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How to create drum sounds with a drum synth.

No, this is not an impart... ation? ...ment? ...ing! of my knowledge, that's over there under that full stop. It's a thread where you tell us how to do this thing.

I have looked, belieeeeve me, I have looked. Yewt yewb has the titles, like Drum Synthesis Basics! which is a Serum tutorial that doesn't tell me anything about how to. There's the Thomann Sub37 drum sounds tutorial, that's , well, yes. And so on.

Now, I haven't searched all of't Toob and there is a great series for the drum synth before mine but again, it's not really about the theory, it's more of a knob twiddle. I do want knob twiddling but some background knowledge with it, would be ace. I imagine that there must be decent drum synth tuts out there, so please can you post them on this thread? Or upload all of your knowledge?

Comments

  • edited September 2021

    Can't point you on a specific tutorial, but to me the best source of knowledge was reverse engineering synthetic drum sounds I liked. Then you need to be careful about synthetic but pre-set drum machines like e.g. Rusimaker, which are synthetic in the background, but you have only very few controls over the sound itself, so how the sound was actually made is hidden from you.
    For that purpose, all-purpose synths that are used for any kind of sounds are much better since you can trace it to the source (usually an oscillator or noise).
    Also, I really liked reverse-engineering SeekBeats sounds - they sound very good, yet there is nothing magical, just a basic oscillators, filters and envelopes. Strong point is, you can manually draw the envelopes with as many points as you want and see overlapping pitch, volume and filter envelopes. BTW envelopes of these three parameters are to me the key to drum synthesis.
    Also I liked Rusimaker Noir with its sequencer for more insight on how velocity and pitch can give it sort of a human groove.
    And for a very quick overview on how to synthesize basic drum sounds:

    Kick: sine wave and pitch envelope are the key, customizable slope on pitch envelope gives it various flavors
    Hi hats: usually noise with a HP filter envelope, short decay for closed, long with some release for open hat
    Snare: noise with a LP filter envelope, but layer an e.g. sine wave with pitch and same filter envelope gives it a bit more punch
    Toms: sine wave with pitch envelope, similar to kick but higher in pitch and a bit different envelope

    Of course, subtle variations to these sounds gives you more kinds of drums: e.g. making a more "sub bass" kick or a short "clicky" kick, or you can adjust open hi-hat with to have very long release to get a "crash" sound.

    So there's no magic, it's actually the very basics of sound synthesis. The devil is in details very subtle change to values can do miracles. Also don't forget to use some effects, again the basics make a huge difference: EQ, compression, reverb, delay... Especially when used on group of sounds.

    And it works like with everything: the more you play around with it, the better the results. Enjoy! :smile:

  • Oh and one extra point is FM synthesis, it's a bit similar but FM gives it a specific "ringing" sound. Actually Rusimaker FM is not bad for getting to know, since it's not so "blackboxed" as the original Rusimaker and you can actually see what oscillators are used for modulation. There is definitely some predefined constants in R FM, but if you simulate the same settings in other synth, you'll get very similar results.

  • You can find some info about drum synthesis in the waldorf attack manual (from page 58 on).

    https://waldorfmusic.com/en/archiv/pulse-series/downloads/documentation/716-manualv20eng.html

  • Just found this tutorial for Synth One drum presets yesterday:

  • I point people back here time and time again. Gordon Reid’s Synth Secrets series for Sound on Sound magazine really is the masterclass. You should read the whole series (rinse and repeat) as there’s so much knowledge being shared. There’s specific entries for kick and snare drums, and a catch-all percussion category but there are various percussion synthesis techniques discussed througout the series.

    https://www.soundonsound.com/synthesizers/synth-secrets

  • Here is a quick lesson in Primer, the free Syntorial synth:

  • edited September 2021

    Poison-202 Drum presets from Jacob.
    Poison-202 doesn’t support Cancel setting for hats (check out NS)

  • edited September 2021

    FAC Drumkit is perfect for learning what it’s all about. It is divided into an amp envelope section and a pitch envelope section. That is the crux of synth drums. The oscillators are labelled by what instrument they are best used for, and there are labelled preset envelope curves to give you an idea of how to shape the amp and pitch envelopes for each separate drum instrument. I would recommend it as the only source you’ll need to fiddle with for a bit to grasp how these short envelopes and oscillators/noise work.

    Seekbeats isn’t quite as good as a learning tool, and it isn’t AU, but it’s still the best sounding and easiest to shape once you know what you’re doing. Just set aside time and experiment…it’ll all start to make sense is my best advice.

  • @MobileMusic said:
    Poison-202 Drum presets from Jacob.
    Poison-202 doesn’t support Cancel setting for hats (check out NS)

    Good work-around for that is the 'Solo'(ie. Mono) mode under Patch tab.

  • @jonmoore said:
    I point people back here time and time again. Gordon Reid’s Synth Secrets series for Sound on Sound magazine really is the masterclass. You should read the whole series (rinse and repeat) as there’s so much knowledge being shared. There’s specific entries for kick and snare drums, and a catch-all percussion category but there are various percussion synthesis techniques discussed througout the series.

    https://www.soundonsound.com/synthesizers/synth-secrets

    This is one of the best.

  • I was just exploring Ableton's Learning Synths pages, and here is the page that handles kick drums. Quite informative and well done with actual parameters to change the synth engine on the page. The whole series is a good start for anyone interested to learn about synths. Very hands on approach, I'm impressed!

    https://learningsynths.ableton.com/en/recipes/kick-drums

  • I approached this very same question earlier this year.
    This was the result.

    All of the sounds are from one synth design.
    Primarily it was only going to be for drum sounds
    and then it evolved into other synth sounds.
    I've still got quite a bit shaping to do.
    Before I get there I'm going to have some
    fun with the Cloud in MiRack.

  • edited September 2021

    I found this thread very helpful for hi hat synthesis https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=120280 .

    808 hi hat summary:

    • 6 detuned square waves
    • 2 bandpass filters
    • 1 highpass filter

    Variations on this can be used to build cymbals and other metallic things.

    Building my own percussion instruments is definitely my favorite thing in Drambo btw :)

  • Awesome information. 🙏 everyone.

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