percussions

[Tunel]

well i recently started with cubase and some VSTi`s. ive been doing music quite a while now, so cubase open me the panorama. . well im doing some tech-trance music and the REASON sound of drums is really bugging me. ive been listened some of midimiliz drums, x-dream, percussions of wizzy noise and there are so great, and i dont talk about the sequence of drums, just the sounds of it. So the question is... someone knows what they used, or simply recommend some drums machines that you think is good for sound and sequence?. Percussions of PPS project are great to. . im not talking about kicks, just snares (if you can call it like that ). Tips on how to make them sound good with EQ or fx are welcome to. OK Good bye

[dj mylo]

well i recently started with cubase and some VSTi`s. ive been doing music quite a while now, so cubase open me the panorama. . well im doing some tech-trance music and the REASON sound of drums is really bugging me. ive been listened some of midimiliz drums, x-dream, percussions of wizzy noise and there are so  great, and i dont talk about the sequence of drums, just the sounds of it. So the question is... someone knows what they used, or simply recommend some drums machines that you think is good for sound and sequence?. Percussions of PPS project are great to. . im not talking about kicks, just snares (if you can call it like that ). Tips on how to make them sound good with EQ or fx are welcome to. OK Good bye

230942[/snapback]

 

For the classic PPS project sound take snare/tom/hat percussion-loops through "Bit-Crusher" in Cubase. This gives a really low-tech / downsampled sound, while the rest of the rythym section <bass +kick> is clean and full.

 

Play around with Bit-crusher <vst fx > especially on intricate snare loops. You'll recognise the sound! Very X-dream and Wizzy too!

[fuzzikitten.]

well i recently started with cubase and some VSTi`s. ive been doing music quite a while now, so cubase open me the panorama. . well im doing some tech-trance music and the REASON sound of drums is really bugging me. ive been listened some of midimiliz drums, x-dream, percussions of wizzy noise and there are so  great, and i dont talk about the sequence of drums, just the sounds of it. So the question is... someone knows what they used, or simply recommend some drums machines that you think is good for sound and sequence?. Percussions of PPS project are great to. . im not talking about kicks, just snares (if you can call it like that ). Tips on how to make them sound good with EQ or fx are welcome to. OK Good bye

230942[/snapback]

Hehe, yeah, reason's percussion doesn't sound anything like good percussion. I've spent a while working on this one, and I'll share what I've come up with:

 

I generally treat hihats, snares, and rims differently.

 

Hihats

A closed-open hihat pattern (like "chikka chikka chik-ka") I will treat differently than the main open hihat ("psst psst psst"). For the closed-open pattern I tend to EQ out everything below 2khz or so, put on a little distortion (antares tube is good for this) and sometimes bitcrusher to give it dirt. I also plop on a compressor to make it sound like a single hihat.

For the main open hat I will generally EQ below 4khz or so, use Antares Tube, then EQ again and then put on a flanger (this tip is from Colin 000D). A compressor also helps give it a good 'psst!' sound.

 

Snares

These all depend on the sample I use, but I tend to EQ them to live between 500 and 4Khz. A modest amount of distortion and/or bitcrusher to dirty them up helps too.

 

Rims

I like my rims quiet yet up close so I tend to do a lot of compression and very little reverb. The EQ generally puts them around 1khz.

 

Lastly I'll create a group channel and do a bit of a send from each percussion track to the group channel. On that channel I will have some modest compression and reverb so that I can control how much 'raw' percussion I mix in to the track in combination with how much compressed/reverb I mix in. This last bit seems has really helped me get my percussion to 'gel'.

 

Of course, the hardest part is finding good samples that go well together. I've been studying a lot of Hallucinogen tracks lately, focusing mainly on the percussion (because I like it so much). Posford doesn't do anything complicated with his percussion, he just uses damned good samples.

 

I'd recommend getting on a filesharing application and doing a search for 'drum samples'. Download as many as you can and then start going through them, deleting the crap but keeping what you like. From the ones you like start building drum kits with various effects, getting practice in what a 'good kit' sounds like.

 

After months of focusing solely on percussion I can say this: getting a good percussion sound is hard!

 

Best of luck,

 

-Alex