| Using Drum Samples With Reverb |
| Written by John Gellei |
| Saturday, 05 December 2009 08:06 |
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Reverb, when applied to drum samples, is grossly underused in popular music. At the same time, though, a lot of the people who make use of the effect for their drum parts abuse it and degrade the drum samples to the point of annoyance.
Reverb, when applied to drum samples, is grossly underused in popular music. At the same time, though, a lot of the people who make use of the effect for their drum parts abuse it and degrade the drum samples to the point of annoyance. When using the reverb on a single drum sample, you need to ask yourself the precise purpose that the particular sound is supposed to serve. Is it to add some spatial characteristics to the loop? If it's a constant sound: will it drive your audience berserk after a few listens, or is it moderate in nature? Sometimes it is very easy to overuse and ruin an otherwise good song by using reverb incorrectly. The length of the reverb is one of the main points of debate. Some people claim that songs with a slower tempo warrant a longer 'tail' (release) on the reverb sound patch, while others ask you to experiment with long and short on both medium and fast tempo songs to see what works for you. Sometimes, a longer reverb will allow the other drum samples to have a little bit more freedom and not need to perform to fill in empty space. If one of the samples takes that burden off the rest, you'll have a lot more freedom! There are so many practical applications for using this effect with the kinds of samples we've got. You can apply special files called IR files (Impulse Responses) which are environment simulators. What this means is that you could make your drum samples sound like they were recorded in a famous museum, like the Louvre, for instance, or anywhere else. IR files even exist for Grand Canyon locations and more spots - your creativity is the limit here. You can also apply the impulse response to other tracks for coherence. Having said all of the above, however, you can certainly test and note the results. Whatever sounds good is what you should go with. Don't worry about semantics - as long as it works for your audience that is all that matters in music. If any of this information is a bit over your head, don't worry. You will soon get a natural knack for applying reverb at the right points and at the right speed, but you need to be ready to experiment as much as possible. When you can start to make creative decisions about effects like reverb on drum samples, you'll be a few steps ahead of the competition. Also make sure to trial different plug-ins and software solutions. There are plenty of reverb effects out there, and different programs will have different workflows and different parameters. You may find something that just clicks with your workflow perfectly! About the Author: Are you after the best hip hop samples on the net? Check out drum samples for all your music production needs. |