Drum Samples: Uncompressed or Not?
Using uncompressed drum samples is really the domain of those who can spot the potential in samples. Rarely do thin ears spot this potential, and this is why over-compressed drum samples are peddled by most drum samples websites, and successfully so, I might add. Compression is basically the process of increasing the volume of the quiet parts of a sound sample so that the distance between the highs and lows (in terms of volume!) is lessened.
Compression as it applies to drum samples can meet you at several points of a beat making session. The earliest stage possible is probably the process where you select your drum sounds. As you’re browsing, you probably realize that most of the samples sound very loud. This is the compression in action. Most samples have already had all their subtleties and creative tendencies removed by whoever made this sound library. It can be very tiresome to try to locate samples that you can modify, knowing that the original characteristics will still shine through.
The second point at which compression will play apart is the final mixing process. This is where you would electively apply some compression using software or hardware audio compressors on drum samples or slight applications to soft instruments like the piano. The main creative difference here is that you are not subject to the over-compression used by many sound editors. Your decisions from here are truly coming from you.
Just about every song at the top of the charts today has very compressed drum samples that really cut through any mix. The loudness war is indeed a big drive for this. While compression removes a lot of the dynamics of drum samples and other instruments, it has its creative uses, and certain techniques like ducking compression can produce bass and drum interplay known in dance music as ‘pumping.’
If you have decided on a set of sounds but notice that the compression level is just too high, there is some hope. You certainly don’t have to ditch these samples to look for some drum samples that are a bit more dry; adding color back onto the sample’s canvas is not that hard once you get the creative hang of it. One of the methods that is a bit more common is to mix a dry sample with this over-compressed sample, and you can do this with just about any audio editor out there today, even free ones like Audacity which is very easy to download and use. The second way is to edit the actual wave sample by yourself and make cropping and filtering decision to add some spice back to this drum for your own use.
One of the popular compression techniques used in urban and rock music these days is called the New York Compression process. How can you replicate it? Grab a sample, and copy it. Now, one of the copies should be compressed beyond recognition, as sharp as it can be, while the other sample is left alone. Combine the two, and you’ll have a great, punchy sample that still retains some characteristics.
If you’re after some great-sounding hip hop drum samples or simply want to know how to make hip hop beats, just remember that you shouldn’t settle for second best!
