[Request]General tips making drum sounds (Zebra2)

[Kalee]

Hi,

Subject sums it up pretty much. I would want some general tips on making drum sounds, all kinds of, electronic, physical model percussions, normal acoustic drum kit sounds.

I know I can put keyfollow to envelope to get open / closed hihat.

All tips appreciated from one-liners to more detailed.

Thanks.

[raikard233]

In the meantime that zebra people answer you can start to put an eye on the drum presets available from the zebra patchlib: http://u-he.com/PatchLib/zebra.html

Search for "Drums", there are some dedicated banks, also for zebralette.

[Howard]

All tips appreciated from one-liners to more detailed.
Thanks.

Here's my one-liner: SB modules are *great'* for membranophones of all kinds

[3ee]

1. Envelope shape
2. Attack accent
3. Osc phase reset on/off
4. Round robin
5. Others

-----------------

1. Very important to get the shape "right". You just have to experiment here. Usual modulation targets would be pitch and volume.

2. Instead of using compressors to shape the attack, try programming it with an extra short envelope or MSEG. Don't over do it as than the sound will lose "body" by contrast.

3. Leave osc phase reset on for percussion in general and as you'll finetune the phase you will actually finetune the punch/snap.

4. You might wanna "randomize" some parameters a bit (MMap in alternate mode) especially if osc phase reset is on with acoustic emulations.

5. Pitch tracking set to 0, use a 12db HP in conjunction with it's drive to control/boost low end, try to get the sound right before the effects. Try to turn off the master "smooth attacks" feature and finetune the attack with the main envelope. Try the shaper module. Envelope decay usually the same as the release?! Compressor module can be used as a distortion unit (strong ~0 attack and release)

There are certainly many others but can't think of any more atm, anyway hope these help!
Cheers,
3ee

[3ee]

I'm certain that Zebra can do more than we initially may think!

For example, gave it a shot emulating the TR-808 a while back but it got sidetracked by other projects, I hope I'll finish it soon as it takes quite a bit to preserve authenticity!

Here's a demo on what I have so far. (no processing, just Zebra and a bit of master limiting). They need some more work (especially the SD) but anyway they are good enough so far.

http://www.box.com/s/56yjy1t974erg63yhdeu

You may not get exited to hear another 808 emulation of whatever, but the fact that Zebra can do a great job in that department as well as the rest is pretty exciting at least IMO!

[Bronto Scorpio]

I'm certain that Zebra can do more than we initially may think!

For example, gave it a shot emulating the TR-808 a while back but it got sidetracked by other projects, I hope I'll finish it soon as it takes quite a bit to preserve authenticity!

Here's a demo on what I have so far. (no processing, just Zebra and a bit of master limiting). They need some more work (especially the SD) but anyway they are good enough so far.

You may not get exited to hear another 808 emulation of whatever, but the fact that Zebra can do a great job in that department as well as the rest is pretty exciting at least IMO!

http://www.box.com/s/56yjy1t974erg63yhdeu

Sounds f**king great!
I like the snare! Doesn't 100% like a 808 snare but it sounds great nontheless!

Cheers
Dennis

[Bronto Scorpio]

Check out this great PDF too: http://waldorf.electro-music.com/attack ... sounds.pdf

Cheers
Dennis

[xh3rv]

October 2002-September 2003 of SOS Synth Secrets is great ( http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm ). Generally the patching suggestions can be recreated Zebra. The discourse on the physics of how sound actually comes from drums is also really great background, I think better than the patches for starting from scratch.

Wikipedia's Percussion ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussion_instrument ) is worth reading over, just for a broad overview and some insight on categorizing percussion sounds.

Check my sig for mostly drum-machine inspired stuff for Zebra and please feel free to tweak, copy, mangle, or whatever. That set is purposely focused on simple and mostly drum machine sounds, matched dynamically and spectrally to samples. Of course there are plenty of more creative approaches and some better-sounding emulations in most of the larger sized patch sets as well

[3ee]

Check out this great PDF too: http://waldorf.electro-music.com/attack ... sounds.pdf

Cheers
Dennis

Thanks, I just hope I'll remember that this document also contains that information!

xh3rv, just checked out your Vanilla Perc patch bank, some great patches in there, but mostly very nice and "keepable" thanks! Some untamed harshness with some hats and the XY vectors could use a bit more volume balancing but these are just some minor details, thanks again!

[xh3rv]

Some untamed harshness with some hats

Oh, I think the hats are bitching, and by that I mean raw digital 'bit' + nasty metallic 'ching'

I had some tunnel vision with the hats and trying to match them to samples with oscilloscopes, spectral analyzers etc. This worked fairly well for most other types of percussion but not as well for hats. I still like my stuff (especially w/ XYs), but really - a lot of simpler -> better synthetic hats can be found in other patch sets. Realistic hats ... there are a few but not many for Zebra

Liked your 303 btw!

[e] I think Bazille has a lot of potential for better synth hats or realistic hats, those oscillators are really interesting!

[3ee]

I must admit, I also had and are still having some harshness problems when creating hi-hats but it's nothing that can't get fixed .. even if we'll resort to extra dsp.

And Zebra is one of those plugins that differs noticeably in some cases with other sample rates.


Couple of more tips:

For acoustic snare drums try the noise module through a damped dissonant comb module. Use short MSEGs or envs for accent. And an sinewave-ish osc to reenforce the lower freq bump if needed. again.... the secret is in those "impulsive" envelopes. (try to find key parameters)

Dissonant combs can also make some pretty good acoustic cymbals. (they are a bit tricky tho)

Anyway.. a thing to remember is that you can use the reverb, delay and comb modules to create "resonant" bodies.
Mix and match with other modules and experiment... take it easy for starters and always aim to understand what's happening and you'll be an expert in no time!

Expert LVL, Y U NO here yet? :Y-U-NO-GUY:

[Fritze]

I'm certain that Zebra can do more than we initially may think!

For example, gave it a shot emulating the TR-808 a while back but it got sidetracked by other projects, I hope I'll finish it soon as it takes quite a bit to preserve authenticity!

Here's a demo on what I have so far. (no processing, just Zebra and a bit of master limiting). They need some more work (especially the SD) but anyway they are good enough so far.

You may not get exited to hear another 808 emulation of whatever, but the fact that Zebra can do a great job in that department as well as the rest is pretty exciting at least IMO!

http://www.box.com/s/56yjy1t974erg63yhdeu

Sounds f**king great!
I like the snare! Doesn't 100% like a 808 snare but it sounds great nontheless!

Cheers
Dennis

Exactamundo!

[Bronto Scorpio]

I'm just trying to emulate a 808 snare. I usually never recreate sounds so I'm not really good at it but I'm already very close

I've just done the sine part yet though:
The green graph is obviously my emulation

Cheers
Dennis

[Bronto Scorpio]

The noisy part seems to be more difficult though. EQed/filtered noise should nail it in theory but it sounds completely wrong in practice.

Cheers
Dennis

[Bronto Scorpio]

It doesn't sound bad though! Just not like an 808 snare
The noise decay is still completely wrong: 808 Snare Test 01

Edit: Sorry for the tripple post
I should have edited my original post

Cheers
Dennis