How To Make Beats
Reverb, when applied to drum samples as you master how to make beats, is grossly underused in popular music. At the same time, though, a lot of the people who make use of the effect for their drum parts abuse it and degrade the drum samples to the point of annoyance.
When considering using these samples as you make beats, make sure to specify (at least to yourself) the role that the sound is supposed to fulfill. If it’s for a single sound, you run the risk of making the other drum samples take a backseat to the reverb of this one instance. So if it’s a noise that plays all the time and consistently, you should turn down the bleed/return.
The length of the reverb is one of the main points of debate. Some people claim that songs with a slower tempo warrant a longer ‘tail’ (release) on the reverb sound patch, while others ask you to experiment with long and short on both medium and fast tempo songs to see what works for you. Sometimes, a longer reverb will allow the other drum samples to have a little bit more freedom and not need to perform to fill in empty space. If one of the samples takes that burden off the rest, you’ll have a lot more freedom as you figure out how to make beats.
You can apply a single reverb patch to all of your drum samples when you make beats, and there are hundreds of ways this can be achieved, and equally as many different programs and plug-ins to use for the task. With environment simulations (called Impulse Responses -or IRs for short), you can make your song sound like it was recorded at any world-famous location you have IR files for, such as the Louvre Museum if you wish. You can also apply the IR sound processing to your instrument tracks so that there is a total coherence between tracks.
Having said all of this, though, just about anything goes with certain types of electronic music. As long as something actually works for the song, nobody can tell you that it’s not worthy of inclusion as an effect.
To really get experience and a natural knack for applying reverb effectively as you learn how to make beats, you do need to try out different settings. Turn knobs, even if you’re not sure of what they do. The deeper you get into it, the more knowledgeable you will get with time. Of course, there are always points at which you should read the manual and ask for advice if you’re not sure why something works or doesn’t work. Also, try different programs as they will have different parameters for you to modify and you may find one plug-in that just ‘clicks’ with your workflow and that you find really good – you may amass a collection of favorite plug-ins to use for modifying drum samples.