If you’re new to music production and beat making, you may be wondering about all the fuss regarding snare and kick drum samples being ’snappy.’ Why would we place so much emphasis on this sound characteristic of drums when the arrangement and other aspects of a song seem to be much more important? Well, the fact is that it’s a hugely important topic of debate. There is such an importance placed on the snappiness of your drum track that it’s paramount to suicide to ignore the techniques to make things cut through a mix.

If you have any fears about altering drum samples yourself, don’t worry. It’s not too hard to achieve the snap effect; in fact, it can be child’s play with a bit of guidance and a bit of critical and proactive thinking on your part. If you already have tools like compressors and EQs, you are two steps ahead of a lot of people. Software or hardware, these tools will make life easy for you and getting them to modify a sound the way you want it will be easy after learning their menu systems and hearing the effect that different functions have on your initial sound file. There is nothing like experimentation in this case!

Both software and hardware effects usually have factory patches that display the capabilities of the effects unit. This is very useful for the budding audio engineer and drum samples editor; feed the device some standard samples – but first analyze the samples and really listen to them – then start applying some of the default effects, not the parameter levels and starting doing A/B tests on the sound; that is, before and after the effect. If you can start to internalize the changes and link the sound alteration to the settings, you will be well off!

Compressing your drum samples to add snap is a very common road taken by mixers and music producers alike. Sometimes it can be a bit hard working out what the knobs and dials actually do, so writing down – in your own words – what the changes do to the drum samples, will help you out a lot when making critical decisions later on. Try out different software and hardware compressors, as they also sound a little bit different and you will have trouble with some, while others will be easy to work for you.

When you’re making notes on the settings you change, try to describe them in plain English – by that, I mean all the effects and the way they change the sound. If you can well and truly comprehend the way that a sound is effected by the different switches and level meters, you will be well-equipped to make real decisions in a studio environment. Keep a sheet that includes the different settings, supposed effects (according to the manual) and perceived effects (the stuff you hear).

As a last tip, you should always try to choose the correct drum samples to start with. If your library is big enough, you really won’t have that much of a problem, which is a good thing. The less you need to tweak and alter your current selection of samples, the more time you will have making the actual beat. It will be easier for you to translate the rhythm and sound in your into the sequencer and move on to the other instruments and such, so keep expanding your sounds.

Came here looking for information on how to make beats? I’ve heard that before. Simplest way to start: get a good basic tutorial and some banging hip hop drum samples, then let creativity take over!