Sometimes when you record drums,
it can be useful to layer an existing sample on top of your kick and snare.
This gives the feel of a live drummer,
but it also gives it that punchiness of a really pop modern sound as well.
This process can be done in most DAWs.
There are several different ways to do it,
but here's how we do it in Pro Tools.
In this example, I have both a kick in and a kick out mic.
Those two mics capture the, 'in',
which is going to be the beater sound and the, 'out',
which will be more of the resonance of the drum itself.
Together the sound is pretty good,
but it could use a little bit more punchiness in top end.
[MUSIC] We could try to EQ out that top end,
but sometimes that has a negative effect on the actual sound.
However, if we layer in a sample,
we can make up for whatever we're losing in
the sound that we hear already that was recorded with the mics.
So, I already chose a sample for this.
It sounds like this [NOISE].
When choosing a sample,
you want to find something that is going to make up for
whatever you feel is lacking in the recording itself.
Don't just choose a sample out of nowhere,
try to find something that's going to be complimentary.
The reason that I chose this one is because it has that nice top end,
and a lot of nice low sub as well to fill out the bottom end too.
In order to do this, I'm going to drag it into Pro Tools.
It would be really tedious for me to go through and manually place the sample everywhere.
So, there's a little trick with Pro Tools that's called Tab to transient which allows us
to identify the transients and paste these samples only where we want them to be.
Again, like I said, other DAWs and other programs do have this process available,
this is just one way to do it.
In order to get this sample to be placed where I want it,
I'm going to 'command C' on a Mac or 'Control C' on a PC to copy it.
Then I'm just going to get rid of it.
In order to identify where my samples are that I want to replace,
I need to click on the actual track where the recording is,
hold down shift, and then click
again in the empty track where I'm going to place the sample.
This will allow us to identify the transients and paste the sample at the same time.
If I go back to the beginning,
and then if I hit tab,
you'll see that my cursor starts moving to the transients every time I hit tab.
Because I've copied the sample,
once I hit tab and it hits a transient,
I just hit 'command V' because I'm on Mac or control V if you're on PC,
and then hit tab again,
and I just keep pasting those samples right on the transients.
[NOISE] So, here's what it sounds like
with the sample
[MUSIC].
Now, we're back to without the sample [MUSIC].
You can definitely hear a difference how it brings
that brightness and it makes it stand out more forward in the mix.
If we listen to everything together like this,
I'll play it without the layered sample first
[MUSIC].
Notice how the kick doesn't really have a lot of presence,
but if we bring in that layered sample,
[MUSIC] it comes out
nice and forward and it really helps that kick to shine.
We're not taking away anything that the live drummer played,
we're just enhancing what's already there.
This is very useful for snares as well.
So, you can choose whatever sample you want to layer over a live player.
If you have a recording of live drums and you love the feel of a live player,
but you want to give it more of a modern sound,
just make sure that you choose a sample that's going to
be complimentary to the sounds that you already have,
and you can experiment with other techniques as well,
like adding a clap on top of a snare for example.
[MUSIC]