How Can I Sample A Song WIth Drums In It?
When I get this question, usually, the person actually wants to know how to use sample slices or chops that have drum sounds within them. Just as there are many different ways to sample songs with drums in them, there are many ways to use sample slices/chops that have drums in them. Here are a few of my sampling techniques.
- Removing Drums From A Sample
- Layering Drums In A Sample With Other Drum Sounds
- Filtering Drums From A Sample Using EQ
Removing Drums From A Sample
A common sampling technique is to select a sample that has drums in it, even when the drums are not wanted. So, how do you remove the drums from a sample? It's not easy. In fact, it's near impossible in most cases to completely remove the drums from a sample.
Before you spend your precious time and money trying to remove drums from a sample, take a look at some of my beat tutorial videos explaining my sample techniques and showing you how I creatively use the samples with the drums in them.
My Sample Flip Beats and video tutorials on How to Flip a Sample and Making Sample Flip Beats go into more detail about sample flipping, sample chopping and sample slicing. These videos demonstrate and explain the process I use when I flip a sample.
"Calling" Beat Cookup Video
Watch this video of me flipping a sample that contains drums. Like many of my sample flips, I use the drums within the sample to enhanced the beat I'm making. Notice the different ways I use the snare and other drum kit sounds from the sample in different places in my beat. Also, notice how I use the drums and flip the sample rhythmically.
I have tried products that claimed to be able to remove drums from a sample. But all these products did was try to filter the drum sound using EQ. When these products failed to completely remove the drum sounds from the sample, the fine print usually says something about not being able to removed the sounds without removing other sound in the sample. This points to the fact that the drum sounds in a song often share frequencies with other instruments and sounds in that song.
This is why I suggest that you learn about EQ and filtering. With the knowledge you gain, you can do as well as many products just by using the stock equalizer in Reason or any other DAW.
Layering Drums In A Sample With Other Drum Sounds
"Calling" - Sample Chopping
Here is another video I made showing how to grab a sample to record and chop (select a sample). This video details how I made the sample selection for the "Calling" beat and how I chopped the sample selection into the slices I used in the Calling Beat Cookup video.
Filtering Drums In A Sample Using EQ
"Another Kind Of Love" - FULL SONG
Using EQ to cut frequencies of the drum sounds in a sample is common. I use filtering to do broad cutting of frequencies, whereas the many EQs give you the ability to do fine sculpting of frequencies.
Here is the final version of "Another Kind Of Love" - a sample flip beat that features my piano freestyle (improvisation).
Download "Another Kind Of Love" (A.K.O.L.)
Click the image below to download or purchase a license.
