There are many different types of kick drum samples available for music producers today. Beat making is such an involved activity that having to use the same samples over and over can really kill your creativity. This is especially true with kick drum sounds as these are an elemental ingredient to just about every rhythm and blues, hip hop, rap, pop and rock song on the charts and underground today.

A kick drum has a few different phases, like any sound wave. First we have the start or the attack, and this is really what cuts through any mix. If you can get a kick to have a sharp attack, it will be able to be heard through any number of surrounding and opposing layers of different sounds. An attack that does not have such a strong starting point will need to have two strong elements that follow – so it’s necessary to really be careful about picking them. The starting phase can be augmented with other samples.

The sustained sound of the kick is very different depending on the type of drum sample that is chosen. One of the more famous sustains can be found in the sounds made by the famous TR-808 sampler and synthesizer by Roland. It has a very long booming sound that degrades in volume with time and yet keeps everything moving. The TR-808 actually has kicks of varying lengths for different applications, too.

Adjusting the volume of a kick is extremely simple on both Macintosh computers and PCs, and also with hardware samplers and drum machines. Most tools have envelopes and volume filters, and if your equipment or software does not permit this (although this is very unlikely in this day and age) then there are free tools available all over the net for you to use and download. Most of them will have unlimited functionality, so you can get started and import them right away.

If you still don’t want to use an envelope to modify the volume, it’s very easy to do it with an audio editor. Just select the part of the drum sample wave that fades out or stops (the end of it) and trim to your liking. To blend everything in after a crop, use a fade on the last few milliseconds to ensure that the drum samples are free of clipping.

You should also know that depending on what program you end up purchasing, different drum samples come with different programs. The drums in Propellerheads’ Reason, for example, are different than those contained in Battery 3. You can mix and match, but what’s important is that the samples are really the best for you; you should make a folder of your go-to drum samples to use time and time again.

Want to find out more about drum samples? Then visit http://www.mydrumsamples.com/ for all your needs.