Choosing Samples,Layering Samples,Slotting in the spectrum!

[oldboy]

Hi dave, Hopefully you will get a chance to look at this message

First of all BIG thanks for sharing all of your knowledge and brain power with us mere mortals - still scratching our heads over the thought of releasing EDM at a releasable quality!

Second of all i apologize if anything i request is already in your videos and i havent spotted it : )

I have just started looking into your 7day tutorials, and they are very helpful! but there are a couple of things i struggle with.. i also find this on other production tutorials floating around the interwebs.
I just wondered if you get the chance(i know you are a busy boy-inaband)could you ideally :make a tutorial on these topics, but as i know i am not the only one hurling requests at you! if this isnt possible could you: point and shove me in the right direction (maybe you know of some already existing tutorials or material floating around the internet that could help!)

First puzzle is: Choosing the right sample for the job(mainly drum samples i am thinking of), on many tutorials the drum samples have already been predetermined and i feel (and have heard) that choosing the right sample is very important especially drums when you are producing dance music, and skipping past this part is not giving me the chance to perhaps see how an experianced producer would choose the right samples for a particalur genre or help train my ear to what may be bad samples! it would be great if you could perhaps run thro the drums from your sample packs(or even if you have a tie in with prime loops recommend a sample pack that would provide a great pallette of bread and butter sounds for producers that covers a wide range of genres) and say how you would describe the kicks, snares and hats for example (i would describe this snare as punchy,snappy,thuddy this kick as boomy subby and they would go great with this genre or that genre : ) )

Second puzzle is: Layering samples(again mainly regarding drum samples) i know you do go through the process of layering samples on your videos, but i feel like this technique is used a lot in todays tracks, and i could do with learning more on this subject (i realize that choosing and layering samples comes down to training your ears and understanding what particular frequency they reside in but i think these are things a lot of people struggle with : ))

Third thing(and this really ties in with the previous 2) is: Understanding Frequency-everybody hertz again - i know this is a biggy when it comes to production, and its not one of those things that we are going to learn overnight. But training my ears to understand what frequency range a particular sound is in seems to be vital in music production, especially - the bedroom orientated electronic music producer- first of all is there a way of creating a spectrum analyser in reason? if so-this would be a great way to train our ears, if you could do a tutorial( ) i thought it would be great to talk about the frequency spectrum and also when talking about choosing samples and layering samples, it would be brilliant to see where the samples fitted in the spectrum by showing everyone on the spectrum analyser (eg: this punchy snare resides at x hz and this boomy bassdrum sits at z hz) i feel like a spectrum analyser would be a great step in the right direction. So..Yeah talking about genre specifics such as this genre usually uses these drums and bass which is very subby around the ?Hz area I'm actually really excited by this prospect if it is possible (i have seen people talk about it in other videos maybe using a vocoder? Yeah i just think it would really help people understand the audio spectrum and what instruments sit where etc... I'd say this is the biggest obstacle for me at the minute, just trying to get my head around that this kick would sound good with this snare or this kick would sound good layered with this kick, understanding why we may need to eq something, i just think it would answer so many questions if you could actually say "as you can see there is a lot going on in this frequency range so we need to filter out some of this frequency" and people could actually see as well as hear the change you make which(to me anyway) would really help the learning curve of tying certain sounds to certain frequencies : )!!

Really sorry for rambling on so long, i know this is a lot to ask! It's just i get really frustrated over wanting to make music and the studio engineer part constantly seems to be standing in my way. It makes me laugh all the people who write negative comments on youtube and places like that writing people off as rubbish, and saying they could do better?! I think if any noob(or anyone really) says something like that on youtube, that they should put their money where their mouth is. Because people dont realize the effort that goes on behind the scenes in making music. I really respect bedroom producers from yesteryear, who had no choice but to save up for hardware and mixing desks and the like! We really are spoilt : )

Anyways ....... Thanks for listening Dave! Peace out - JACKtheLAD

[Rmonik]

Quite a bit of text there.

For your first problem, believe me, me, and a lot of other producers know your pain. All i can think of is two things:
- Listen to song in the same genre and try to actually find a sample that comes very close to the one in the song.
- Secondly, listen to them in context. What i do sometimes is load in a default rack i've prepared with some lame drum sounds, build a part of my song around it, and when i feel i have enough to choose new samples, change the drum samples while the song is playing. That way you're sure they will fit.

As for the words describing the samples, some of them are just a description of how it sounds (thuddy). As for the other ones, there is some discussion about what it means, but for me, a punchy sample is one that "punches" through the mix, that is "hard" and feels a tad agressive. (for instance, boosting the 200 Hz area of a snare) Snappy is when it has a good attack to it, Which can also add to punch. Subby is when there's a lot of sub. Meh, i barely use these to describe samples anymore, because they are so subjective. I actually describe them with their features.

Second question: Getting samples to sit well together isn't always that hard. If you have good samples that is. Also, don't choose samples that are similar to each other. Try finding samples that go well together, where the characteristics of one sample lack in the other one and vice versa. What i usually do for dubstep snares is one aggressive hollow sounding one, with a good sound around that 200 Hz. Then one with a decent amount of white noise to it. Then one crackly one with not a lot of low end, to fill the spectrum up a bit. Then a clap, to give it that agressive high end transient. And usually some white noise to give it a tail.

Ofcourse, it's very important as well to modify the samples and process the drums, but having good samples is very important and if that's not right, the processing won't help it.
Some more tips: i usually use a master compressor for all my snares, i use the one in kong, i like the sound of it. i also give most of the samples their own transient shaper to give it a bit more attack. Lastly, if you feel samples are too "overlapping", as in the attack transient feels a bit off, don't be afraid to move them around a bit. I usually have one snare hitting a few ms before the actual drum. It gives it a cool effect too, it kinda "whips" into the sound.

Third question: Honestly, i never use spectrum analyzers, except on the master channel. The best way to find a frequency is by taking a simple EQ, boosting param one to the max, maybe boosting the Q a little bit, and sweeping the frequency from the lowest point to the highest point. You'll notice the frequencies much better as you go over them. Don't do this too slowly, as it may distract you from the original sound you were going for. After a while, you will know where those frequencies hit standardly. It will save you time.

[Gastly]

Just Kidding,

Just Get a High Freq sample and a Low Freq sample and Eq til it sounds nice, you can't really give a guide because samples are different