THE most useful tip i have discovered for making your own breaks

[proximity]

ok when you layer several breaks on top of each other you usually have a haywire mess frequency wise , with lots of shit in frequencies you do not want. whats the easiest way to get around this? send your break to two seperate mixer channels, with a well placed low pass and a well placed high pass on the other, at exactly the same frequency and q. now mix these mix on top of each other to taste.. if you have too much lowend, mix the highs more predominantly etc... then you can eq and compress the final product as a whole. i know calyx has talked about doing this and personally this is like a godsend for my style since i love layering insane amounts of breaks on top of each other but it always sounded like a mess until now. try it :thumbsup:

[Cortex]

That definitely works good for any sort of percussion, I do that for house to give it that aggressive feel.

[Jay Selway]

I filter all the bass outta all my percussion .. except for the kick off course.

[Cortex]

I find that a tiny hint of bass can be good for things like snares, toms and congas. But that's just me.

[proximity]

i find fucking with the weight (bass) of kicks and snares is a bad bad idea.. makes them sound completely unnatural. if you take out everything else and look in a spectrum analyzer you will see that all professionally producers leave that weight in there .. its really important to have a pop to your snares and a boom to your kicks

[proximity]

I filter all the bass outta all my percussion .. except for the kick off course.

if by bass you mean like around 200-500 and less that is a good idea. remember crispness is the abscene of unnescesary lowend, so doing this will benefit your mixdown immensely.. cut anything thats not absolutely nesscesary , unless your looking for a bit of muddinesss. which i go for when making hiphop+dub sometimes

[proximity]

well i shouldnt say muddiness but dirt.. well you know what i mean ;P

[bboyneko]

[proximity]

bump ;]

anyone else trying this?

[proximity]

I filter all the bass outta all my percussion .. except for the kick off course.

even hats have a thud in the mid-low region you dont want to lose all of , so hipassing too high can create a very unnatural tinny kind of sound in my experience

[john c]

let me give u some crucial advice. A lot of producers layer thinking that the sound will beef up with the more layers you stack. Yes your sound will beef up BUT the problem is that evertime you are stacking layers, you are creating more and more sounds that are "competing" with each other.
You will lose significant headroom this way. THe real way to stack is to think of it like this:
What purpose is this layer filling? SO take a listen to each individual break and analyze, what is this loop contributing to the mix? Take certain frequencies from one break, mesh them with diff frequencies from anothr break. For example, when I layer snares, I dont layer similar snares ever together. I layer snares that serve different purposes. So a bassy snare with soem of the high's cut out, would go with a snappy high end shorter snare, etc. Layer intelligently, not just for the hell of it. Hope this made sense.

[obsol33t]

^^^ That's my trick. :shadyfu:

incorrect spelling there sir.

[proximity]

let me give u some crucial advice. A lot of producers layer thinking that the sound will beef up with the more layers you stack. Yes your sound will beef up BUT the problem is that evertime you are stacking layers, you are creating more and more sounds that are "competing" with each other.
You will lose significant headroom this way. THe real way to stack is to think of it like this:
What purpose is this layer filling? SO take a listen to each individual break and analyze, what is this loop contributing to the mix? Take certain frequencies from one break, mesh them with diff frequencies from anothr break. For example, when I layer snares, I dont layer similar snares ever together. I layer snares that serve different purposes. So a bassy snare with soem of the high's cut out, would go with a snappy high end shorter snare, etc. Layer intelligently, not just for the hell of it. Hope this made sense.

yea, definitely. i never layer snares of similar timbre and always double check everything to make sure its doing ok spectrum wise and in relation to the rest of the mix.. jungle is all about layering tho you'll find and its an essential process to the sound so mastering this technique is extremely important.. also RE snares.. i find for a true tight sound its all about layering snares with different ENVELOPES as well as timbre and frequency. use one for the attack, one for the tail, etc.

[proximity]

when its all said and done i usually use about 4-5 breaks .. 6+ hats, 4+ snares , 2+ kicks , and a shitload of rides

[john c]

just out of curiosity, what reverb settings do u typically use for ur snares?
ive had success getting a big sound by putting a reverb thats pretty wet on, with a short tail.