making drums sound softer. how to?

lightshy · Post by **lightshy** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:05 pm

many people are trying hard to have their drums sound harderm with more punch. well i need to make them sound soft. especially the hats/.rides is what i'm having trouble with. they sound as if they're hit really hard. i've tried having a really low velocity to the ride hits, even with a longer attack time but it's just as if i've lowered the volume of the same, hard hit cymbal rather than having it sound softer.

i'm also having trouble with getting the groove and feel right. i try stuff like having 3-4 diffrently pitched cymbals and layering them into battery and each responding to a different velocity range to achieve more realism and flow. but it still sounds a little stiff and almost awkward.

have you any tips or tricks?

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:08 pm

If you're talking about sampled cymbals, then you can't make them sound naturally softer unless you use some different samples. Velocity doesn't change anything.

One thing you can do to try to fix it without changing the sample is to use a lowpass filter on the sound. but it probably won't hellp much.

lightshy · Post by **lightshy** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:16 pm

Machinate wrote:One thing you can do to try to fix it without changing the sample is to use a lowpass filter on the sound. but it probably won't hellp much.

could work tho. never thaught of this. thanks

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:20 pm

the problem is that gong and cymbal harmonic propagation is really damn complex. They sound different hatmonic combinations depending on where they are hit, what that tends to mean is you need a load of multisamples of the same cymbal all hit correctly to produce the different harmonics.
the most obvious example of this is bell hit ride versus side-hit ride.

Have you got a copy of the Tom Hicks samples?

http://www.artistcollaboration.com/samples/drums/

there are 7 ride hits in there that you could combine to make a decent ride player, for example. Also notice that a true Hi-hat multi sample has 8 samples - and that's without any real velocity versions!

very useful real kit set for anyone that hasn't got it.

linzatti · Post by **linzatti** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:34 pm

Raise the attack och the sample. Add a little reverb ans some delay, not much just enough to make it "soft".

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:40 pm

Angstrom wrote:the problem is that gong and cymbal harmonic propagation is really damn complex. They sound different hatmonic combinations depending on where they are hit

...and the harmonic content changes quite a bit with a change in velocity as well. A soft hit produces a light ringing series of overtones, whereas a hard hit to a crash cymbal produces high-frequency noise (with some other weird modulation going on as the cymbals wobbles from the abusive drumming)

djsynchro · Post by **djsynchro** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:03 am

Move the start position further into the sample that will make any percussion instrument sound "softer".

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 1:07 am

combinations of all of the above i'd say...

* move the start position
* adjust the attack envelope
* Lowpass maybe, but scoop some high's would give more natural feel
* add a tiny bit of verb (sometimes distance is perceieved as dynamics)
* small amounts of downpitching

clipperer · Post by **clipperer** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 1:08 am

how about eq?

ishimaru · Post by **ishimaru** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 1:35 am

With all this trouble for perfecting samples you might as well get someone with a drum kit and record them playing for like 10 mins and sample those drums lol.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 1:56 am

clipperer wrote:how about eq?

when i mentioned scooping some highs, i was thinking of using a notch eq.

serotoninsteve · Post by **serotoninsteve** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 3:00 am

You can try the dominion plugin. It´s a sort of transient and saturation tool, you can adjust the attack too a negative value, so you can substract a bit the punch.
Just an idea, never really tried to do something like that.
Here is the link
http://www.digitafishphones.com

Need some sleep now!

Greetings

lightshy · Post by **lightshy** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:33 am

thanks, really usefull tips. you rule.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:32 pm

ishimaru wrote:With all this trouble for perfecting samples you might as well get someone with a drum kit and record them playing for like 10 mins and sample those drums lol.

Yep. Better yet, record complete phrases. This incorporates the complex interaction between subsequent hits, especially on a ride cymbal. All you really need is one cymbal, cymbal stand, a mic (condenser preferably), your interface and laptop, and a drummer. You don't really need any fancy acoustic space if you close-mic the cymbal and throw some blankets or quilts around.

If the drummer's any good, you'll learn a lot about how drums work, too, which will help with your sequencing. Especially useful in jazz drumming!

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 3:03 pm

There's an excellent transient designer plugin at this site, it's on the vst page and called Envelope-Designer.

http://www.braindoc.de/

All of Braindoc's plugins are worthy of download, some of them really are quite brilliant, the envelope designer particularly.