A Better Way To Use DRUM SAMPLES!

this is the sound we start with
we’re gonna be going from a sound like this
to a sound like this
hi it’s been a while
where have you been well
I’m resident loser Jeremy
and I’ve been sitting right here when the cameras off
one question that comes up on the videos a lot is
in regards to drums I love to track drums
sometimes I’m hiring players
sometimes I’m recording bands
sometimes
I’m getting files from wherever they’re coming from
to mix and sometimes I’m recording them
god forbid cause that’s the worst option
inevitably samples come up in discussion
do I use samples do I not use samples
if I have complete control over a situation
and unlimited time unlimited budget
a great kit a great player
I’m probably not gonna use samples
but does that happen every time
you’re delusional
there are a fair number of cases where yes
you have to lean on samples
and that could be for any number of factors
there could be something
mechanically wrong with the kit
they’re just not hitting hard enough or common issue
you just need to sample augment the kit
to get it in the world
of where they’re trying to go with their reference
and what that target audience is going to expect
out of a drum kit a buckle up
because this is subjective city
we’re pulling up on right now
he started talking specificity and tones and samples
and sample players there’s gonna
be everybody with their own preferences
and what they want out of a sound
I wanted to do a video where I actually show my process
and how I do use samples
because it’s come up a few times
I do use trigger sometimes
but more likely
I’m making a midi roadmap of what’s happening
with a real played kit
in a situation where I need to use samples
more than likely
I’m gonna lean on using it in a MIDI context
because it is so much more reliable to me
so I wanted to make that video for a while
then lo and behold along comes a sponsor
hurts Instruments with their Hertz Drums Bundle
a pack of samples and different kits
a red pack a white pack and a blue pack
each one kind of giving their own spin and feel
on drum samples
I go down the line and show how I’m using this sampler
I’ve used on a lot of projects so far
at first
this was a video I wasn’t really sure I wanted to do
then hurts kind of sent along some of the plugins
so I could get acquainted with it
I really really liked him
quickly found a home on my mix template
so far
I’ve used this stuff on multiple songs that I’m doing
here so yes
this is a sponsored video
take that with a grain of salt
however
the principles that I’m showing in here are still valid
for whatever sampler you’re going to use
so let’s get into it so here we are in Pro Tools
this is a song that I recorded
I played drums on and I am not a drummer
I can’t hit the drums as consistently as powerful
and as well
as someone who actually knows how to play drums
so in a song like this that’s heavy
that’s congested that is kind of meant to
just be a little claustrophobic
in places
there needs to be some sample augmentation to one
account for my playing and to
to kind of help poke those transients out
above the sound
because that’s the sound I’m hearing in my head
in this situation I definitely do
I am not the best person to show you how to
midi rating and drum parts
that’s not who I am I can play a drum set
and then kind of build around that
so
what I’m gonna be showing is how to use a drum sampler
like something like Hertz
or insert your own superior drummer
get good drums anything like that
you can use it essentially the same
using mini triggers from Real Drum
I find it to be way more accurate
you don’t have to worry about the odd
little phase shifting that happens from like
an intersample perspective
where sometimes they’re not lining up exactly this way
you have an unparalleled amount of predictability
when using something like many
I really like doing it this way
so let’s start with what we have
we’re gonna be going from a sound like this
to a sound like this
so real quick let’s take a look at the plug in itself
Hertz Drums
pretty predictable interface
when you’re looking at like a drum sample like this
the more I dive into this
the more I appreciate what they’ve created here
because it’s very easy to create
the exact drum sound that you want
with everything right here
your finger so when you get Hertz Drums
which I’m gonna be putting a link to
some free trials down below
so you can check them out
if you wanna purchase that
there will be links down there as well
and trust me I have been in contact with these guys
that are part of this company
and without going into details um
if the type of person behind a plug in like this
is a factor and whether you support a company or not
these are good people they’re good people
doing good work outside of the software world
we’ll just leave it there
so when you enter Hertz Drums you’re gonna be presented
depending on the packs you have
I have white pack blue pack
red pack each one of these
kind of have a different vibe to them
the red pack to me is by far the most interesting
however if we want to take a look at some of these
let’s say you load up any preset we have white metal
it’s gonna load all that stuff
and but as we take a look around
we look down here
we have our numbers 1 through 15 okay
cool Mike a B and C interesting kick left
kick right snare everything’s fairly predictable
I find myself not messing with the mixer
nearly as much as I do
this kind of little mini mixer up here in the corner
let’s go back to the sampler
