they are not ripped, so no copyright issues to worry about.

Another cool way to get fat original sounding drums is to simply layer two kits at the same time from your favorite sound modules/samplers. I combine a hip hop kit with a nice acoustic kit and get an excellent sound! Works even better if you "ever slow slightly" delay the timing on one of the kits, and pan 1 kit a tad to the left and the other kit a tad to the right.

Interesting
I heard if you change it enough, there is nothing they can do about it.
For example a snare drum sound on a commercially recorded CD. How are they even gonna prove anyone took the snare sample from a commercial recording if the sound criminal edited it heavily so it sounded different? It would be like using the sampled sound as a template or a foundation, and then the sound criminal builds on that foundation to create whole new works of madness, until the original foundation/template wasn't recognizable anymore.

Ethically, you should get the lisence, especially if it is a blantant rip-off of the actual work.

Sorry I haven't been able to follow up and post some samples as promissed.

You mentioned Superstition...

Well, if you're desperate to get *that* drum sound but don't want to steal from the album, then let me know what tempo your song's at and I'll see what I can do for you.

> I heard if you change it enough, there is
> nothing they can do about it.

This is an urban myth that goes around in the novice circles. Every sampled piece that ends up in a commercial song. that was used from a published song, gets licensed and then royalties are paid. As for users like you and me who probably won't have a top 40 hit, sure, go ahead and rip away. But if you take your music seriously, you don't want to do this. You never know when something commercially viable is going to come out of your sequencer and the last thing you want is to get sued by the copyright holder. Actually, with most commercial publishers, even the smaller ones, they flat out will ask you to sign a document that your samples are clean or licensed.

But let's reverse this for a sec, if your goal is to blantanly rip some loops from a commercial track, and then use it as background to your music, go ahead. What usually will happen is the copyright holder will get a hold of you at some point and you will be required to pay royalties. But THIS only happens if your tune is on the radio. Did you know the artist/publisher get paid each time their tune is played on the radio?

> For example a snare drum sound on a
> commercially recorded CD. How are they
> even gonna prove anyone took the snare
> sample from a commercial recording if the
> sound criminal edited it heavily so it
> sounded different? It would be like using
> the sampled sound as a template or a
> foundation, and then the sound criminal
> builds on that foundation to create whole
> new works of madness, until the original
> foundation/template wasn't recognizable
> anymore.

This is also a myth. The bottom line, you will only get busted if your tune ends up getting played on the radio, downloaded from the internet, or ends up on some kind of commercial cd. Ever hear of watermarking? This is a digital id that is embedded in most all audio formats today. The naked ear can't hear it. But you can "view" it with proper decoding software. The technology has been around for a few years now. Some users argue it was being done as long as 20 years ago. But it really started being used when the rap/dance/loop type stuff started happening. Then they could simply run the decoder software in a court of law, or similar legal venue, freak the artist out, and collect royalties.

With today's tools, libraries, sound modules, there really is no need to steal samples from un authorized sources. Be original, tweak the sounds you have now! Or spend a few bucks and buy some good libraries.

Whoa, Im shocked. So much for that.

Some very bold statements there. However, quite frankly I don't believe it- especially the stuff you were saying about how a sampled AND modified snare hit can be watermarked.

A snare hit is a fraction of a second. Now once you've did some minor modifications to that hit (such as adding compression) the wave shape changes radically- they don't even need to be major changes in order to make massive changes to the visual appearance of the wave!

Now, in my own experience I have in the past tried to tweak samples in Soundforge and it wouldn't let me. Perhaps this was to do with some kind of watermark process- I don't know. However, this problem is easily solved when you de-check the "save non-audio" data function that's on screen every time you save a file.

If this watermarking thing even does exist then how come we've not heard of it? I mean, there are some pretty serious musicians at this forum and in the 2 years or so that I've been coming here I've never heard anyone mention it. Is it some kind of top secret thing that they only tell you about if you sell a million records or something?

Secondly, can you quote us an example of one single court case where these technologies were used to catch someone out?

Listen... for all I know this watermark technique COULD be possible (perhaps if you added a mega high frequency through all your music, like a dog whistle or something), but it's not a mainstream technology we're talking about here.

I've never heard of ANYONE being sued for stealing someone else's snare hit and I'm 100% sure that I never will hear of such a thing.

All the examples I've ever heard of where people have been sued for stealing samples have been REALLY blatant, like when Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" stole from a Queen song, for example.

The bottom line is this...
If you can give me one single example in the history of music where a person has been sued for stealing a snare sample then I'll eat my hat!

