In todays world of infinite samples I have found that the solution is to limit your samples in some arbitrary way. For example you could say that you are only going to use samples that you yourself sample from vinyl. For drums I used to use an old record series called drum drops and and some 808s from another record. Some processing and layering and it was great. It gave all my stuff a certain recognizable sound as well.
In the years that followed I ventured far from this path, but I actually just bought a new technics turntable and pulled out my old collection and am going back. Really it is all about working within some arbitrary limits and working with the samples instead of trying to just find one that ‘fits’.
I think this is a good idea in general. I have tens of GBs of one-shot samples to try to sift for use with my Analog Rytm, and I think what I’m going to try is sitting for an hour and sifting through to find some stuff I like and then have a few tens of kicks, hats, snares, percussions, basses etc and then use that relatively limited/curated set of sounds and nothing else for a month, without ever going back to the collection on my hard drive. Just forget about the rest and see what I can do with that lot.
I think it also helps to separate the process of finding/curating sounds from the process of trying to produce music. This has been said many times by many people - compartmentalise the process.
Yeah I know the feeling too. Right now i am thinking of buying WMD crater, kraken, crucible and chimera and an empty Digitakt and use them exclusively. But then i would need other modules and that will put me off making music the same way browsing samples puts me off. I would need a 1 voice sample fodder drum synthesizer that does it all.
This is also quit different than synthesis, where I often start by crafting a sound on my synth, which inspires me to create a track. The finding/curating samples really kills the mood and it make sense to have it as a process outside the creative process.
My strategy lately is take some sampled drums (ones I’ve made or bought or whatever) and try not to be too picky about it, program them into a drumbreak/loop then come in with classic drummachine samples on top (I usually do a little something to them). I think it sort of keeps things fresh with out having to recreate the wheel.
Also, not sure if it was mentioned, and I don’t know your process - but start your track with the kick first - rather than trying to fit a kick into an already sculpted track. Things might fall into place easier…
I think everyone mentioned it but the worst thing ever is overthinking a kick drum before a song has been composed.
I prefer Atlas to XO, thats just me. But regardless of product, what is awesome is you are randomizing the kits and hearing the sounds in context of each other. This has gotten me out of the habit of using certain go to kick folders. For example I am working on a track now with a kick that sounds awesome but I doubt I would have ever picked it if I was just solo browsing through kick samples.
And of course once you get a kit going, you can lock the parts you want and keep randomizing the rest until you get everything how you want it. It’s honestly a super fast way to build a drum kit. And then there is the sequencer piece, which is fantastic as well. You can get really cool ideas out of the sequencer, drag the MIDI into your DAW and edit it how you want from there.
Writing music is all about speed. If you are sitting there overthinking a kick drum, you aren’t going to write many tunes.
Even with thousands of samples, I don’t find it an issue. I don’t get stuck on having a perfect kick when making a project. I think that’s easy to fix or replace later on. Having a solid mixing/sound design foundation can definitely help with hearing what’s not there too.
Different people have different needs depending on genres, but lots of great kicks come from post-processing effect chains which are one reason people still sample from commercial releases. Knowing how to roll your own makes it easy to think about it as a different process or to fix and adjust as needed (quickly too).
I also have XO. I don’t rely on it so much but I would like to rely on it more because as others have mentioned, there’s the benefit of discovering sounds you wouldn’t have normally selected.
I’m also new to the Elektron world (Digitakt, Samples, and hopefully a Cycles soon if my shipping issues are fixed) so having something like XO to curate kits (especially for Samples) is a bonus. Atlas is the other mentioned too.
I definitely struggle with this. What ok looking for is drum kits so that at least the starting point is fixed and I can then tweak the sounds from there. If I have to start from scratch then I flick through samples endlessly.
When I want to make some songs, I start by making a list/folder of the sounds my ‘band’ (me) will use.
I decide the drums (a couple kicks, snares, hats, percussion etc) that work well together. That is my drum kit.
Same for bass, lead, pads, etc.
Once that process is done, it’s done. Time to write/create/jam. If anything makes it to a process of finalising- then things can be substituted, not before.
Maybe worth a try, and resist going back to tweak/replace your initial decisions. You aren’t allowed to do that until songs are written anyway.
Reliably good sample source