Drum Samples: Uncompressed or Not?

By John Gellei

For true audio connoisseurs, uncompressed audio is an absolute must. Or, at the very least, audio or songs that have only had parts of them compressed, and not to maximize volume but for creative purposes that serve to heighten a song's emotional impact. Compression, at its essence, is a technique that involves certain equipment called compressors, and basically makes sounds that have quiet parts more even in terms of volume.

Compression as it applies to drum samples can meet you at several points of a beat making session. The earliest stage possible is probably the process where you select your drum sounds. As you're browsing, you probably realize that most of the samples sound very loud. This is the compression in action. Most samples have already had all their subtleties and creative tendencies removed by whoever made this sound library. It can be very tiresome to try to locate samples that you can modify, knowing that the original characteristics will still shine through.

The second point at which compression will play apart is the final mixing process. This is where you would electively apply some compression using software or hardware audio compressors on drum samples or slight applications to soft instruments like the piano. The main creative difference here is that you are not subject to the over-compression used by many sound editors. Your decisions from here are truly coming from you.

Just about every song in the top 40 these days has a great drum samples pattern that has effective compression that cuts through the mix, as this is vital for radio-viable songs in this modern age. While compression is often frowned upon by a lot of audiophiles, it has plenty of creative uses, even in electronic music. For instance, using a chained-in effect to achieve a 'ducking' sound like in dance music is quite popular.

If any of the sounds you pick are necessary but overly compressed nonetheless, there are ways of adding some color back onto the canvas, and one of the first steps you could look at is editing the actual wav sample. You should be able to see the spike at the start of the sample if it does not encompass all of it. Then lower the volume of that section but allow it to blend in. What you may want to do is mix this with a similar, uncompressed sample and set the latter to about 30% mix. This will give the sample some extra crispness, and while some of the same frequencies will be boosted, the overall effect will be much more natural.

One of a few compression techniques for drum samples is the NY compression effect. In essence, it's achieved by combining an original sample with the same sample heavily compressed. Having both allows the volume to be maximized while the dynamics are not totally diminished. - 18418

About the Author:

If you want to make rap beats, good on you! It can be easy for some, hard for others. An important step when making rap beats is learning rhythm, so if you have that, you're one step ahead of the pack.