"Kicks: according to pete rock (remember when i spoke of jay and pete re creating "mecca and the..." in jay's basement when we were doing "dynamite"? (actually we just did the "new years at jay dee's" joint) anywho---pete says that 9 times out of 10 he uses the 3rd kick from James Browns "funky president" says it gives a great punch and depth. i tested his theory and he is correct. i must say that i give JB a run for his money on the voodoo album ("the root")

808 Kick: get the 12 inch to BDPs "duck down". go to side B and play instrumental of "we in there". there is a friggin kick 808 drum from the lord himself at the very end of the song (they yelling "south bronx...south south bronx AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!" THEN boooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! in case you can't find this then i think that tribe has a nice one at the end of their "vibes and stuff" on the low end theory.

Claps: "carwash" from rose royce. can't lose from that. and of course "chicken grease".

Crisp snares: i dont have the song name, but al teller's SHOW AND TELL has a song on side two (the last song) that is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet to death! matter of fact--you don't even need to take it from there, you can take it from the top of "busta's lament" on the love movement (for that is the same snare)---you can also take the first snare from "fantastic 1" on the fantastic vol 1 album (same snare, just dilla mixing more low end in it. even though it's played out i still like the crisp sound of the emotions' "blind alley". "substitution" and "funky drummer" are crisp but they are mixied with so much reverb, that you can't give them a separte identity. so you always wanna use a flat sounding snare with no reverb on em...

Deep snare (aka a primo snare): once again "funky president" is a winner. and it adapts to every style. you can take the lows off it and it cracks hard (see marley marl's "eric b is president", "the bridge", and his classics) or sample it with the lows in it and blamo!! you have half the group home album. "impeech" is good too.

Hi hats- i hate effed up high hats (except for 9ths hats....while studying his hats i noticed that "speed" and "love" sounds like jheri curl "fffffftzz" spray bottles. lol. but there is a "decay" option on your 2000 (page that lets you speed up and sl;ow down samples) it is set to 0/0. when doing high hats try to decay before you just edit them on the edit page. in other words if you get a hi hat (or snare or kick--) with "clips" on the end (the result of either other instruments in the way or perhaps reverb that would make your new drum sound out of place (TSSSSSSSTsilence......TSSSSSSSSTsilence) use the decay option (scroll "end" to 100 (0/100) so now your TSSSSSSSSST sounds like a clean "T!"

the goal for me is to make drums sound as natural as possible. this is why i am on dillas nuts. cause as a drummer, he is perhaps one of maybe 4 cats that i know that will go through painstaking measures to make sure that his drums are ultra natural sounding.

once you get more advanced then you can dillatize it by sampling more than one snare. this will give you more "dynamics" options. in other words, one snare would sound rather blaze.---dont get me wrong-- one snare sound works great for the songs that need that type of action like "can't stop wont stop"--but for more melodic stuff--say if you doing a track for jill. or maybe the tribe reunion album--or just something that has musical elements (as in: you sample 8 bars of a rhodes loops, and you playing bass lines)--then this is where this method of "dynamic options" comes in correct.


if you are giving the illusion that you are doing a band--then a drummmer would hit the snares different ways everytime he hits it. i try to match the same sound when i drum, but it is not possible to get the same tone everytime. so if you are in a situation in which you got alot of sampling time--take 3 snares from the same break use snare one on the 1 and 3 use snare 2 on the four use snare 3 on the three. and if you really wanna freak **** program your drums like 16 or 32 bars at a time and go random. and if you really wanna kill **** put each drum sound on the 16 level option (the loudest sound on the top right pad/the most silent sound on the bottom left) and give snare hits that way (i do pad 16, pad 14 and 13---nothing the naked ear can really catch but it's those small things that make the song flow)

of course if you are doing a "cant stop wont stop" or busy b "suicide" or eric b is pres then just do normal programming.

also---

sometimes a shuffle is a nice high hat replacement. hi hats keep the song moving (take note that some of you die hards are scratching your head at the new gang star album because primo all but threw the high hat out the window--thus it seems--well "slow") but sometimes you can't find a good shuffle (if you own "what time is it" and "1999" (the time) and (prince) you can find excellent shuffles on "i dont wanna leave you" "777 9311" "lets pretend were married" and "dmsr".

but you can make up shuffles too--


take a high hat and do the opposite decay thing. instead of turning a TSSSSSSSST into a "T!" you can turn a "TSSSSSSSST" into a "SSSSSSSST"---

instead of scrolling the "end" of your high hat, scroll the "start" and slowly decay the start of your hi hat and soon a shuffle will occur. the best way to apply shuffles are to do the 16 pad thing and press the 16 and 10. (loud/softer sound)----check out the "yo yo" on little brothers album. there is no high hat....but 9th has shuffles all over the ****ing place (ok--he has taken drunk programming to a whole nother level---) but if you do away with high hats or just program em one the 1 and not the 3 (see MJ's "butterflies") --and you still want people to move---use a shuffle instead (or woodblock---or percussion)

more later if i think about more tricks

oh more primo (deep) snares: "free" ohio players the second and third drum breaks are sweet too.