Synthesizing Drum Sounds

A thread for discussing percussive sounds made with synths. Additive, subtractive, NO SAMPLERS. Share examples if you swing that way.

I've found a very pleasing blip noise on the MS-10 when PWM & filter resonance are up all the way (adjusting cut-off changes pitch). Probably this works for other synths.

Putting a fast lfo on pitch makes an atonal worble that could be used in place of a snare in some cases. It lacks a bit of oomph, though. Snares are something I'm still trying to work out. They tend to lack force when compared to their sampled counterparts. Probably needs multiple layers of something

Kicks/bassdrums are pretty straight forward. Couple of sine waves going at the same time with detune on each.

A lot can be done with FM synthesis concerning drums :)

Elektron .... that is all I have to say in this thread.

DS-10 & µTonic are awesome at making noise based drums

For years, I've wanted a machinedrum, but didn't have the money... so I built my own drum synths with my nord modular g2s. I got unique results, and I love those. But I did just pick up a used machinedrum a couple of days ago... so now I am in synth drum heaven!

I am definitely going to combine the MD with the drums I've created from scratch... they compliment each other very nicely.

My drums are extremely simple... noise, sines, filters... but because I created them, I have control over all of the parameters. I built a max4live device that handles the params, and allows me to switch sounds, and patterns very quickly and on the fly... just the fact that I can dynamically change my drums in real time, gives so much more life and character to my drums. If there is anything I would recommend most when creating synthetic drums, is to figure out a way to have variations... snap shots, of the different sounds, and learn to 'play' them.

also, compression, eq, gates and different types of distortion go along way... consider them part of your drum sound.... each on individual tracks, and on a drum bus as well.

I'd recommend this couple of Sound On Sound articles if you're interested in the question

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan02/articles/synthsecrets0102.asp

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar02/articles/synthsecrets0302.asp

not that amazing for one who already knows how to synthesize a kick but they give you the feeling to understand the question better

Sound on Sound is cool.

Also, I use Renoise a lot for "synthesizing" drum sounds, in a way implying a lot of sampling of what I've synthesized so I can't really participate to the thread.

What I often use for snares is to melt a synthesized sound (based on a noise for example) with a "real" snare sample. Shit, this imply sampling as well.

Distortion also helps me a lot but distortion isn't synthesizing.

Fuck, I think I'm unable to make a drum sound only by synthesis.

  Quote

They tend to lack force when compared to their sampled counterparts. Probably needs multiple layers of something

Snares are imo way harder to synthesize than bass drums. But yes layering is often a thing that will bring some punch. I sometimes resolve the not-enough-punchy-snare problem by simply doubling it, pitched at the upper octave. Sometimes surprising if you feel a bit lazy.

(sorry for double post but I wasn't able to edit the previous one)

Truth be told drum synthesis's more of a hobby than something I'm trying to perfect for music purposes. Normally I'm all about workshop noise sample drums. But there's a certain sort of cohesion when one successfully makes a track entirely with sounds from one source.

I made this track in 97 or 98 with everything done on a Juno 6. It's pretty rough but I kinda like it.

my recent love is IL Drumaxx/Drumpad, powerfull phys. mod. percussion synth:

http://soundcloud.com/imageline/drumatrix-presets

Ya I was working on a drum synth in reaktor a wihle back, but quite for some reason.

I really like the way Ultrabeat combines samples with synthesis. You can get some really nice results modulating a sample by a synth wave. Then you can use velocity and all that to create really dynamic and organic sounds drums.

  On 9/8/2011 at 1:37 PM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

anyone know how the drums are synthesised in a machinedrum? or is it a trade secret or something?

Microscopic pixies performing extremely complex "mexican wave" type manoeuvres in front of motion capture cameras which convert the generated waveforms into audio signals.

NI massive is very good for creating drum sounds, especially good hi hat and snares thanks to the unusual noise generator. With the performer modulation channels and fancy routing options, you can make pretty solid loops just inside that synth.

Kick drums I think are easier to get good than snares. A lot of it depends on the envelope shapes you apply to pitch and stuff. I prefer envelopes which can be curved rather than just straight lines (hay fever getting in the way of me remembering proper terms).

I suppose the classic method is with self resonating filters and cutoff freq modulation. I think thats why people go on about the 2600 being so good for drum sounds, snappy envelopes with very quick decay. Same type of deal with MS20s and other similar things.

