Spend $50, get $25 OFF — applied automatically.
Skip to Content Skip to Navigation Skip to Footer
Start freeJoin
Join Membership
Season 2 ·

S2E04 – SHORT-TAILED and LONG-TAILED DRUMS

0:00 / 0:00
This media could not be played.

Resources

Never Miss an Episode

Get new podcast episodes delivered to your inbox.

Home/Podcast/S2E04 – SHORT-TAILED and LONG-TAILED DRUMS
Get the Drums from this Video.
Try my SAFE SPOTS Book

Listen to real examples of LONG-TAILED and SHORT-TAILED drums in this episode! You will hear how they sound, and when to use them for a solid drum loop. (Something you’ll learn is LONG-TAILED kick drums can clash with your bassline if you’re not careful, because they both live in the same frequency spectrum, right?)

Ask yourself this question.. do you REALLY know how to use the different types of sounds within your music? Yes, we’re talking about MAKING DRUM LOOPS in this podcast episode, but the concept applies to both your drum loops and MELODIES!

Knowing how to use your sounds is tremendously important, and will only come with time as you play your piano keys with your virtual instruments.

And I’ll give you a pro tip like I talk about in my Creating Organic Beats course.. which is making use of OCTAVES to take advantage of the frequency spectrum.. (I teach you about OCTAVES in the Piano Lessons for Producers Course, and the frequency spectrum in my SAFE SPOTS book about drum loops.)

So tune into this episode, and learn the power of learning to make your own beats from scratch.. and knowing about LONG-TAILED and SHORT-TAILED drums are a fundamental part of knowing that, if you want your mixes to sound clean, and hit hard.

