Marco-

It depends on how you want to use the drum sounds.

If you want to use them like a REX file (in Reason or Cubase, for instance) you would keep the file "whole" and bring it into ReCycle (by Propellerheads) and slice the loop into segments.
This ytechnique will keep the very natural, live feel of the recorded drums. The down side is, is that someone may recognize a loop from a particular recording and you could have a copyright issue.

The other way is when you grab each drum hit and make it a sample to be be sequenced in a drum program or MIDI track. This can be natural or fake sounding based on MANY factors.

I usually use a combination of both.

Compress the drums for that fat sound. Some extreme effects can be had by turning your threshold way down, your ratio way up, fairly quick attack and really long release. Then...experiment--that's where it's all at.

Good luck.

.nick

Try speeding 'em up when you record so when you play them back at normal speed they're running a little slower.

That will make them enormous, and allow the digital system to handle the transients much better since it slows the slope down of the initial rise time.

You're still limited by the filter bandpass, but it helps a lot.

It also lets you keep the drums tuned to their optimum tension, while giving you the sound of detuning. Best of both worlds.

Damn Sp, I was thinking that...as experienced it...very cool, very usable info. I was going to post something simalar, got distracted :D and there you are...

Hey, Wendy is doing Great with her forum. :tu: ..thanks so much for being there.. :p:

SP and Bill : ditto .. use 2" tape and no problem, but for most, those days are gone...

two things to do with drum loops:

1. Filter off th Top end...lots of loops tend to have too much top/cymbals/ect. especially when you want it to fit in a track and leave room for the vocals. Filters are great....sometimes really filtering almost all of the top off and then compressing the snot out of it will get you a real big bottom.

2. compress...not to hard. SLOW attack and FAST release.

..and...
usually, it' good to use a coiple of diff loops..one thta's more the verse pattern, the othe the chorus. these can work to gether so that maybe you just add the 2nd to the first for the choruses. Now if you add some diff. kick and snare samples to emphasis 2 &4, ect you start to get a real "phat" track.

I also found it helpful to tuck a sine wave at the fundimental frequency of the kick, mix it in to taste. Pretty handy last resort if you can't get it out of the kick, key is getting it to blend it so you feel it and not hear as something seperate from the kick.

if you want to fatten up the snare a bit, you could layer a different snare sample. possibly with a slight delay like 20ms to give it a slight flam effect. this can also help to make the loop sound different for copyright reasons.

>>>"2. compress...not to hard. SLOW attack and FAST release."

That's good for a proper sound. I mention the opposite becasue at high ratios and low threshholds, it messes with the attack in a clippy way, and the slow release lets a lot of garbage and junk (decay, original fx, room noise{!}) in.

This can be used to great effect for many things from intelligent breaks to dNb to trip hop.

.nick