If you're into producing hip hop music, then you know that drum machine beats tend to have that kick, that bottom, that snap, that OOMPH that you are familiar with coming from all of your favorite hip hop productions.

But what you may not be familiar with is how exactly you too can get the same bottom and oomph within your own tracks. You cannot simply choose an 808 and throw it in the mix, and expect to get a kick drum that is properly pitched, low, and still audible when all of your other elements are playing as well.

Lets discuss how you can change the sound of your drum machine beats, and get those kicks and snares snapping just as you would hear on all of your favorite recordings. Only difference is, we're going to be doing this from home, and you don't need thousands of dollars of equipment to achieve our goal either.

Choose a Good Drum Sample to Begin With

Don't just take any old kick or snare sample and think that it is going to work, you need to choose a drum sample that is close to the sound/style that you are trying to emulate. Many modern software drum machines as well as their hardware counterparts will come with thousands of drum samples that are readily available for use.

The next step is to determine whether or not to EQ and compress the drums

If you sampled the drums from a record, more than likely the drums themselves were equalized and compressed according to the direction or need of that particular song. With this in mind, you may not want to overcompress, over compression is pretty much what gives the average drum machine beats that you hear on youtube or soundclick the washed out unclear sound that you hear. You will only want to compress your drums if there is a need for it. Can you hear the drums clearly while the other elements of your song are playing? If your answer is yes, then you don't need compression for your drum machine beats. If your answer is no, then you can conversely lower the gain of the other supporting tracks at a small rate until you can hear your drums loud and clear.

Always use a high pass filter on all of your tracks, so as to remove any unwanted frequencies. If you do this, the majority of your mixing work will be already done. Do not feel straightaway that every track will need compression or equalization, you compress so that you can make your tracks level, and you eq to create space or definition within the frequency range.

Follow these steps with your drum machine beats, and you will be well on your way to getting those beats snappin in no time. Make it happen.