Tip: for you hip hop producers. a common mistake producers make when making a beat is using the same velocity on your midi sample throughout the whole song. The most noticeable is your kick.
Try this. Use a different velocity for your kicks. Find your accent kick and make that 127. Then try to bring the rest down to 110 or other less important kicks to 90 or more. Try to create a groove. Another way of accomplishing this is to pitch down the kicks. A simple volume ride might also do the trick as well. But there are scenarios that each benefit from. Try all three and find out what you like best.
Another tip when your using a drum sample, with midi drums on top. For clarity sake, say you use a 70s funk drum intro you sampled from your moms vinyl collection and on top you have some 808 and 909s. Throw a delay on your sample. Something subtle so that it accents the groove. A 8th delay usually will do the trick. But experiment with other times. Or even triplet or dotted delays. Ping pong delays even. When you do this low pass and high pass the delay so that it isn't super audible. It should give a sensation that it moves.