How Many Drum Sounds Are Enough?

[Sa'id]

Drums have always been the cornerstone of hip hop-rap beats. As the most fundamental piece in a beat, beatmakers/producers give careful consideration to the types of drum sounds that they use. That being said, do you feel that having an unlimited source of new drums is better or worse than having a set assortment of drum sounds?

- Sa'id

[dkelloway]

I think having an unlimited source of drum sounds is worse than having a source assortment of drum sounds because, to me, your drums contribute to your own "sound" if you know what I'm saying. By that, I mean, listeners would be able to identify who produced the beat by the drums they use. However, you must have enough drum sounds that you aren't completely limiting yourself

[CuonG]

I like to have a varitey of drums, but that being said, not an unlimited amount, i guess the more u have,, the beta chance u get of getting the perfect sounding drum for the type of beat u want...I have a small amount of drums sounds at the moment and only really ever use the ones i like....

[Prince]

Too many drums is a bad thing, for me anyway. I don't have time to sit around and go thru 1,000s of drums. I find a limited, yet diverse set of kicks, hats, snares, toms and cymbals do just fine. With a little editing you can get the exact sound you want anyway.

[benfclark]

I think you can have too many drums. I remember reading an article by Hank Shoklee in which he said they had 1000 snares to choose from for a track.
Hank said it was mass confusion making a decision. He stopped using all those samples and went back to an Sp1200 & S950 setup because he was able to be more creative. I also want to second one of the previous post. This is how you get your own signature sound. If you choose about 50 drums and learn how to mix those it will develop your signature.

[krugenstein]

I think having an unlimited source of drums is a good thing however you must incorporate some type of management system to be able to find these sounds when you need them. If that's not done them the drums will end up playing you. What I do is use like 10 solid kits that I know intimately when I start a track or project and then tweak from there. I've worked with the engineer of a very MAJOR R&B Producer/Writer/Singer and his management system was us. It was OUR job to find drums sounds sample them and load them up when he arrived at the studio usually 6 to 8 hours late. He would just go through kits until one got his attention. Then he would say "Remember that snare we used on such and such song", "let's add that to this kit". We would spend hours doing this until "HE" picked the perfect kit. Very frustrating.

[uhohbeats]

yea i have a bunch of drums. probably like 200-500 in each of the main categories, kicks snares and hats i mean.

but crashes and percuission i dont got too much because i dont use it much. i got enough, but you know what i mean.

my basic beats are just kicks snares and hats and thats it.

but yea usually i always use my go to kick, which is fat and punchy, but isnt too deep you know what i mean, and then ill go through all my kicks, but when i say that, i mean just scroll through them in fl and click on random ones till i find one that will compliment the track and ill layer them together so they got the punch and umph that follows the initial punch.

snares i just pick at random as well, just whatever fits the beat, if its something smooth ill try and find something a little thin, i mean has to have a good attack but that nice glassy sparkle on the end, and for some ruggedness ill layer some hard hitting snares with some of my break beat chopped snares for that old school rugged feel.

[Segundo]

i read an article where primo said he's been using the same 30 or so drum sounds for the past few years on the regular.. I can tell cuz he loves that mary jane girls "all night long" snare, but the point is, it hardly ever sounds the same. He tunes it, takes some of the end off, etc to make it different.. I personally use 64 sounds. I'll load my program up in the mpc with 64 sounds and layer, edit, tune until i get something differen't than i usually use. I have 3 or 4 kicks i use most of the time but noone pays attention to a kik like they do a snare or hihat. Sometimes i'll find a kick or snare on a record and use that one for a beat but my days of searching for new drums everytime i do a beat are over. But it's safe to say i have an unlimited source of drums I just don't want to search thru them so i made a kit. Basically cosigning what Benfclark said.

[The Beat Pharmacy]

A set assortment of drum sounds is better to me than an unlimited source of new drums. It’s to overwhelming to me to have to draw from 1000 drum sounds as opposed to utilizing my assortment of tweaked sounds I know what I’m looking for and it’s easier to find it and keep the project moving along instead of auditioning drums for 3 hours.

