I originally started out using drum machines, then I started making all my drum sounds from scratch on whatever synths I had, then eventually migrated to samples, then samples with heavy augmentation...I'm just wondering how other people are going about it these days? I know about backbone for creating drum sounds, are there other apps people are using at all or other angles? I'm about to start a new (large) kit that I play through battery but I'm just debating the best ways to source sounds. I have millions of drum samples but making them from scratch is also fun. I don't know, what are all y'all doing?

 

First thing I ask myself is what kind of music are you (or do I want to be) doing? Hip or Trip Hop, Trap, Rap, Crap, Electronica or Techno, Pop or Rock, Country or Blues, Jazz or Fusion, RnB or Funk, Cinema score or music library..., whatchoodoing?

Say I want something new and unique for my dreamy-electronica neo-soul impressionistic jazz. First order of business is going to be textural: acoustic, synthetic, or a layered approach? Second order of bidness is going to be techno-practical: do I want to layer and tune existing samples to get to where and what I want, or do I want to start banging on shit in the studio (or kitchen) and sample that and then use a transient designer to shape the sounds into what I want, or into what I don't even know I want (yet)?

In some instances, I'll record drum hits to tape first, make best use of tape compression I can (ideal medium for tape compressing drums is two inch sixteen track tape: the wider spacing between the tracks favors the lower frequencies and prevents track spillage), then dump em into a hardware (Roland S-760, EMU-4XT) or these days Logic sampler (Redmatica's AS was a beautiful thing, happy Apple bought and integrated it).

To go deeper into specifics, while I've been a longtime user of Superior Drummer, and BFD long before that, all the studio drummers I know (who've got walls full of platinum, gold and even diamond album plaques) use XLN's Addictive Drums and DS-10 Drum Shaper to craft their sounds in the box. One cat I know (that all of you have heard on countless hits - no pun intended) travels internationally with just a USB key full of his own samples (he's got his own branded sticks too, in case they've got a kit set up for him). He plugs in the SSD in the PT host computer and off he goes.

Another drummer/producer cat I know is strictly analog. And I like to go hybrid, record to tape, get that sound, sample it, then shape it, then layer it. It's not rocket science: it's technology meets taste. Your entire post and questions are about the tools, or methodology, but what you should really focus on is your taste. That's all you've got left in this day and age of ai: your taste. Don't give that up.

 

i will use a drum kit on a track if it is a genre that would have a human drummer. Kontakt or AD2. Otherwise, I'd rather have a sampler or drum machine instance by itself on a midi instrument channel and bouncing each one separately later. Actual kit-making seems like a waste of time if you aren't going to play them in yourself because you are trying to get drums to mesh together into your kit instead of in the context of the track. You just end up disassembling the work you put into making the kit.

 

No chance for that, I need to make music for mental health reasons, it's never going to stop (it would just be much nicer to make more money from it then a few sales here and there!) I don't have any tape anymore...even my last dual cassette finally died, the reel to reel was in even rougher shape. In any case the kind of stuff I'm looking for is unique, futuristic meets like 70s groove or something like that. My music itself is hybrid electronic, some trance influence, a little techno, trip hop, anything psychedelic. Think of someone heavily influenced by early 90s chicago industrial and later 90s techno/house/trance underground records and that might be what I think my music sounds like. It's always the hardest to label your own stuff isn't it? I put a link to my bandcamp in my signature if youre curious...also below that is a great electronic downtempo radio station I've been running over 20 years. Psychedelic downtempo trip hop chill stuff, but always with some element of drama or emotion, no happy stuff.

In any case, I used to sample drum machines, then started making my own sounds, and then just collected a huge hybrid library of drum samples mixed in with my own. Why i was posting was just to get ideas from what other people are doing I just started using Backbone which seems like it might be fairly fruitful and fun to make kits with. I like unique stuff a lot, Like I have a few of the Battery Libraries of kits (2 and 3 I think) and theyre fine but theres only a handful of kits in them I like and I have to heavily augment them. But like you were talking about using a transient designer? How have I been making music for so long and never have I used a transient designer? That will be fun to play with thanks for that. I used to dump this stuff into hardware as well, I've gone through a plethera of sequencers and samplers and sample sequencers like MPCs, but I'm pretty limited by room right now, I can't fit anything more than a midi controller, laptop, and audio interface into my ittle corner here, living situation sucks...

Superior Drummer and BFD, I'll have to give them a run for their money, see whats up. I almost picked up BFD at one point but I was so happy with intakt and battery at the time I decided against it. But al of this is exactly why and what I was asking for, the sound you make comes from your tastes and influences yes, but if you're trying to make sounds in an inferior product they will likely sound inferior (I've still been known to use a casio sk-1 for exactly that reason though.) But yeah, I just wanted to see how other people are succeeding so I can mix things up a bit and maybe even find a better workflow through it all. Thanks!

Oh I'd be super curious to hear your music, if thats possible, you sound like you absolutely know what you're doing so I'd love to hear the content that comes out of that.

 

I'm not entirely understanding what you're saying I don't think...I'm absolutely making kits to play myself into my own songs if that's what you meant? For years I usually as of late have been starting with a kit I kind of like and then swapping some sounds out or mangling them to fit how I prefer instead, but I'm about to start new content that will likely be for a new album so I'm thinking i need to make a kit for it is all.

 

Chopping, shredding, cutting, and reassembling. Running it through an LFO, processing it with high-pass and low-pass filters.

I would use modern new plugin effects like these:

Eventide - Signature Effects --> https://www.eventideaudio.com/plug-ins-signature-effects
U-he - Uhbik --> https://u-he.com/products/uhbik

 

Thanks for the tip, I've always wanted an Eventide Harmonizer or the Orville but out of my price range, I will absolutely check out the signature effects though! I have some U-he synths I guess I didn't realize they did fx too wow, I'm certain theyre great if they stand up to their synths.

I' lways chopping and reassembling, squeezing and squashing...thats the fun part!

 

I mean that I do not care if my drums are a collection of various samples when I am drawing in midi hits. A drummer using an electronic drum kit will definitely care. Instead of relying on muscle memory it turns playing the drums into a scavenger hunt. If you are trying to add a "virtual drummer" to a genre that normally has a live drummer, a cohesive kit is important.

 

Don't want this to sound childish, but, could you drop some names ? Especially if it'll make people go "What ? THAT guy is using Addictive Drums ?? NO WAY ME TOO !!"

 

Ah, yes although I do have a drummer if I need one, I finger in all my percussion live midi style, after owning 20some drum machines I just couldn't stand the xox pattern based drumming anymore! I DO want the kit to gel though still, so far I've made most of it with steinberg backbone...it's a pretty amazingly flexible little (big) drum synth. All the tedious stuff involved in building a drum from scratch it does for you and you can just focus on the meat of it, then detail it...of course it ends up a sample in the end so any live fluidity that I would normally incorporate with lfos and control changes has to come later but that's what I've had to be doing for years anyway. I did find one drum machine that really could carry me through a song without needing software percussion as well and that was the Drumbrute Impakt, bloody great little machine there with randoming options and rolls, it's great live. Forget the daddy Drumbrute, that thing blows, but the impakt is great. I need to pick another up.