Snare drums are trickier, certainly a good route is layering a few things in together. Noise generator with an amplitude envelope and possibly LP filter, layered with an oscillator with Pitch Modulation perhaps. Sometimes using the noise as a modulation source for pitch modulation is a good one too.

Really there's loads of ways to do it. Getting the classic kinda synth drums sounds is pretty straight forwards with a number of things, but the more options the synth you're using provides, the more options to create a pretty complex drum sound. Cant recommend Massive enough though.

After reflecting, I think I (generally) prefer drums a bit gritty - analog synths, lofi poorly truncated samples, distortion, all that. More atonal & rough, contrasts with the harmonics which generally speaking I like to keep smooth - digital synths (possibly run through analog filter for resonance), certain instruments (or people who sing clearly), reverbs delays what have you. Of course when you start writing melodies using beats that becomes a whole nother thing.

  On 9/7/2011 at 9:34 PM, futureimage said:

A lot can be done with FM synthesis concerning drums :)

  On 9/8/2011 at 12:46 PM, telefunken said:

my recent love is IL Drumaxx/Drumpad, powerfull phys. mod. percussion synth:

 

http://soundcloud.com/imageline/drumatrix-presets

thanks, never heard of this, very interesting

this is shit I'm really into at the moment

recent got my third Machinedrum (which isn't going anywhere now) due to being inspired by the Ebert bros live sets (check percussionlab.com) and now I finally have my head around the CTRL-AL machines this shit has just got serious, put thu a sequenced Oto Buiscuit and I'm already making Raster-Noton quality beats

also picked up another G1 Nord Modular again so things are going to get even more fucked up. I did use its percussion sounds quite extensivly on a half arsed track thats knocking around on soundccloud with my old G1

I did a nice Pro1 analogue kit a while back which I'll have to dig out for you lot when I can find it

  On 9/9/2011 at 5:02 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 9/8/2011 at 12:46 PM, telefunken said:

my recent love is IL Drumaxx/Drumpad, powerfull phys. mod. percussion synth:

 

http://soundcloud.com/imageline/drumatrix-presets

 

thanks, never heard of this, very interesting

bah. 404 on the demo.

What's the general consensus on the most noob friendly but powerful drum synth?

  On 9/10/2011 at 4:19 AM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

What's the general consensus on the most noob friendly but powerful drum synth?

  On 9/10/2011 at 12:17 PM, soundwave said:

  On 9/10/2011 at 4:19 AM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

What's the general consensus on the most noob friendly but powerful drum synth?

 

After that you'll want:

I've done a lot of my favorite kicks w the pitch bend tool in Cool Edit/Audition. Make a sine/triangle(/square if you feel dirty) and you can draw the curve of the bend. I like being able to fine tune how long it spends in the high range, how low it goes, etc.

I don't synthesize other drums too much . . more into found sounds/samples.

How could I forgot the two Max/MSP patches (kick and snare) I made with a friend?!

I suppose that's because I never use them in my tracks as Max 5 can't run as a VST.

Anyway I'll share them here but right now I'm too lazy to take my external HDD and to search for the files :P

There is good article about percussion synthesis.

http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~clark/nordmodularbook/nm_percussion.html

And some patches I made for blog

http://pattr.ru/sites/default/files/drumkit-kick.zip

http://pattr.ru/sites/default/files/drumsynth-snareclap.zip

http://pattr.ru/sites/default/files/drumsynth-ferrum.zip

http://pattr.ru/sites/default/files/drumsynth-perc.zip

So my thing lately has been making tracks entirely from one source (generally a recording of my playing an acoustic instrument). Melodic elements are pretty straight forward (just jump around the sample until you find something with a nice tone or that produces an interesting harmonic with other elements), but percussion's a bit trickier.

Kick - fairly straightforward. If there aren't any suitably low frequencies or thuds in the sample already, pick a part at random, pitch it down, give it a short decay, maybe run it through a chorus or distortion for added grime

hihats - I usually just cut some stuff up into little blips, pitch it up a bit, & play with filters under it sits nicely in the mix. With acoustic samples like strings these blips tend to sound a bit metallic or wooden to me:

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/dulcimetrics

Whereas with synth samples they tend to sound a bit more...synthesizery

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/mooncat2

In most cases I don't mix real sounding stuff with fake sounding stuff so that works out pretty well

Snares - these are the toughest (irl snares seem to have some very complex harmonics going on). Generally I just make some sort of crazy worble sound or something for a sort of atmospheric metronome, but I have yet to find the best treatment for making random noises have serious punch