The Bass Drum is the pulse, the foundations forming the shape of your rhythmic motif, your groove phrasing structure. Like all “struck instruments”, there is usually a varying mix of some type of noise, and one or two tone emitting vibrating membranes, like with a snare drum… or a bongo, that might sound a bit higher if hit harder, or played nearer the edge or the middle could affect the perceived tonal content. Percussionists and drummers, - particularly those who are experienced performers - are quite familiar with this slightly ambiguous tuning situation.
If you are recently entering the world of sequencing drums, bass, synth, vocals, guitar, bass, maybe flute or ambient environment sounds … well then this is something to think about. If you require advice on whether your bassdrum is hitting that perfect beat and tone in context of your song, and you have a sample from TuneSong Records, and want some advice, just send us a link to the audio work in progress and TuneSong staff will direct your query to the perfect person for the audio scenario interaction.
Something else to think about is where you choose to end a note if it is a held note, like a looooong conga tone, or a ride cymbal.
When people talk about Swing parameter, or “Shuffle”, it is either 8ths or 16ths. 8ths are half notes, and sixteenths are quarter notes, and adding swing adjusts the sequencer’s placement of the start of a 2nd 8th or 16th note ever so slightly behind the pulse.
That’s cool, but if you think about it, by adjusting the ADSR envelope, or manually editing the vol parameter … you have the opportunity to craft your own extra unique stylee, of swing or shuffle via adjusting where you end the note event, say just before the end of a 2nd 8th note or 16th note. You dig? Now please enjoy in moderation. If you find something good, how about go and use it, don’t try and find another 300 gemstones just as inspirational. However you like. You do you, TuneSong does TuneSong. And the audience has a good time.
Big Phat Bass Drum One-Shot Samples
With feeling! Accompanying expressionist and gestural sample variations accomplished with real-world souned experience and creativity with the basics:
EQ
Light compression
Potential Saturation
Subtle tuning adjustment via centitones if the length is adjusted on the alternatives.
Potential finessing of the ADSR Envelope… or, a manual volume parameter on the DAW timeline.
Too Much Information? Okay cool.
Enough with all the talk.
Take me to your audio sound sample dealer pronto! Top shelf quality and nothing else. Just creamy smooth awesomeness.
Bass Drums
Snare Drums
Hi Hats - closed and open
Claps
Cowbells and Tambourines
Ride on Cymbals
Tom Drums and Toto Toms
WoodBlock Stylee
General Perk
Talking about music is like performing interpretive movement around architecture. Music however is our thing, it’s a big thing and everyone has the option to buy in and learn to contribute or merely enjoy the sounds and genres and progressions of music they listen to and enjoy as they go forwards with their personal journey, adventures.
TuneSong has a sample-relevant motivation!
Mission:
To bring the zing and deep down goodness of fully usable and totes mega-phat bass drum samples for the people on the Elektron Machinedrum, the Roland 101 and 404, the Pioneer Toraiz SP16 … and so forth. We got love for the people who like to occasionally just “work in the box” … all cool! The bold warm crafted big phat bass drum is a sassy tagline although actually in fact we also value subtlety. Expect a few expresionistic variations of the main scene for the audio dream, the pulse, often in dance music driven and shaped by that throbbing kick. Nice. There is more to it than just that when you watch an amazingly good groove drummer do their thang. ghost notes, half rim shots rhythmically started and departed from the sound stage.
The drum kit is having a musical conversation with itself, ideally, with thew audience, and with the other musicians or4 instrumentation in the song or recording. Overwhelmed? No? Awesome. Go forth and sequence a meaningful session with musically relevant phrases that feel something good for you.
It has been said before the bass guitar is the interpreter between the drums and the guitars in the implied musical conversation that a rock band performance is having on stage. With samples and sequencingh and samplers, the lines blur sometimes, and that’s cool.
Sometimes the bass drum is the bass line also. Doing two things, maybe with the help orf a deep organ sound, like a Rhodes or Hammond deep simple good chord sample.
So… there are like …. things you might not know are happening for five, ten or even a dozen years… like the fact that most struck instruments have a “pitch ramp” - to a lesser degree starting lower and going up… usually it s a quick micro-fast pitch ramp up obscured by noise component then over say two seconds lowers subtly, slowly … like a mid bass tom drum struck cleanly and with verve. then allowed to resound.
Too much talking? Okay here is the ahref link to transport your perception to the genres or ranges of TuneSong Records’ sensational samples fo yo.
You think about it though. Especially if you like to customise samples, with their ADSR envelope or via manual automation of their volume parameter on the timeline of your DAW of choice. If you want to know more, chewck the tutorial link just here. It’s a worthwhile read and even if it only takes you a year or two to get phat with custom drum sample crafting, it is fully worth it. Can mean the difference between your track receiving polite interest and a few comments to a few million peope knowing and loving your song for long times of lasting goodness.