[ad_1]
For today’s music producers, using high quality drum sounds in beats and instrumentals is essential. Many upcoming producers will often purchase sample drum kits with the names of famous producers. For example, a beat maker may want to create an instrument to sound like producer Dr. Dre or Timbaland so that he tries to buy his drum sounds. Often times, these kits will be labeled “Dr Dre Drums” or “Timbaland Drum Samples”.
The problem with many of these kits is that the sounds are often recycled from original drums into keyboards (Roland Fantom, Korg Triton, Yamaha Motif, etc.). This can make a producer’s rhythms sound bland and unauthentic. It also helps the rhythms “sound the same”.
Welcome to the exclusive sounds
Since I became a music producer in 2004 I bought a lot of drums and sounds, but in 2010 I discovered Traumahdrums.com. Traumah is a music producer specializing in engineering and manufacturing unique drum samples. While visiting Traumahdrums.com, I signed up to their mailing list to download a free drum kit.
Over the next year, I received periodic emails from Traumah with music production tips, videos, and plenty of free drum kits. After receiving tons of great information from Traumah, I finally decided to invest in one of his drum kits.
The Traumah Drum Library includes 187 organic drum samples exclusively designed for rhythm producers and makers. It includes “50 crispy snare drums to the ear, 50 punches in the back and 37 foreign percussions ranging from shakers influenced by West India to Congolese drums inspired by South Africa”. The drum kit also includes 30 unique drum loops.
After I received my drum kit, I downloaded the drum sounds into my music production software. I am currently using Reason 5 to create my beats. I downloaded one of the bass drum sounds into Reason’s Redrum rack and was immediately blown away by the thickness and uniqueness of the drum sounds. I went through all of the kicks, snares, claps, drums, and saluting hats in the package and could tell that each was designed to “hit.” With my production roots in hip hop, it was particularly pleasing to my ears!
Compare and nuance
To make sure the sound I was hearing wasn’t quite “hip”, I downloaded some of my favorite drum sounds and compared them to those from the Traumah Drum Library. Frankly, the sounds I was using didn’t cut the mustard! My favorite kicks, claps, snares, hi-hat and percussion instruments seemed weak compared to Traumah’s kit.
I then began to ask the question. Why? Why did Traumah’s drums sound better than my favorites? I tried to do an EQ analysis. I brought Traumah’s drums and my favorite drums into ProTools to compare and contrast them.
Comparing Traumah’s drums to mine, I noticed that each drum sample was designed to fill the sound spectrum. The kicks had a lot of lift in the low frequencies as well as some mids. Snare drums and applause hit hard! Also, all the sounds were pre-mixed which was huge for me!
The sounds I was currently using were not pre-mixed. Anyone who has actually taken the time to mix instruments together knows that it can be an extensive process. The fact that the sounds were pre-mixed saved me precious time in the engineering department!
Final verdict
Overall I am very happy with the Traumah Drum Library, I use it often in my beats and instrumentals. Since using Traumah Drums I have noticed an increase in beat sales as well as increased interest from independent artists. The drum library is well worth the purchase price. I would recommend the kit to any serious producer looking to improve their sound and sharpen their skills.
[ad_2]
Source by Isaac O Hughley
