Good Disco Toms?

DarkMatter · Post by **DarkMatter** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 6:48 pm

Havent stumbed across any good disco tom sounds. You know, the high pitched "booooooouuuuu" "bouuuuu" kinda deal. Anyone know any good sample sets, drum kits, or techniques to get this sound?

cavern · Post by **cavern** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:12 pm

see: laser toms

DarkMatter · Post by **DarkMatter** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:44 pm

Thanks. im trying but Im not sure what you mean.... Is that a thread or a music library?

DarkMatter · Post by **DarkMatter** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:01 pm

Bump. Can anyone shed some light on the mysterious nature of "laser toms"?

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:05 pm

I think a lot of these sounds were from analog drum synths and electronic pads which were kind of a fad back in the day for drummers to attach to their kit. You could tweak them but the sounds were relatively limited to modulated sine waves and so on. Try to find samples of Simmons electronic toms and similar for the most authentic "dated" sound. I'd take a guess that some producers even used kids toys...

While it won't have the exact same grungy character as that old dinosaur gear, you can also synthesize these type of sounds and get at least 90% there. Operator or Microtonic would be good software choices to get these type of sounds quickly. Start with a sine waves and modulate the pitch so it drops after you hit the note. With operator, adding a bit of FM will give you some ways to add a little metallic sound to it and make it more unique.

Then try adding a touch of saturator or an analog modelling filter plugin, so that it doesn't sound too clean modern and perfect.

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:27 pm

DISCO TOM DOESN'T ADVERTISE

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:00 pm

BTW - 'pitch envleope' is your friend

DarkMatter · Post by **DarkMatter** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:50 pm

Thanks guys ill give it a shot with operator and try to find some samples too

DarkMatter · Post by **DarkMatter** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:23 pm

Worked Like a Charm. How do I add FM to Operator though?

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:45 pm

I hope I'm explaining this correctly without the exact terminology.

Each voice is an FM modulator of the base pitch. So just turn up each voice one at a time, as few or many as you like (probably one or two for simple is better). Pitch them up above the base pitch, and make sure they're in sync mode. Make a different custom envelope for each voice to make the sound more complex and blend to taste. You can do an envelope with a short decay and low sustain, so that you get a short burst of that voice at the beginning of the hit, for example.

It's going to get more metallic sounding, the more you add. Subtle is key for blending the FM modulated voices to the attack so that you still have a full round bottom to the end of the note as the pitch envelope goes down. The closer to the end of the note, you want it to be almost only all sine wave. Also experiment, activating Operator's filter with a high resonance.

forge · Post by **forge** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:39 am

icedsushi wrote:I hope I'm explaining this correctly without the exact terminology.

Each voice is an FM modulator of the base pitch. So just turn up each voice one at a time, as few or many as you like (probably one or two for simple is better). Pitch them up above the base pitch, and make sure they're in sync mode. Make a different custom envelope for each voice to make the sound more complex and blend to taste. You can do an envelope with a short decay and low sustain, so that you get a short burst of that voice at the beginning of the hit, for example.

It's going to get more metallic sounding, the more you add. Subtle is key for blending the FM modulated voices to the attack so that you still have a full round bottom to the end of the note as the pitch envelope goes down. The closer to the end of the note, you want it to be almost only all sine wave. Also experiment, activating Operator's filter with a high resonance.

also - the way the FM works depends on how the routing is set (the squares connected that you can select in the middle)