Soul Samples - Deep Dry Soul kit

Deep, Dry, FUNKY soul samples.

With a Shedload of CHARACTER.

The Deep Dry Soul Kit is a pack containing 41 drum hits recorded across 11 different voices at 4 different velocities. Classic-sounding soul samples produced with a 70’s drum sound.

Willie Mitchell

“Deep Dry Soul Kit” is the third of 3 new Beat Shed products using a drum sound inspired by the great producer Willie Mitchell.

His approach to drum recording is one much discussed in drummer/engineer circles. Some talk about the punchy kick, the muffled toms, or the mic placement that takes in the whole kit as a single instrument. But then there’s the snare sound. Oh THAT snare sound…

The Recording

We spend a LOT of time getting interesting sounds for our Loops and Song packages. So we always take the time to record a set of drum hits at different velocities.

Whilst recording “Since We’ve Been Together” and “Big, Round & Bouncy” we took a full snapshot of the kit to create a drum soul samples pack “Deep Dry Soul Kit“.

In the audio player above you can hear a compilation of all of the samples, then scroll down to hear each and every set of 4 velocities in the Deep Dry Soul Kit soul samples pack.

The Voices

So there’s 11 voices in the Deep Dry Soul Kit samples pack:

Kick
Snare
Closed Hats
Loose Hats
Loose Hats Ringing (1 velocity only)
Open Hats
Rack Tom
Floor Tom
Small Crash
Large Crash
Ride

product page

The Sound of Vintage Soul Drums

We used our trusty old Yamaha 9000, tuned low and mean, using the 13″ and the 16″ for the toms. 22×16″ kick, with the front head low and the display head almost hanging off!

But let’s face it, the drum sound we got here is all about…

That Deep DEAD Snare Sound

So how do you get the Willie Mitchell snare sound?

We’ve no idea, but here’s what we did to get something similar that, we think, is pretty sweet.

We went through the snare collection, and the one that seemed like the best starting point was a tatty old steel thing that occasionally gets used as a timbale. Old, cheap and knackered often seems to translate into “character” in the studio. (Bargain!)

Then we employed the “shove-a-knackered-snare-head-upside-down-on-top” strategy. Yes, this involves digging an old head out the dustbin, turning it upside-down and whacking it on top of the existing snare head.

This immediately drops the pitch of the snare, as well as making the top head twice as thick AND dampening it all at the same time. It’s a serious business this…

Then we tuned the top and bottom heads down-down-down just about as far as we dared and slackened the snares to taste.

To get the snare sound you can hear on these recordings took well over an hour of cursing and swearing, but it was worth every f***ing minute.

The Third Overhead

The final piece of our vintage-drum-recording puzzle was to use a ribbon mic over the top of the kit. Almost like a third overhead, to give a tight, contained, focused drum sound.

product page

The Video

Although it isn’t EXACTLY the same setup, and the beat is a disco/EDM groove, this month’s Free Beat Friday has the same snare drum sound using the same trick.

Deep Dry Soul Kit is available in the usual Beat Shed packages

Mixes – Beats that have been lovingly mixed and treated ready for you to use. They come as CD quality (16 bit, 44.1khz ) stereo WAV files. All the audio you can hear in audio player above are included as separate soul samples.

Tracks – Dry, unmixed, individual audio files of each and every channel. They come as high resolution WAV files (24 bit, 44.1khz). All the audio you can hear in the audio player above are included as separate sections soul samples.

For more information about the packages and how they work, have a look at About The Beat Shed or the WTF page.