I do however continue to add to this assortment of drum sounds from time to time so who knows if one day it becomes an unlimited source of material.

[thedrumknockerz]

A set assortment of drum sounds is better to me than an unlimited source of new drums. It’s to overwhelming to me to have to draw from 1000 drum sounds as opposed to utilizing my assortment of tweaked sounds I know what I’m looking for and it’s easier to find it and keep the project moving along instead of auditioning drums for 3 hours.

I do however continue to add to this assortment of drum sounds from time to time so who knows if one day it becomes an unlimited source of material.

yeah...even though there are a million and one kits out there, you only have to really have 10-15 tight ones so that you can manipulate or tune them to how ever you want them to sound. If all of your kits are in tune with each other, you can start to create your own sound, e.g. Neptunimi Maximi. Primostotle. Justin Blazini, Kanyei Westerson & Timothus Moselus (ha ha figga it out)

[krazyfingaz]

well I would have to say it depends on the beatmaker. i have 1000 + drums and counting but i only use 25 if that many. so i really cant say.

[CassiereProductions]

well I would have to say it depends on the beatmaker. i have 1000 + drums and counting but i only use 25 if that many. so i really cant say.

Ill agree to that ^ As a drummer, I have hundreds of acoustic sounds nevermind my 'sampled' sounds. But all said and done, I find my self using the same 15-20 hits over and over, just manipulating each one as needed slightly different.

[jooneydubzbeatz]

Over these last two years I've gotten hella drums.But the majority of them are wack.Right now I'm in the process of gettin 10-15 dope kicks,about 10 snares, 10 claps and call it a day.Things run more smooth when you have limited drums in my opinion. Edit your drums b4 you throw them into whatever program or machine your using.You can save time by layering and compressing and eqing.

oh yeah i forgot about percussion. Most stock percussion is coo to me. I do use a few custom samples as well.

[Castro Beats]

Having an unlimited supply of drums is whats up to me. I seen a thing on Cribs where JD had every keyboard every made, (at least it looked like that) and he said you can never have too many sounds. Look at 9th Wonder, he uses that same snare only because people request it to be on their track. I'm sure if he had it is way there would be more variety of his tracks out there, but that snare made his sound. The more drums you have the more sounds you have to mess with, tune, filter, stretch etc etc. No two sounds are the same, even though they can get pretty close. Having more just works when you get tired of the regular and you need to find something new for you. If I had the same 10 kits I'd be fresh out of luck. But hey, that's just me. (And keyboard always seem to have better metal percussion, i.e crashes, hats, cymbals)

[Sa'id]

One thing that hasn't really been mentioned is that ALL of the greatest drummers, from soul to reggae to rock, only worked off of JUST ONE DRUM kit! For those drummers, the idea wasn't about amassing an arsenal of different drum sounds. It was about getting their kit (which they knew all too well) to match up with whatever their group was playing...

Carlton "Carly" Barrett (drummer for The Wailers)
John Bonham (drummer for Led Zeppelin)
Al Jackson (Stax Records -"Souslville U.S.A.)

Just to name a few infamous drummers who worked off of a set kit. Each of these drummers were unique in their own way. Carlton Barrett preferred a simple kit: bass drum, snare, one tom (some times two), one cymbal, and a hi-hat... John Bonham was infamous for the double bass drum and his customized mega-size drum sticks that he called "trees"... Al Jackson, one of he most well-known drummers from the Stax Records backdrop, refused to ever tune his drums, thereby giving him a manual level of control that many drummers could not match...

Now, granted, hip hop-rap production is different. I mean drums are extremely important to what we do. But really, the idea that you could never have enough drum sounds? Nawgh, I don't buy that notion. A solid drum stash of 15-25 sounds, that you really know, is MORE than enough.

- Sa'id