5 Beginner Tips For Programming Killer Drums
Are you struggling to get your music signed to the labels of your dreams?
Do you feel like something’s missing when you compare your music to your favourite artists?
If you answered yes to either of these questions, there’s a very good chance you need to learn how to improve your drum programming.
Drums are so important to dance music - if your drums aren’t right, your tracks won’t be packing out the dancefloor and DJs won’t want to play your records!
Read on to learn 5 beginner tips that'll instantly elevate your drum grooves!
1. Use Quality Samples
Trying to program a killer drum groove without the right samples is like trying to build a house without any bricks - you’ll never achieve any sustained success!
There’s a load of great drum samples out there - and a lot of low quality rubbish that will make your record sound muddy and amateur.
One way to avoid these dodgy samples is to seek out sample packs released by labels, academies and artists that you already follow and trust.
2. Match Your Samples To Your Style
One of the biggest mistakes beginner producers make when programming their drums is to choose samples that don’t match the style of music they’re making.
A kick drum that sounds amazing in techno might sound terrible in a house record, and vice versa. The same is true for the other drum sounds like claps, hats and percussion.
Don’t just randomly choose your drum samples like an amateur. Think carefully about whether the samples you’re choosing fit the labels you’re trying to get signed to, or sound like the top artists in your chosen genre.
3. Seek Out Inspiration
If you're struggling to come up with a creative drum pattern, sometimes it can help to actively seek out inspiration.
Try to recreate one of your favourite artist's drum patterns (don’t worry if you can’t get it exactly right - just get as close as possible). This gives you a proven groove that has been tried and tested by some of the biggest DJs in the world.
We don’t want to plagiarise other artists, so you still need to heavily edit this groove to make it your own - but at least it gives you a starting point to work from!
4. Be Careful With Loops
One of the biggest mistakes we see producers make is to add a bunch of percussion, hat and top loops to their drums without checking whether they work together.
This is a surefire way to end up with a cluttered, muddy and confusing mix that’ll leave anyone listening with their head in their hands instead of pumping their fist.
Next time, try to think carefully about whether or not a particular loop adds any groove or value to your drums. Don’t be afraid to edit these longer loops down to shorter clips (or even individual sounds).
Doing this will give you the chance to program a much cleaner drum groove, where each sound has its own space and doesn’t have to fight with 5 other overlapping loops.
5. EQ Space In The Mix
Make sure you EQ out any unnecessary frequencies in each of your drum samples, so that they don’t clash with another instrument.
It’s particularly vital to create space for your kick - this is the driving heartbeat of your drum groove.
Use your EQ to identify where your kick sits on the frequency spectrum. Next, use a high pass filter EQ on your other drum instruments to remove the low end frequencies that clash with your kick.
Repeat this concept with your other drum sounds for a cleaner, punchier drum groove!
Even with these tips, it can still be difficult to program drums that sound as good as the tracks you’ve fallen in love with.
But it can be done.
Even by a beginner.
In under 15 minutes.
Sign up here for our FREE Drum Programming Training For Beginners and we'll show you how!
For all general inquiries, please contact us at info@expansiveacademy.com
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