Piano samples

[Kregan]

Whats up guys,

Can anyone give some insight on what types of drum kits work well with piano samples, or samples where the dominant instrument is a piano.

I've found that hard kits don't compliment pianos very well, so I would guess soft/medium kits work better. I have a few soft/medium kits that work great with strings, but those same breaks are not as good with piano samples. Any info would be great, even recommendations of breaks that work well with piano samples.

Thanks

[Architect]

Whats up guys,

Can anyone give some insight on what types of drum kits work well with piano samples, or samples where the dominant instrument is a piano.

I've found that hard kits don't compliment pianos very well, so I would guess soft/medium kits work better. I have a few soft/medium kits that work great with strings, but those same breaks are not as good with piano samples. Any info would be great, even recommendations of breaks that work well with piano samples.

Thanks

Hey Kregan,
I wouldn't say there's necessarily an exact science that points to "x-instrument works with y-drums" because so much of it depends on the context of how they are used.

I'm a huge fan of using piano samples in my beats, however the drums differ between them based on how the original sample sounds and the direction I want to take it in. While I've used synthetic drums with success, I usually find myself using real kit sounds the most with jazzy sounding piano. I actually like the grainier, hard drum kits because it creates an interesting contrast with the soft piano that fits my style in most cases. However, I would not hesitate to use a soft sounding kit if that's what the song called for. Really, nothing is right or wrong, it just takes experimentation and a vision in your head of where you want to take your beat.

[Kregan]

Whats up yo, thanks for the reply,

I'm actually in the process of trying out all the breaks I've chopped with a variety of strictly piano samples, no other instruments just piano's, and I will post my results (I've tried about 25 different kits so far).

I agree that there is not an EXACT science but from my experience certain drums do complement certain instruments better than others, depending on what tone the drums produce. And this is referring strictly to the sonic result, not how arrangement or anything else influences it, same default drum sequence was used, same tempo, same pitch of the sample etc.

I made a list of which kits sounded better than others with the piano, then I will further experiment with the kits that I thought were the best. Interestingly like you said, some were hard kits and some were soft/medium kits which points to the no exact science train of thought. Although in terms of the ratio, I must say more were soft/medium, but there certainly were harder kits that worked well.

Interesting stuff, cheers for the input