Ah… grime. What hip hop head doesn’t love the grimy, old school drums? Not many I’d imagine. How do guys like Premier do it?

1.     Sample from Vinyl

Sampling is NOT just for instrumentation loops. You can get great drums off vinyl, and this may seem very basic but a lot of people skip over this step and forget about it. If you want something that sounds like it’s from the 1970s, take it from the 1970s. This will be your best bet in getting the authentic old school drums.

2.     Run new drums through an old sampler

Taking drums and putting them through a classic hardware sampler such as the Akai S900 will give them that classic hardware feel (duh).

3.     Lower bit rate

This is a little less authentic, but can produce decent enough results. Load up your drum in an audio program and save it to a low sample bit rate (like 8 kHz).

4.     Use plugins

Plugins are what make computer production great. There are plenty of plugins that can do the trick such as the SD 2100 plugin by Acquit Music (emulates classic machine SP 2100), and for a more out-there plugin Izotope’s Vinyl (freeware) or Trash.

Note: If you lose bass with anything you do try to layer your grimy drum with another drum (possibly with a low-pass filter on it).

These are just some methods of getting grimy drums, and there are plenty more out there. Make sure to EQ and add compression to any drums that just aren’t quite cutting it, as that can put them over the edge and make them very useable.

If you have any other techniques feel free to drop them in a comment so other people can see.

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