Flam Your Drums Like the Pros An advanced hip hop MIDI sequencing technique that many pros use is what is known as a flam. The technique is mostly applied to a drum patterns snare or clap, and sometimes the kick as well. ModernBeats reveals how to create skilled hip hop flams below... A flam is a unique double-slap percussive sound achieved by triggering two samples quickly, side-by-side. Depending on the tempo of your track, this quick double-triggering can be as fast as a 1/32 or 1/64 note (and even quicker for more subtle effects). Also, there are numerous types of flam timbres you can create such as flamming the same 2 samples together (Snare A with Snare A), flamming 2 different samples together (Snare A with Snare B), flamming the same 2 samples together yet each having a different EQ (Clap A high-passed with Clap A lows boosted) and so on! A good example of a flam using the same 2 snare samples together can be heard in BuyaBeats NEbeat23-1.mp3. Three Main Ways to Control a Flams Feel: 1) The first way, of course, is the amount of space the 2 flamming samples are set apart from each other such as a 32nd note or 64th note apart etc. As you experiment with spacing, youll quickly realize the flams feel varies greatly changing this parameter alone. 2) The second way to control the flams feel is how you set the note velocity & amplitude of each sample. You can arrange the flam so the first sample acts as a soft velocity ghost note that precedes the second sample which is louder and higher velocity/amplitude values. Also, you can reverse the order of velocity settings (loud-soft) to create the complete opposite dynamic feel! 3) The third element of controlling a flams feel is in the timing & placement of the flam within the drum sequence. For example, you can sequence the flam so the first note of the flam lands directly on the main pulse of any given bar where the second note of the flam acts as a slapback or ricocheted hit occurring after the main pulse. Moreover, you can achieve the opposite feel by offsetting the flams timing to where the second note of the flam lands directly on the main pulse instead of the first. This effect causes the first note in the flam to act as a pickup note leading into the main pulse flammed sample… While flams are traditionally used on snare and claps, kicks can be flammed as well. However, due to low frequency conflicts that result when flamming kicks, more care and skill must be applied. Stay tuned for our Know How to Flam Kicks Correctly tips email to discover the secrets on creating professional sounding kick flams in the style of 50 Cent and more!
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 05:37:08 +0000
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