Some very bold statements there. However, quite frankly I don't believe it- especially the stuff you were saying about how a sampled AND modified snare hit can be watermarked.

A snare hit is a fraction of a second. Now once you've did some minor modifications to that hit (such as adding compression) the wave shape changes radically- they don't even need to be major changes in order to make massive changes to the visual appearance of the wave!

Now, in my own experience I have in the past tried to tweak samples in Soundforge and it wouldn't let me. Perhaps this was to do with some kind of watermark process- I don't know. However, this problem is easily solved when you de-check the "save non-audio" data function that's on screen every time you save a file.

If this watermarking thing even does exist then how come we've not heard of it? I mean, there are some pretty serious musicians at this forum and in the 2 years or so that I've been coming here I've never heard anyone mention it. Is it some kind of top secret thing that they only tell you about if you sell a million records or something?

Secondly, can you quote us an example of one single court case where these technologies were used to catch someone out?

Listen... for all I know this watermark technique COULD be possible (perhaps if you added a mega high frequency through all your music, like a dog whistle or something), but it's not a mainstream technology we're talking about here.

I've never heard of ANYONE being sued for stealing someone else's snare hit and I'm 100% sure that I never will hear of such a thing.

All the examples I've ever heard of where people have been sued for stealing samples have been REALLY blatant, like when Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" stole from a Queen song, for example.

The bottom line is this...
If you can give me one single example in the history of music where a person has been sued for stealing a snare sample then I'll eat my hat!

Equalizer:
In my opinion, you're wrong and you're right.

Watermarking has been around for awhile now. I have no idea whether the manipulations you describe would make it go away, but, mathematically, it's possible to introduce stuff to a waveform that isn't "non-audio data" but that still marks it, and is in a detectible form even after major changes. (Of course, I speak in the abstract - I have no idea what the practice is.)

Having said that - you're absolutely correct about the state of the law. It's patently silly to assume that it is worth the time of some lawyer to go after something that small. If copyright violation is proven, they can make you pull that part of the track that violates it. But they wouldn't bother unless they could go the second step and establish grounds for financial compensation - that is, that the new cut owed a measurable amount of its profitability to the fact that one could recognize the commercial value of the original ripped sample within it. Even if such a suit were to happen, a single snare hit's contribution to a song's commercial success wouldn't produce a large enough settlement to make it interesting to the legal eagles.

The music industry is a place where practice and law collide. With the ease and thoroughness of electronic processing, it is almost impossible to define what a copyrightable artistic creation is, exactly, and what constitutes new sound. As a result, what splits the hairs is money, and it's got to be a lot before the lawyer's will even return folks' calls.

Thanks for all of the replies to this thread thus far. See, I've always been against sampling, in respect to sampling other people's work (for myself anyway). It's just not my thing. The way a lot of samplists would take hits (meaning bass drum, snare drum, etc) from different records and construct a drum kit would fascinate me, but I have no interest in doing that.

I'm all for using kits in Sample Libraries, ROM Synths, etc. Interesting as the tangent on copyrighting was, it's somewhat irrelavant to me becuase I'm not really interested in sampling off already-made music.

I take all of us back to original questions. What module, synth, or sample library have you encountered some of the best drum sounds. I'm not talking about V-Drum type (read: expensive) modules, but the usual synth or Alesis DM5, Roland R8 type of ROMs.

The best I've enountered again was the Roland SRX-01 Dynamic Drums board. I really wish that a library with kits like these were available. These are the best sounding, most useful drum sounds I have ever come across. It's just too bad that my Roland XP60 can't except those newer SRX cards.

The Infamous Epu.

Hey man- this topic's evolved into an uncontrolable monster. It's too late to go back now! Infact, the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprized if in a couple of weeks time you saw this topic sprouting legs and running down the street consuming aLL IN ITS DEADLY PATH OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!!!!!!!!!!


*whispers*
The horror.... the horror...

Oh, sure, get us back on task! And after we was havin' so much fun!

Surprisingly, my little Roland JV has done quite well. I purchased the entry-level TD-6 on eBay, and re-sold it two weeks later. It wasn't good enough to bother, and the MIDI implementation was impossible.

"I've never heard of ANYONE being sued for stealing someone else's snare hit and I'm 100% sure that I never will hear of such a thing."

Keep this in mind. Alot of these legal situations go on behind closed doors, usually producer to producer, producer to publisher, etc. The artist is usually not even involved. Because once the publisher "publishes" the music, it's their responsibility. That's why you will NEVER see things like "Puff Daddy" sued for illegal use of snare sample, etc. Keep in mind both the publisher and copyright holder of the sample WANT to keep making sales! The only reason you would get sued (like another user stated) is if there was some serious money involved, OR they just want your particular song out of the way.

