Best route for getting into drum design

[lilmartianonthebeat]

I've gone through most of Syntorial and some other synthesis tutorials, but I'd love some direction for how to take the next step with drum design.


I prefer to make sounds from scratch - so recently I created some drum sounds using the Modular Engine of Arturia's Spark and wired them module by module. I kept it simple, mostly based on this article (https://www.emusician.com/how-to/master ... rum-design), also some ideas from Welch's book and some other resources.


What would be a direction to go in for the next step up?

[Kwurqx]

Maybe explore this (excellent) free Drum synthesizer. Its (sub)architecture(s) can be emulated in (almost) any modular environment.

e-phonic - Drumatic 3 (last free version, 32-bit only)
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/drumatic-3-by-e-phonic

[lilmartianonthebeat]

Thanks man! That's a really cool vst, definitely seems like exploring there would enhance my understanding. I like that it's all subtractive too, I haven't strayed much beyond subtractive at this point.

It reminds me of being a kid and taking my toys apart to see how they work/if I can put them back together again. There's a lot of useful knowledge to be gained from that kind of experience.

[GRUMP]

Don´t dig too deep, Drum Design is treacherous. You can spend years on it - my opinion after years ...

But anyway - Zebra2 delivers excellent Drums/Percussions. The Comb-Filter is awesome and the rest of it anyway.
And never underestimate the power of the Sampler

btw: Pudie rules! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1j1_aeK6WA

[Liney]

I agree with GRUMP in the sense that I have spent a lot of time trying to get 'the perfect kick drum sound', but then I find that what sounds good in isolation may sound very different in the context of a track. And vice versa, a kick that sounds dull playing on the beat on its own may be perfectly adequate in the context of the track you want to use it for.

I don't consider the time I spent wasted, because I learned a lot about how to use a compressor, an EQ, etc...but ultimately I needed to say 'enough' and get on with making actual music.

Thanks for the initial link about recreating 808 & 909 sounds though, I am still fascinated by that stuff. I have found, though, that (as I think the article says) the same settings can sound different on different synths, even in the digital world. I use Absynth 5 for drum design (I think any synth where you can bend the envelope curves will do), and I spent some time recreating Kick 2 envelopes in Absynth 5, by copying across the settings of the amp and pitch envelope break points (as a learning tool). Often the results would be very different. Some of this would be due to a sine wave in Kick 2 not actually being a sine wave, but some of it just seemed to be down to different envelope responses.