3 Ways To Change Up Your Drums Without Changing The Pattern

3 Ways To Change Up Your Drums Without Changing The Pattern

Sometimes you have a drum pattern and you want to switch things up without changing the pattern.

This is good when you want a different feel for the third verse, the bridge, chorus, or whatever it is. This works for any patterns, boom bap drum patterns, lofi drum patterns, all hip hop drum patterns, or any other type of drum pattern.

Here's 5 ways to switch up your drum beat without changing the pattern. Same pattern, different feel.

Table Of Contents:

  1. Pitch Your Drums
  2. EQ The Drums
  3. Filter and Effects
  4. DJ Effects
  5. Switch Out Sounds

Here's the base drum groove we'll work off of:

Pitch Your Drums

The first tip is to pitch your drums up (or down). You don't have to do them all, just the kicks or kicks and snares. Here I pitch the kick and snare up one octave.

You'll hear the base pattern for a beat, then the pitched up version for a beat:

EQ Your Drums

You can EQ out the top or bottom part of your drums.

Here's the base pattern for a beat then the pattern with the top EQ'd out

 

Here's the base pattern for a beat then the pattern with the bottom EQ'd out

Filters And Effects

Try using a number of filters and effects on your drums. Your DAW has some great stock ones (whatever DAW you use). Or you can always use 3rd party ones.

Here's a few examples

This one I used Greg Wells Pianocentric. Greg Wells Piano Centric is one of several solid plugins to create lofi drum kits. and lofi sounds.

 

This one I used TeloFi by Black Salt Audio

 

This one I jused used the stock AutoFilter plugin in Logic.

Use DJ Effects

A classic technique is to use some effects that typically come with DJ Controllers. This is pretty similar to filters and effects, just the typical ones you hear with DJ'ing.

Switch Out The Sounds

Keep the drum pattern the same but switch out the sounds. Here's the base pattern again followed up by a version with a different kick and different snare.

MIX IT UP

There's five ways to add interesting effects to your drums without changing the drum pattern. Those five again:

  • Pitch Your Drums
  • EQ parts of your drums
  • Add Filters and Effects
  • Use DJ Effects
  • Try Different Sounds

This is useful for small parts of your song you want to switch it up such as the bridge, chorus, or maybe even the whole third verse.

Try it out!

Cole

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