Drum synth, mad beatmaking production tips

#21

Being a prodigy fan I think it’s wicked

#22

I use and really like Tremor. I use it more for techno type stuff atm but it is an 8 voice/part drum synth, you can do whatever you want with it if you put in the time. Also the sequencer is great, especially the ability to create polyrhythms. if you want a good sample based drum VST Geist2 is also pretty sweet, with an even better sequencer. But you need your samples sorted. Neither will get you to VS type stuff alone but it is what I ended up starting with and stuck with over the last few years.

#23

Hey, nice one. I will have a look at it. But I think it’s a lot easier to mess around with them rather than using Ableton Live drum rack.
Thanks a lot for the tip.
:metal:

#24

I highly recommend Reaktor. Easy to build your own drum synths and glitch modules, but there are thousands available for free if you don’t want to dig into the guts of Reaktor right away. Some are just simple sound modules, some have full sequencers, mixers and fx. It’s basically the only plugin you’ll ever need for anything short of mixing plugins

#25

Can this type ov music be performed live without relying on a computer too much?

#26

If doing this live you would probably need to combine hardware and software

#27

I have seen Venetian Snares play standard Cdj. the thing is what he puts in those cds. When he performs with Daniel Lanois he puts a little bit more into it. I think it’s a bit hard to keep it tide playing live so they probably keep it simple.

#28

One thing I like to do is to is make some drums by hand but try and make it glitchy and mangle it abit, add fx, go mad with beat mangle or live cut or something maybe turn on and off some fx and just record using resample. Then once you’ve got an interesting take of drums then load that take into abletons simpler and change to slice mode. Mess with the sensitivity a little and then you can just draw midi notes in and gives you a tone of control. Whats great is you can save/reuse for future tunes

#29

Also another little cool thing I’ve found is in ableton useing the DJ cross fader to switch between your drum track or buss and a channel playing fx or glitches or whatever you want. So you would do this by lets say you had a glitchy drum break, you would assign that to A and then your glitches/fx would be assigned to B
(this is easier and more fun if you have a controller like the acp40 mk2) This is cool because your drums duck when there is fx and its super clean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=586mKaxKMjs here is a link that is a basic idea of what I’m on about.

#30

If you want an ACTUAL drum synth, there is one called “Nord Drum”. There are three versions of it. Some people enjoy hooking them up to sequencers and having a ball with them (the Nord Drum 2 is quite sought after for peoples with modulars). Anyway, I mostly recommend them for sound design. You can come up with some pretty gnarly sounds.

I like to come up with a few different sounds, sample them into my Digitakt and then mangle them. If you like Aphex Twin or stuff like that. You can get a lot of sounds that you’d imagine him or the like using.Take those synth-created samples and mix them with more organic samples (actual drum samples like the amen break) and you can get some amazing textures.

Also, if you make a loop then record a few versions of it with different effects on each loop, then cut them up and randomly (or meticulously) place pieces of the loop into the dry version, you’ll get some really interesting results. (a distorted loop, a heavy reverb loop, etc.)

#31

Nord Drum mkii is amazing.

#32

Right so update figured I should share this…after playing with pro tracker I got an idea an applied it in fl by assigning individual one shot samples created by slicex to different mixer channels and create glitch sequences using a fx like delay, reverb, distorton,filter sweep…etc in conjuction with glitch plugins such as gross beat(both the beat repeat and gates)…buffer override… and… skidder…and create wierd noises via automation of all these plugins…I experimented with this in my fawm track 4…by using a granular sounding glitch break I made with the peak controller trick…so

tl;dr apply a crapload of automated fx to individal one shots of granular glitchy break in slicex, then sequence = instant idm xanopticon breaks

And also you could use a sample or sequence as a trigger to get wierd automation sequences of which I already posted about this in my making the i broke your song track…

If I’m repeating myself sorry I forget what i post just documenting info in an effort to rebuild the database

#33

People you ask about are using mostly everything they have on hand.

It’s not the sounds, it’s how you make 'em live. Last or the one before VS album, full modular is pretty but there’s little research on sounds.

Woulg, in the other hand, take random samples on his database and make one of my favourite Glitch project. Currently I’d say the avant-garde of sound mangling is with him and Glorkglunk. And he rarely uses vsts, he does mostly everything inside Ableton Live with built-in synths and effetcs.

I’m not talking about the sound they produce, even if it’s great there’s a few dozens of producers that are as great. But it’s the way they do it, with hacking philosophy, iterative/fractal sound design, coding stuff, breaking stuff, pushing stuff to their limits. And they’re cool guys, lots of laughs when I sometimes watch the weekly feed.

So, what I can suggest : watch the woulg weekly feed on twitch. Serious skill upgrade. It might take a few days tho.

And if you really want to buy gear to make neat sounds :

Modular synth with modules like Loquelic Iteritas of Noise Engineering and other things that allows expeimentation
Moog Matriarch, which is not a classic Moog, you have very soft and subtle sounds as well as crazy FM modulations with the 90 points patchbay.
Elektron Digitakt
Dave Smith Tempest

Old stuff, if you’re into :

Casio RZ-1, used by Autechre, 12-bit sampling and serious groove
Akai S950, same
Ensonig DP4+
Clavia Nord Lead/Rack
Roland Juno
…
… Well, you can watch youtube for more

Obviously, one of the best piece of gear that ever existed :

Elektron Machinedrum SPS1 UW mkII. I regret I sold it years ago. Why ? Cutting-edge sound design to reintroduce and glitch in my favourite sequencer. Very crazy and organic effects once you push every parameter to hell. AND. 12-bit sampler, to add that percussive and grainy sound to yours and resample yourself to the infinite. Even pitch it and modulate it in another seq makes you feel the grain.

(HS) I’d add something : I have a 8th gen 6-core i7. Only Firefox is on, and since I wrote more than ten lines, I have to wait every letter/word I type for a few seconds. Am I the only one to experience that ? (/HS)

Edit : Renoise has a tough learning curve when you doesn’t (yeah, you doesn’t. there’s a me before coffee and another me after coffee) come from the tracker universe.

AND, you can do everything it does with another DAW. Only what’s different is that it’s a pain in the ass to use once you put a few years in it. Use the tools you are comfortable with, watch a few dozens of videos to hone your skills/inspiration, and let’s go !

EDIT 2 : for lazy people like me

#34

I’ve recently been experimenting with Reaktor ensembles like Krypt and FaxtFx. These are really powerful beat machines that allow for tons of experimentations and unexpected results. I definitely recommend.
The only thing is there is a need to edit the results as the madness gets easily overwhelming.
I am definately into Woulg I would say Dafake Panda is also an impressive artist.