Tips To Improve Your Drum Loops
May 14th 2020
Whether you’re producing tech, EDM, trance, or trap, your day-to-day will involve dealing with plenty of drum loops.
It’s often the case that we want to change one or two elements of the drum sample pack, perhaps for production value, or maybe just to give the loop our own flavor. There are plenty of ways you can change up your drum kits, either for improvement or just because you fancy getting creative with your tunes.
1 . Cut that loop
One of the simplest ways to switch-up your drum sample is to cut it up into smaller parts, and then rhythmically reposition it. Say you hear a great pattern between one bar and the following. What’s stopping you from cutting up the bar, copying out this pattern and using it elsewhere? Nothing is, so get going! When you start chopping, you can make your own new drum loops. Many musicians really dig this creative process. If you’re an Ableton Live user, you can achieve this with the ‘slice-midi’ feature.
2. Switch the EQ
Another simple way to give your midi drum patterns some style is to EQ the drum loop in a different way. Bear in mind that plenty of others will be using the same drum kit downloads as you. Even changes that appear pretty simple can make all the difference in setting your tunes apart from the rest. For instance, if you filter out the components above 200kHz, and then use a compressor, you’ll find that the kick drum sound is nicely emphasized.
3. The odd number trick
Look at the bars that the drum pack plays from start to finish, and ensure that the number of bars is an oddnumber. Considering that the majority of songs use bars of four, if the sound repeats after three bars instead, the arrangement is immediately very different. Many musicians like the odd number trick as they feel the repetition is less obvious this way. But you might dig that repetition, it depends on your personal tastes and on which genre you are using your drum beats for.
4. Layer your drum beats
Layering one hit drum samples on top of your loops is another great way to modify your sounds. You’ll need to try out a few different snare and kicks before you find something that fits. Don’t get excited and just chuck in another layer for the sake of it. When it comes to layering, it’s all about taking your time to find the sounds that kick up a musical storm!
Dance Midi Samples
Of course, you don’t have to change up your drum loops. Often, you’ll find the right drum loops online that are perfect the way they are. At Dance Midi Samples, we have a huge range of tasty drum kit samples to suit plenty of genres. We’ve got house drum kits, trap drum loops, tech drum packs, and trance midi drum patterns. All our drum packs are top quality, whether you’re searching for some futuristic bass or some killer EDM drums.
