Shaker Advice....

[matthews]

One of the things I struggle with is making a really soft and rolling shaker line.

Anyone have any suggestions? What works best for me is a combination of triplets, simple delays, and layering.....with a touch of reverb from time to time. Also maybe some slight compression.

Anyone have some tips and tricks?

[H20nly]

delays are the only thing that i've found that can make the shakers sound as if they have any swing to them. so layers and delays... or the real thing.

[matthews]

It's all about velocity contrasts and slight time offsets.

Wow, awesome response. I've always made it a point to play around with the velocities a bit, but never gave it too much thought. Although seeing it now in a formula, I really get how it could make the groove. Cheers for that!

[H20nly]

^ yeah +1

i completely spaced velocity, but for sure... it's key.

another good tip that he threw in up there was the auto pan. i use a pong delay and that makes them sound so different in terms of fullness and where your mind/head space is at.

[matthews]

I was just going to ask about panning options....

ie: Pan each shaker individually vs Auto panning the whole channel......

[anybody human]

I always have to use very careful Velocity changes, w/ Velocity at 70% in the Simpler/Sampler for fine control. Also, overide the grid (Command drag) or turn it off (Command 4) and carefully place the notes to get the right timing. It always helps to try thinking like a drummer: would a drummer tend to play this note ahead or behind the beat? Then when I have a couple different notes that sound right timing wise, I copy them around so the whole part has groove.

EQ, Reverb & delay etc.

[matthews]

hahahaha....

H @ 90
M @ 60
S @ 30
E @ 20
R @ 10

....is working quite nicely over here, but I'm sure it's sample dependent.

[H20nly]

you would think, but i guess the answer comes in the form of more logic. 0 is the lowest velocity label.... if you are going to have the volume on the hit set to zero, might as well remove it. maybe they assume that if you want it gone, you'll do just that.

[marra]

I've had a go using velocity contrasts and delays like scutheotaku explained - however it does not yet sound like the real thing:

https://soundcloud.com/test_acc/shakers-demo

Liveset: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ngu58pa0tno40 ... t.rar?dl=0

The ideal would be something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L02REVZWa28

[marra]

*2016 bump*

[beats me]

2016 response. Just use an audio loop. There are tons out there with plenty of variations. Nobody is going to know or care if you painstakingly programmed each note.

Thank me later. Or now.

[marra]

Thank you, and I understand your personal feelings towards going all the way However I have no choice for this project. She told me strictly NO LOOPS and if I don't do as she says I'll regret it. She can give a mean stare

Besides, I'll have little control over a stock loop, as opposed to doing it from scratch where I can change the sound from the core and make endless variations of it.

[beats me]

Well in that case I suggest doing your best and then for giggles show her a tasty pro loop on top of it, and she’ll either agree loops are probably better or think you suck for not being a shaker virtuoso.

Maschine has a very cool real sounding shaker function with "shaking" parameters in their drum designer (or whatever it’s called) but I don’t know if you have Maschine or if its available outside Maschine.

[marra]

Will do Hopefully some of the guys in this thread will check out my liveset and show me what's missing..

Interesting Maschine feature, but no I don't have that. Live only

Cheers!!

[beats me]

Went on Splice Sound. $7.99 a month to download 100 samples per month from their massive database. Typed in "shaker" and 5,706 matching samples came up. Then hit the loop tag and it whittled it down to 3,033 matching samples. There's also a pack called Triple Shaker Sensation which has 397 shaker loops.

Probably nothing in there you would want to use, but just sayin'.