Why You MUST Tune Your 808s… and kick drums…

When making beats or mixing drums, it is very important to make sure that your kick drum is in tune with the rest of the music… When making hip-hop beats, it is EXTREMELY important!The big thing here is tuning those 808s. The longer the thump the more noticeable it will be if it is not flowing with the song. Easy solution is to tune them bassed on the notage of the bass line. Often times I will use 3-10 different kicks – each one pitched shifted to where it needs to be based on the key of the song – or I will automate one kick, especially if channels are scarce. Using your ear is what everyone (including myself) will tell you to do, but a helpful trick is sampling the corrected 808 with Auto-Tune or Melodyne to see exactly when you’ve got perfection. The last thing to do is use some EQ to pull out the harmonics of the kick and squash some of the unwanted frequencies. When recording live drums, be sure to put an ear in before you even start recording to make sure any last minute tunings of the kick drum won’t make that extra bit of difference and save some time in the mixing phase. With all your ducks in a row, your low end should sound a lot more in tune with other elements and cohesive with the bass line.

- Mike With the Mic

CCM Studios.com

Broken Tongues.com