Good, strong claps

[Hirosashii]

How do you achieve them? All of my claps sound very 1-dimensional; that is, they don't sound very interesting at all. Usually when in a group of people, when you clap, not everyone claps at literally the exact... same... time. So how would I go about making the clap sound sound more dynamic. Would I layer a good amount of different styled claps on top of each other and edit the time that they occur by fractions of seconds, or is there a better method? In addition to that, what's a good number of claps to layer?

[bartekko]

A lot of short reverb might help, as well as chorus.

I would take two/three real life claps, pan them, and trigger them so there's a 1/128 note difference between them, and maybe add a center-panned 909 clap.

Don't layer too many claps, or it will sound muddy

also, don't make the clap too loud. If looking for a modern house sound, you'll be better off if the clap is barely heard, with not much noise, so the second and fourth kicks are accented, but not overpowered by the clap

[the4thImpulse]

I personaly dont like putting reverb on my claps, I propably just haven't done it right but it never sounds good in my productions. However I usually layer a clap (usually 2 or 3) and a snare together, The snare needs to have a long release before the reverb and I use a volume envelope to increase the attack on it to no more the 40ms. The claps, like bartekko said, I pan them and trigger them so there is a tiny delay. Sometimes I mess around with envelopes on the claps like the snare.

When your doing the recording of several people claping at once try seting a tempo(like a click track) and tell them to clap to it. I dont know how well that would work but it makes sense in my head as I dont record stuff myself.

[Kryptage]

I always offset my claps, really works, you might just have weak samples. Grabbing a white noisy snare, and reverse it, leading it into the clap every once really accentuates the beat, and the clap.

My song here, I used this technique. It's great for getting those really solid dance claps.

http://soundcloud.com/moviemajic12/weather-control

I also verb my claps. but don't over do it. make sure it's doesn't lose any punch because of the reverb.
Finally you can add some air on the end with the EQ. Just add a really big curve on the high end to give it some air. Putting a snare with the claps can always add new timbres you can't get with a clap.

You also wanna make sure if you're offsetting claps you put the right ones off

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47575731/Clap1.wav
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47575731/Clap2.wav

Those two claps, you wanna make sure you put Clap 1(The sound with more depth and character) on beat, and Clap 2(The punchier clap) offset. This goes for any sound.