Community

Questions about this episode

Transcript

S2E04 – SHORT-TAILED and LONG-TAILED DRUMS

  1. Season two, episode four short-tailed and long-tailed
  2. drums. If you're not using high quality drum samples and not understanding how to
  3. use your drum samples, you're handcuffing yourself, okay.
  4. There are different styles of drums which you need to learn to use as a music
  5. producer, and I usually categorize these into short-tailed and
  6. long-tailed drums. There's different uses for these.
  7. I'm also going to play some examples for you in this episode.
  8. But again, if you're interested in learning FL Studio with me and learning more
  9. about my beatmaker trainer platform with over 26 FL Studio courses, just go to it's
  10. gratuitous.com and check out my website.
  11. You can also download my free book.
  12. Just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash five keys.
  13. Now if you like the sound of these drums, these are available on my website.
  14. They're the exclusive audio drum bundle trio sounds.
  15. There's over 2300 drum samples.
  16. A lot of members who have joined the platform, they've taken me up on this offer,
  17. and they're very happy with the sounds.
  18. As a music producer, it's all about versatility in your sounds, in your drum
  19. samples, and quality. Okay, so quality has you know they have to be quality, they
  20. have to hit good, they have to be well recorded, but variety is also what we're
  21. after. So short-tailed drums, long-tailed drums, different styles of snares,
  22. different styles of claps. We're not going to get too much into the claps and
  23. percussion in this episode. But let me play some examples of some short-tailed and
  24. long-tailed drums. So here's a long-tailed drum.
  25. And we use them at different times in our production.
  26. They really fill up a track, so keep that in mind.
  27. Whereas a short-tailed drum more kind of hits you in the chest.
  28. It also hits in different frequency range.
  29. So many times you can layer a long-tailed-.tailed and a short-tailed kick because
  30. the short kick is very quick So it's not gonna really mess with the long tail too
  31. much, depending on how low that short kick hits.
  32. So here's some short-tailed kicks.
  33. So this one is a little bit of a longer tail.
  34. Okay, so if I go in between these two, really short, a
  35. little bit longer. Okay, but it's still a short-tailed kick.
  36. Okay, let's go back to those long tails.
  37. Again, that lower end tail can clash with your baseline.
  38. So you have to be careful. And this is why it's important to know about short-tailed
  39. and long-tailed kicks, as well as understanding about the frequency spectrum, which
  40. is sound selection, okay. That's all to do with safe spots, knowing your frequency
  41. spectrum and taking advantage of it.
  42. When we talk about long-tailed drums and bass lines, these
  43. rarely go together very well without some heavier processing, such as like side
  44. chain compression on the low end, so that whenever the drum plays, it reduces the
  45. volume of the bass. Okay. Many times, if I have a long-tailed kick with a
  46. bass line in FL Studio, if you click on a sound, you have the in and the out
  47. knobs. Many times I increase the out knob on the long-tailed
  48. drums to tighten up that low end tail.
  49. So I still get a bit of a longer drum, but now I get a little bit more control over
  50. the end of it, which means that on the bass line, it's not fighting as much.
  51. So if I was using side chain compression, you know, it's pumping down the volume of
  52. the bass.. And if the tail is too long, it can be holding too long as well
  53. And if we just tighten up the tail of that long drum, it's not pumping for as long
  54. and it's not as audible. You might be able to be a little bit more aggressive on
  55. your settings and get a cleaner low end for your mix.
  56. Okay. So long tailed drums are so powerful.
  57. We use them to add fullness to the drum loop.
  58. You got to be careful because it can really overpower the drum loop.
  59. You may also want to use cut itself on long drums.
  60. I highly suggest that. So in FL Studio in the channel rack, if you right click on a
  61. sound, you're gonna see cut itself.
  62. And if you left click on the sound to open up the channel sampler, which is where
  63. you can see like the audio waveform and you have the in and the out.
  64. if you click on the wrench, you're gonna see group.
  65. And if you went cut itself, you should see cut one by one, or if you did it a couple
  66. times, cut two by two. And that just lets it so that when you play the drum once,
  67. and if you play it again, it immediately cuts off the drum before and it starts
  68. clean. If you didn't have cut itself on, the previous drum, the low end,
  69. would overlap with the new drum when it plays, even though it's the same sound.
  70. And when it plays again, there's a wobble and you get this horrible weak low
  71. end. And that's why you want to use cut itself so that when the low end drum plays
  72. again, it immediately starts fresh.
  73. Okay, so I hope that gives you some insight to you know how to use your drums a
  74. little bit better. We have long tailed drums, short tailed drums.
  75. We also have drums which are like heavily layered.
  76. Again, these are all inside the exclusive audio drum bundle trio..
  77. See, like this is a heavily layered drum
  78. Now, this isn't a drum which you can use all the time.
  79. You can only use that at certain times in the drum loop.
  80. So here's a little drum loop I have right now.
  81. We'll play this.
  82. Let's take this drum, and I am gonna play it only
  83. on the very, very first beat. And I'm also gonna turn it down quite a bit because
  84. it's quite aggressive. So check it out.
  85. Okay, maybe we'll turn it up. Too
  86. loud. Bring it back a little bit.
  87. So one thing to keep in mind is again, I talked to you about in this in safe spots
  88. that you can't be repetitive. So we always have to be tweaking our patterns.
  89. And a cool trick I show you in Safe Spots is the make unique trick, right?
  90. So we can take the pattern, clone it, and then just switch up one or two notes
  91. within that drum loop. It adds a tremendous difference for your listener, right?
  92. It's just not so repetitive. Alright, so closing out again.
  93. If you want to get these drum samples, you can get special pricing on my website.
  94. They are by exclusive audio. I know the owner of the company, his name is Xavier.
  95. We've gone back for many, many years.
  96. He's you know a very, very good sound designer, very, very talented.
  97. He's even done some of the artwork for my albums.
  98. He did What's It Gonna Be Life or Death, as well as the Secret Treasures.
  99. You can also grab my free book if you want special pricing to the platform by going
  100. to it'sgratuitous.com forward slash five keys.
  101. I'll talk to you guys in the next one.
  102. Hey Gratuit is here. I hope you enjoyed the content..
  103. If you want to become a better producer, then check out my podcast called Music
  104. Production Made Simple It's totally free and available wherever you listen to
  105. podcasts. I also run a Beatmaker Trainer platform.
  106. There's over 26 courses in there right now, all focused on FL Studio.
  107. It's helped a lot of students and I'm sure you'll love it.
  108. For more information, just go to itsgratuitous.com forward slash courses.
  109. Finally, if you like to read, all of my books are now available in one bundle, such
  110. as audio painting about arrangement, safe spots about drum loops, FL Studio
  111. Beginners book, which is going to teach you the basics, my template book to teach
  112. you about a fast workflow, as well as proper producer mindset to start your music
  113. production career right the first time.
  114. For more information on my book bundle, just go to it'sgratuitous.com forward slash
  115. books. Thanks again for watching.
  116. Visit itsgratuitous.com for all your FL Studio training
  117. needs.
GratuiTous Radio Start free Join Membership 0:00/0:00