this is loaded in
so we can quickly touch around the kit
see what’s going on
pretty cool this is a metal kit off the white
my favorite one so far is red alt rock
this is the one I’ve kind of been playing with
as a starting point
and watch how easy it is to combine the stuff
so here’s the sounds we got here
the thing that’s hard to sell with drum samplers
like this is the room and I feel like I’m in the room
this doesn’t sound far off to me
as something I could record in here with a good player
but I’m not a good player
so this immediately feels at home to me
the part that really surprised me was the overhead
stuff listen to these how clean these overheads are
the sense of space that you get take for example
this guy this little bell over here
you should really hear the 3D space happening
part that I didn’t dig on
this was the kick if you find something that okay
this is 90% of the way there
but I’m just not digging this kick and I don’t
we can click around here and find different kicks
and these are separated on the screen here in groups
so we have our sample libraries
red pack right here that I’m on
this is blue pack and then our other pack white
I love kick 15 on the white
and from here we have different mics
so obviously with the one we’re on now if you like that
you can pick different mics
and mic positions on these different nozzles
right here but I don’t really like this one
I wanna see what these other mics sound like
right
click it and you’ve now changed that kick right there
and it’s that easy
the snare
I wanna find something more of a transient on here so
oh
I really like that brat
but I really like
that right there I love this
so real quick let’s make some actual MIDI triggers here
so few different ways that you can do this
you can literally take your snare track
and move it up to a MIDI track Tada
now you have many triggers for your snare
I find that not to be very accurate
and you can get a lot of extraneous things
especially with real drums recorded in a way that I did
and I’m not a drummer sometimes that works for me
that’s not all that fun I
like to do this by going to Massey d R t if you want
so let’s pull up our snare
we’re gonna highlight it in the window
it analyze it’s gonna pull that in
so we have a lot of stuff happening here
these look like it’s making triggers
we have loudness sensitivity so on this loudness scale
I’m gonna go right in the valley between these two
because basically that’s telling us hey
you have a lot of transient information
where it’s really really loud
that would tell me that’s the main snare hit
that’s the mic hitting the snare
and then you have a lot of information down here
where it’s not so loud that could be
things that are bleeding into the mic itself
so I go right in between those two
and I’m gonna get mostly snare heads
same thing down here sensitivity
how sensitive do you want these triggers to hit
I wanna do the same thing
let’s lean towards the louder stuff
so now we end up with a much cleaner looking profile
as far as what we’re capturing over the arc here
I would like to crank the heaviest hits up to where
they’re about there what you can do with this knob
you can flatten out the performance
I don’t like to do that on a snare drum because it’s
that’s what’s gonna make this seem like a sample
if there’s no difference between the hits themselves
so let’s get this back to default
and I just wanna bring the volume up to where
the heaviest hits look like
they’re
darn close to as heavy as this thing can possibly
sample 1:27
when we’re happy with that
we just drag it over
so we move it up to a snare and we’re good
let’s do the same thing with the kick
so we’re gonna pull in our kick
let’s go get Massey DRT back
we’re gonna do the same thing
we’re gonna pull up that loudness
pull up the sensitivity
this one gets a little more iffy to me
so let’s bring that loudness a little higher
we’re gonna keep it about there
I’m I’m fine with this now for a kick drum
I want it to be more consistent
because I know myself as a player
and I’m not that good so
I’m gonna flatten out the performance
just a little bit here
not something
I don’t want a perfectly flat performance
but I don’t want my foot all over the place
at the same time
that’s gonna make my low end a little unpredictable
if I was a better player I could take care of it
but I’m not then
I’m gonna take the overall thing
and put it pretty close to the ceiling
because I would like that aggressive kick
but notice it’s still not perfect
there’s deviations that is
kind of the difference between a really good player
and a machine and you can tell the difference
so we’re gonna drag this on
now for this this is approaches specific thing
but what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna copy
if I click option m it’s gonna paste special
where it’s gonna merge those two MIDI parts
so now what I can do is come into my MIDI
highlight just the kicks
and then put them where they’re supposed to go
now we can really dig into what’s possible
up here in this little corner
you can switch mics here as well
down here as well
for whatever source that you’re trying to get
but you also have pitch trim
which is basically your overall volume
of whatever source that you have
for my kick
these are pulled back just ever so slightly
because they’re a little more prominent
than something like the snare
which I want a little more out front
and this contact from here
there’s a super cool room and verb sound check this out
so we’re listening to the sample snare here
