Dealing with percussion in a sample

[unsignd]

This is just a thing I've always been wondering about and I'm sure it's been discussed on these forums before, but how exactly do you guys work with samples that already have noticeable percussion in it? I know everyone has had these problems, I always find a sample I want to make a beat out of but once add the drums in I just can't get things to sound right because the kicks in the original song will interfere with the kick drums I'm trying to layer on top. Same goes for snares, but hi-hats are almost never a problem. I can't tell if compression makes the problem worse or not, I tend to compress the sample before I put drums in, but that can sometimes have the ill effect of causing the sample to duck small amounts in places where I don't put a kick drum (it can be distracting). But when adding compression, if you turn the first dial all the way up and the second down, it reduces the volume of the bass and snare and raises the volume of the sample which actually seems to help a bit.

Are there any other techniques people use? Sometimes when I chop parts up I will change the start time to be just after a kick drum or snare which makes things sound much more smooth but can alter the timing of the hats.

[preqwal]

Good question,

I generally won't touch a sample if it has a kick drum in it. I never mind with hi-hats and other percussion. If it has a snare drum on the sample, I'll just layer it.

Layering can be harder with Kicks. What you could do is put a side chain compression on the sample, fed from the kick you want to use, and then play your kick drum when the original plays. When you play your new kick drum it will duck the sample out. That's always pretty cool

[blavatsky]

EQ/Isolate it to kill all the bassy stuff, that will help. Snares are a little trickier...
Also may have luck with center canceller, mess with the knobs to see if the panning in the sample allows you to decrease the snare or bass in it

[Unfolding]

Or you could treat the sample like it was a break. If it loops & is in 4/4, chop it into quarter length notes or two every time you heard a forceful sounding kick or snare. Layer in you own drums at the start of each chop. Don't view the drums in the sample as a hinderance, think about what you could do with them.

Chopping like this'll also let you play the loop back in almost any order you want.

[Krisso The Great]

hate to be that guy but ..

half of Beat Konducta in Africa was close to source material looped (not to discredit) cos selection is half the task .. doesn't matter what paints you use long as the final picture is masterful (key word - MASTERFUL)