I can instantly hear in that track what's going on tho... The hihat velocity changes aren't realistic... Not that's fine in some cases but I say you hear to fit the theme and own it. I mean, trap drums have crazy hi hats and very unrealistic, but they accompany synthetic sounding drums mostly. That beat you posted sounded like there was consistency in a boom bap drum kit (like they were sampled from vinyl or recorded from REAL drum sounds as opposed to sine waves etc).
A second thing I noticed was that there wasn't much swing, if any at all. Dig this... On most of my tracks I have most of my drums slightly off the grid. Even if I start with a perfect 8th note hat and kick kick snare pattern perfectly on the grid timing wise, I'll then lee my first kick on the grid but move the second kick forward just slightly, sooo small, then I might nudge the snare forward as well just s tiny bit, then I'll move the entire hat section forward a tiny bit (just don't want the kick/snares to hit at the same time as my hats). Then I'll take the second hat and move it an extra bit. That was a manual expression of how to get swing on a drum kit and it's something I do on 90% of my tracks.
My take home point is that your drums are stuck I. Limbo between being synthetic trap and acoustic realistic boom nap. Pick one and fit the theme. If you use acoustic drum samples, I would keep acoustic realistic drum patterns, with hi hats that vary in velocity but not in a dramatic wave, more up and down. Then add swing for extra realism. If you haven't tried analyzing classic drum breaks in your DAW I suggest it. You can't hear the timing and swing so much as you can see it when it's on your DAWs grid
Sorry I'm on my mobile so the grammar and spelling suck. Bare with me and ask any questions if you don't get it. Youtubing real drummer tutorials might even help, I've done that before. I do use loops as a resource as well. It's all a tool in your tool bag
is it the drum sounds? Or the patterns? Maybe i should start using loops
