Ryan Gruss has started a fun new blog that features frequent posts that feature free drum loops, along with stories about the inspiration behind them. 

Here’s an example:

Today’s loop is dedicated to Richard Starkey aka Ringo Star. Ringo was the drummer in an underground pop band from the 60’s called The Beatles. I highly recommend going to your local vinyl shop and digging for some of their albums.

Why am I dedicating this to Ringo? Because Ringo came up with the ingenious idea of placing towels on top of his drums when recording in the studio. This technique resulted in the signature “Ringo sound” which was prevalent in their later albums; flat, punchy and ultra compressed. It is also my guess that Ringo used these towels to dry himself when playing drums on the beach. Talk about resourceful.

I took Ringo’s towel technique and ran with it on this one. Using close mic’ing on all of the drums, I cranked up the compressor and panned the toms hard left and right. Finally, I pulled out the bit-crusher and smashed things up a bit. The final result: This sounds absolutely nothing like Ringo but more like something Pharrell would produce after spilling Moët all over the console. Yet again, another reason to have towels in the studio.

Here’s the “Towels” loop:

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I like Ryan’s approach. By giving you the story behind his drum loops, he creates an image in your mind that might inspire a new musical tangent. 

Let me know what you think! And, if you know of other great drum loop sites, leave a comment. 

via Oliver Chesler, image stephcarter