"All the examples I've ever heard of where people have been sued for stealing samples have been REALLY blatant, like when Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" stole from a Queen song, for example."

I've read stories where the publishers of Queen's music knew about this WAY ahead of time and decided to wait on it to see if the song went anywhere, it did and the rest is marketing history! I remember getting interested in the song "only" because "someone" ripped Queen off!

"The bottom line is this...
If you can give me one single example in the history of music where a person has been sued for stealing a snare sample then I'll eat my hat!"

It happens all the time, you're just not going to hear about it in a public forum. Sometimes it's nothing more than, hey you owe me a 1 cent for every copy sold. Call up some local studios, talk to producers, publishers, I see no reason why they wouldn't tell you anything different.

I probably worded some of this stuff more "heavy" than it should have been. Bottom line, go rip, sample, anyone and everything. Just don't pretend it's your original work. Credit the original artist/copyright holder, and uh...wait for a phone call.

I stay away from the sampling records thing.

As for sounds, what I tend to do mostly to keep the volume down , is find a kit I like, either mine or a friends, take it to a decent room and record them and me playing hits at various velocities as well as fills and patterns. I just run to DAT cutting down down some of the Studio cost.

Bring the DAT or CD home and either chop it up in a Sampler or on my PC.

To get it right it really takes about 6 months minimum to get one kit library organized and programmed correctly for a wide range of uses.
It also gives you a custom library. Ok it is not the cheapest way but it works and doesn't need to be done in a super high cost studio to be effective for home studio projects.

Nunsie- you're a nice guy and I love you madly, but quite frankly you're talking shit.

YOu say and I quote,
"It happens all the time (people getting sued for stealing snare hits), you're just not going to hear about it in a public forum."

What a load of bull!!!!

If that's true then how do YOU know about it?

It sounds to me like somebody's half-read an article in some synth magazine or something and NOW they're trying to dazzle/freak everyone out with their amazing inside knowledge of the music business.

Im dazzled and freaked! I think im gonna try some new approaches to all this, just to be on the safe side.

So much for gettin' back on task . . .
Munsie:
"like another user stated . . . " - That would be me. We're all amongst friends here, let's get to know each other!
bitdump3:
Aaaaargh! 6 months! In 6 months I could learn to play drums! (OK, maybe not. Uh, well, actually, considering my physical prowess, never, but you get my point.) Something produced like that would have to be a whole lot better than an ordinary module, or way out front in the mix, to justify that much work - at least IMESHO.

OldSchool,

Yup six months is a long time , but what I was getting at is that makes for a varried and useful for a wide range of music library with some creative flare. Or in other word a professional quality library. There is a reason why the good sampler ready CD's cost a fair amount of dough. There is much more work than it seems, even for a relativly simpler sampler. For a more complicated sampler add more time. This is to have something availible for any working situation, so when your doing serious work you do not waste time either looking for sounds or worst haveing to sit there and edit too much.

Doesn't take that long to chop up some samples and play them back. If that is all you need for a home studio fine. If your on the clock then it may work or may not depending on the session. Better have options at that point.

I personally find it difficult to record drums with the sampler stuff, not for lack of knowledge or gear for doing so, but for reasons of feel and space.

Reminds me of being at the circus when they had real bands, unlike now when it just music played back. The little kids still see a circus and have fun, me I miss the band playing off the performer, covering there mistakes, adding tension and mystery, and not skipping. Basicly I miss seeing and hearing the whole room become alive.

Hi all,
I agree with Epu to a point, I think that ripping loops from other peoples work somehow is less satisfying than creating your own material. If it is unavoidable I will use a sampled loop as a framework and then, say if I have 10 tracks I like with sampled drums I will identify whatit is I like about that beat go into the studio and play a simular beat that I have created. I find it better in this way because then I get exactly what I want. I mainly use real kits to for my beats but I will nearly always use some electronic drum sounds...so many artists do this in the studio nowadays (on kick drums especially) and double it up with the acoustic to get a better sound.
At the end of the day, sampling individual drum sounds is no different from using a sample rom synth (apart from the legalities)such as the XP60....you are still using sounds that someone else has put in a box......at least with sampling it is you that choses which ones go in the box!

regards
Dr. O

Hi Equalizer,

"you're a nice guy and I love you madly, but quite frankly you're talking shit."

No doubt about it, I was talking shit. Nevermind...

p.s. Love ya back!