Hi guys. As the title says I really want to start making my own drum sounds. I don't know much about synthesis. I used to make sample based hip hop beats and I was taking my drum sounds from breakbeats and ready drumkits. Then I start creating my own melodies. Let's just say I jumped into trap genre. Listening to drums I was wondering where they come from. I guess someone created them with a piece of gear. I watched some tutorials on creating for example 808 drums but that was not what I was not going for. Just have in mind the snare you hear in every damn trap song to make it easy for you to have an idea. How can I make these types of drums? A modular synth? I would really like to know, thank you.

PS - I'm talking about snare drums. 808s are pretty easy to make.

 

Well there are drum synths... if you want to make kicks and snares, check out Sonic Academy Kick 2

If you're interested in something that's basically just for kicks, D16 Punchbox is really nice.

The idea behind drum synthesis, is that it's basically just a very fast drop in pitch and amplitude that makes the percussive sound. You usually want the body of a snare to start up around 5,000-10,000 Hz and end up around 200 Hz. You can draw that pitch envelope however you want it in Kick 2. The slope makes a difference in the way it sounds.

After you make the inital THUNK sound, it's pretty much just about layering some things on top of it to give it some flavor. Lots of people use white noise for snares. Sometimes I like to layer in an acoustic snare for some of that ringy, raspy sound you don't easily get with synthesis.

You'll probably also want a very short high frequency click at the very beginning of the sound. Just for that initial snappy transient

 

drum synthesis is a dead end nowadays, any possible synth drum has already been made.

what you can do is assemble a few synth drum kits and make your own FX chains, the result could sound good enough to make some commercial drum/sample pack.

 

the microtonic is a nice drumsynth, though i think its more suited for electronic music and the variety of snare sounds u can create is probably too limited for you anyways. Im not too familiar with trap music but as i understand its like commercial music originated from hiphop. I would say that drum synthesis is not what ur after here and that youll be better off with sampling/layering etc.
I agree with mixdowner that when it comes to drum synthesis most sounds have probably already been made, though this is especially the case with analogue or virtual analogue synthesis. But ive seen quite a few plugins or apps that do not use conventional synthesis methods or combine virtual analogue synthesis with non conventional options which might be able to create "new" sounds.
For example imagine lines harmor but i would assume there are some reaktor ensembles for this as well. Still for the music genre u want to create sounds id say sampling is the way to go...

 

D16 Drumazon and Nepheton are also nice machines. And the Roland Cloud machines. They may not be what is really meant by "drum synthesis" like Sugar Bytes Drum Computer, or Moog DFAM for dawless/modular; but most of the time you do not need to do that. With a good sample library and sample manager like Sononym or XO, you could literally never run out of drum sounds. For more prominent hits like kick, snare, you can stick with some machine drums; and then for more detailed stuff like hats, toms, other percussion you can easily change around your kit with a good drummer plugin or two, like Superior Drummer, EzDrummer, Addictive Drums, etc. With Kick2, Falcon, Kontakt, Battery, there are endless possibilities.

 

I make drum sounds just for kicks, I'm only a hobbyist. (English as a second language students might scratch their heads, but that sound might though be sampled as a layer in your sound design to create the quasi-brush tone of a snare ).

 

Just pick any decent synth (its factory presets), find patches you like and look how they was made.

I think, general purpose synths could be better than specialized ones for learning.

 

The wrong question is being asked here. When you you can answer the question “how many ways are there to skin a potato” you would be more n the right path

 

Making your own drums from scratch is not a bad thing to know, but it's also most useful if you are making a youtube video to show other people how to make drums in Serum. (as example). Why do you suggest this as "more" useful?

 

Half you guys talking about kicks when he specifically says no kick just snare.......... Anyway
Whatever you do, never use a "drum VST", none of them sound good EVEN IN THEIR DEMO VIDEO, do they.
Learn your DAW stock synths and fx devices, it will benefit your future sound design needs in the process -- so do yourself this favor, just an insanely obvious no-brainer really.
Search for "drum sound design vst" or insert whatever synth you're planning to use, watch as many videos as you can. Be warned there are many not-so-great videos but if you can take away 1 trick from it you're still learning something.
Best of luck

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2024

say no more...

 

and very general advice on any modern sounding drums is to use layering and transient shaping, adding white noise or pink noise helps tremendously as well

 

Just get Slap by Yum Audio and turn anything into any kind of kick or snare sound you want.

 

Ikutaro Kakehashi - Founder of Roland, inventor of the TR-808.


Tadao Kikumoto - Inventor of the TR-909.


Roger Linn - Founder of Linn Electronics, inventor of the L-M1, LinnDrum, Linn 9000, MPC60, MPC3000.


The trap drums you are referring to comes from AKAI MPC's drum machines wich are samplers, not synthetizers.
You could probably sound like a Chop snare with sound design but it's not the move really.

These drums sound and patterns where pioneered in Memphis during the 90's by producers like DJ Paul and Juicy J who formed 3-6 Mafia or DJ Toomp, Mannie Fresh and KLC.
The sounds then evolved in Atlanta with producers like Shawty Redd, Zaytoven, Drumma Boy for rappers like Gucci Mane, Jeezy or Chief Keef.
It was then taken to another level by Lex Luger from Virginia that started to use a cracked version of FL Studio and Southside who created 808 mafia and produced for artist like Waka Flocka Flame, Rick Ross, etc...

So basically trap is from the south and evolved for 3 decades with different producers, it somehow dominated the 2010's thanks to producers like Metro Boomin' or Murda Beatz for The Migos, Young Thug, Future, Cardi B, etc...

Trap merged with pop in the 2010's and is dead since 2019-2020, that whole trap samples packs/drum kits era was absolutely embarrassing the whole time, everyone was a "beatmaker" "cookin" on Fruity Loops using Nexus, Omnisphere and Gross Beat.

A.I. is going to kill this sound forever since it's made so easily and sounds the same for 10 years.

You could learn about the basic of drum synthesis on Sonic Academy Kick 2 and Sonic Charge Microtonic like other said, once you grasp it moving to Serum wich can do both better and go way beyond would be a good idea.

You could make the sound of a sword hitting a shield an shape it like a drum using FM synthesis, a short reverb and Chorus automation.
It's probably more forward thinking than making a 808 snare with pitch automation noise and a sine.
Granular, Additive, Karplus, Physical modelling can open so many new doors for fresh drum sounds.

Hardware-wise Elektron is were it's at for a while now I think.

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2024

the key is to make your drums break harder - what up peeps????????????

 

when i ueses the googles this is all wahts I gets on da youtu=bes