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Why Are My Percs Total Crap?!!? (pg. 3)
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| IceColdWater |
Try using the chorus on running hi hats. Really gives it a unison feel.
Or try compressing them , to give them a punchy effect.
Or compress them with 0.0 ms attack , make them sound like one whole flowing sound.
There are many ways to get a nice percussion , you can try the vocoder , bitcrusher , reverb.. heavy EQing.. IDK..
It really depends on what kind of percussion you are looking for , especially whether it fits the genre you are producing or not. |
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| Beatflux |
Timing:
When does the note start? When does it end? Adding a random shift to start and end points creates a more lively feel. The higher BPM you go the less room you have for moving your percussion around before it starts to sound "off." Delaying percussion gives you a laid back feel, and pushing it forward gives it a rushing feel. This is totally relative to everything else going on in the track.
If you add the same kind of swing to everything, nothing will really swing. Limit different amount of swing to each hit to where swing actually propels you forward instead of being the boring defacto standard.
Try this: paint in offbeat 8th note open hihats for one bar. Leave the 1st and 3rd one alone. Add a slight amount of swing to the 2nd one, and more swing on the 4th one.
Timbre:
How does the loop or hit work with other percussion and the song?
Envelop(ADSR):
How fast does the peak of the hit come? Do I want it to hit with everything else?
Length:
How do the samples change in length? What hits does the note flow into? Shortening a sample gives it energy, making it longer makes it more flowing. When a hit ends is just as important to when it begins.
Volume:
How loud is each hit? Altering loudness can give you a significantly different feel than leaving every hit the same volume.
Ghost Notes:
These can keep a groove flowing or give it a groove that wasn't there before. They can be more easily moved off straight timing than notes at full volume.
Frequency:
What frequency range is the hit in? The lower the frequency the more you can move the hit off of quantized settings without it sounding "off." |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by alanzo
Percussion...It's something I don't like to spend a lot of time on... |
I also find sequencing drums/percussion very tedious and boring. My solution: NI Maschine. It's made it a lot more fun, and I can spend many hours just creating different patterns/grooves. YMMV, but it made a huge improvement in my workflow. So, you might want to consider something like Maschine, or a dedicated hardware drum machine that lets you play your patterns, is hands-on/interactive, etc.
Stylus RMX is another great piece of kit for percussion IMO. It gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of patterns, grooves, sounds, and effects. Plus, you have a lot of control over the feel, "humanizing" and randomizing your patterns, etc. If you also have Propellerhead ReCycle, you can convert your WAV drum loops to REX format, import them to Stylus, and have access to all that control over your canned loops. |
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| Magnus |
| I'm pretty much the same way alanzo. I freakin hate percussion and sometimes feel like no matter what, that groove I'm looking for isn't there and the feel and flow is wrong. Something I have used for coming up with inspiration and new percussive patterns is iDrum. I think it gets overlooked quite a bit but it's a great tool IMO for coming up with some cool patterns. You can drag the patterns you create directly from the VST window into your sequencer where it will create the proper midi information. Its quite a simple tool but worth taking a look at IMO. |
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| Subtle |
What you need to do is find samples that goes well together, build a collection of hits that sounds good with each other.
Think about how many tracks that were made using only the 909 for drums, i would say its better to have a small collection of good drum sounds rather than a ton of samples which takes ages to go through.
Try avoiding the Vengeance Loops, they can sound pretty good.. but there is so much going on in many of them that they screw up your mix without you even knowing. |
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| alanzo |
Thanks for all the tips, everyone. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will benefit from this thread. My plan of action right now:
1) STOP USING LOOPS. As of this moment, I will never use a loop again. I spend hours trying to found one that I like and even when I do, most of the time I have to tempo-shift the loop which is nearly impossible to do and have it still sound right.
2) Use the Groove Agent One plugin in Cubase as a sampler rather than attempt to put the individual audio samples in as audio tracks. I think this will help a lot as I'll be able to use MIDI to time everything. I believe there is even a way I can add shuffle to the MIDI track with a MIDI track plugin insert. PLUS I can switch out a sample for another when I decide I don't like the kick anymore or whatever.
3) Use a lot of FX. I find that I tend to like the percs if I compress, EQ, delay, and chorus them. Of course, it has to be done on a case-by-case basis. But in general, don't be afraid to use as many FX on your percussion as you do on an instrument if that's what you're going for.
I'll post back with an audio clip or two when I get something decent. :D |
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| alanzo |
Also, I feel like I've always been overthinking my percussion. Literally for the past four years it's always been the one part of my music that I am never satisfied with. Maybe it's because I've always been using loops ...
Not only that, but I think a lot of it is in my head. When I listen to some of my favorite music that I consider to be done well, if I concentrate on the percussion, I get the same feelings about it as I do with my own. |
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| Sean Walsh |
Start with some simple hats. Add a *subtle* reverb panned mostly left or right.
Just that with the kick should already feel a LOT better than some of the massively overcompressed vengeance loops. |
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| kitphillips |
| Its got a lot to do with sample selection, correct volume and judicious use of a bit of room verb IMO. |
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| Subtle |
| quote: | Originally posted by kitphillips
Its got a lot to do with sample selection, correct volume. |
That and making the drums talk with the rest of the track. |
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| Crash |
I dont know if anyone else does this and i dont know if its a correct way of doing it, BUT i like to make my own loops with different tablas and whatnot. And then i bounce that loop and cut it up and make another loop with the cut out sounds. And i do that a couple of times. Usually i get these sounds that sound like a tabla or whatever but it isnt.
That and many filters and effects. Ive found that just using reverb tails can add alot to the percussions. |
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