so for me I wanna be about right in the middle
a little room a little reverb
we can make our minimum
as far as how hard we wanna hit
a lot of these are pretty hard hits
so I’m gonna bring it up at least
I mean not all the way
but I’m gonna put a limit on how dynamic
I actually want this
and you can change the dynamics here
I would rather do it as far as telling it
I don’t want you to trigger anything
below this certain number
so it’s gonna come out like a heavier hit
other cool part about this is
controlling the bleed into other mics
so we have RDI overheads sub
which in this instance is like the sub snare
bottom snare I think it’s a language thing
so I thought it was like the subbiness of a snare drum
which was cool but if we pull that up
we just see it’s a bottom snare mic
so in this instance
I have a pretty cool bottom stair mic
I don’t want a ton of that
but I’ll keep it in there for context
but I can pull up overheads
effects and the direct signal of the snare
I’m gonna play with that till I’m happy with it
in the mix itself
that’s pretty cool
so looking right here
we can see that our little fundamental
on the actual snare is 1:60 five
so let’s come over here put another instance of Pro Q
and see where this snare is hitting
that’s 2:23 so I’m gonna drop the pitch of this snare
and I’m gonna watch on Pro Q
until we get about in the same area
and we’ll do the same thing with the kick drum okay
so kick is hitting around sixty
for that that is close enough for me
cause it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where I’m doing it
because I’m hitting the kick so inconsistent
that how hard I’m hitting
is really changing the pitch of the kick itself
I love using samples like this
it doesn’t sound too much like we’re using samples
in a perfect world I wouldn’t need them
in this instance I’m the player however
there are instances where we can’t control the player
and having a discussion like that
is a little difficult but in the instance like this
and using samples like this
if the kid itself is decent
you can get by pretty heavy handed with samples
but it’s gonna match the vibe of the kit
the other cool thing we can do here
say your in a session you’ve already recorded the drum
can’t really go back and change much
Hertz Drums has an option
and let’s just bring up another track
to show how this could really be cool
I had this little guy hiding behind the wings
just to be extra sneaky
but let’s go ahead and make it active
and I have Hertz Billy Decker
a little pro Q just to show me what’s happening
nothing’s actually here and vintage verb
the cool thing here
if you wanna make something like a snare bomb
there’s a reverse button here and a length option
and you can do that with any source you want
so if I want overheads reversed
I can create swells reverse swells into any part
so if I wanna pretend it’s like 2003 metalcore
obviously I’m not lining it up perfect
but you can put snare bombs all over the place
obviously there’s things just here
where it’s built by people who have used libraries
like this before and they’re just making it easy
all the velocities here we have our attack
sustain release
decay all of that
it’s ultimate control over your drum
the thing that gets me
was using normal sample replacements
like trigger it’s okay
I like doing it in some instances
but there’s a certain level of inconsistency
something like this
using MIDI that is never gonna change if if
unless I change it and I have control over that
so I like sample augmenting in this fashion
a lot of times
using samples from sample libraries like this
they’re created with a bit more care I’ll say
and sounds like this they sound great
I haven’t messed with the overheads a ton
because that’s not how I use drums like this
but for these sounds
this just takes it over the top for me
and a performance that was lackluster
because I created it into something like this
using mini like this
you can hop around to any number of samplers
not lose how you want to replace your drums
and you can float around to so many different sounds
with this one
it’s especially easy to incorporate into any workflow
because the key mapping is already there for you
can come from addictive drums
easy drummer groove agent
Steven Slate drums superior drummer logic if you want
everything is here and I love when companies do that
because one of the most annoying things
hopping between libraries
is not having that middle ground there
so even using this to get from one to the other
could be helpful if this isn’t a sound you want
however I do find this incredibly useful
and I really like these sounds
I’m really anxious to see what their next packs are
gonna sound like because yeah
this is a metal song but I’m not working on metal a lot
this is my own personal stuff
but I could definitely see
some of the folkier things on here
would be really really cool
it’s just in the way they’re capturing these drums
it has just an organic feel
you can hear the room
you can hear the care taken to the instrument itself
and they’re not overhyped samples
which is something that’s a real big turn off sometimes
so if you wanna give these guys a try
there’s gonna be links to some trial versions
and if you wanna purchase it
go ahead purchase it there
I get nothing if you purchase that
that is no kickback to me whatsoever
but I do think if you try it
you are gonna like it until then
if you’re using Hertz Drums or you’re using anything else
go make some music I’m resident loser Jeremy
I’ll see you guys in the next one