Uncompressed Drum Samples – the ...
Using uncompressed drum samples is really the domain of those who can spot the potential in samples. Rarely do thin ears spot this potential, and this is why over-compressed drum samples are peddled by most drum samples websites, and successfully so, I might add. Compression is basically the process of increasing the volume of the quiet parts of a sound sample so that the distance between the highs and lows (in terms of volume!) is lessened.
When considering drum samples, compression can come into the song at a few different stages of the music production process. The earliest stage is probably the sound selection process. A lot of drum sounds (in fact, the vast majority) have already been compressed beyond recognition, mostly to maximize their volume, rarely ever for other purposes, so we end up dealing with sounds that have little room left for subtle sculpting. It can be hard to find uncompressed samples in most editors.
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.
Nearly every song that plays on the pop radio stations has a great drum pattern, with all drum samples cutting through the mix. This is very important as a lot of car radios still have speakers that aren’t so great at getting all the frequencies across, so a good mix is essential. While over-compression has had a lot of ’stick’ in the audiophile community, creative uses are not scarce. You just need to look to dance music and analyze the ‘ducking effecting to see how popular some creative compression can become in a genre.
If you have decided on a set of sounds but notice that the compression level is just too high, there is some hope. You certainly don’t have to ditch these samples to look for some drum samples that are a bit more dry; adding color back onto the sample’s canvas is not that hard once you get the creative hang of it. One of the methods that is a bit more common is to mix a dry sample with this over-compressed sample, and you can do this with just about any audio editor out there today, even free ones like Audacity which is very easy to download and use. The second way is to edit the actual wave sample by yourself and make cropping and filtering decision to add some spice back to this drum for your own use.
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.
Stop procrastinating, and make rap beats now. Right now. You see, making rap beats isn’t exactly hard, so there are no excuses.












