Percussion Techniques

[RmoniK]

Limit yourself to simple sounds. 808s and 909s are great. Try using gaters and sidechaining. Spend a lot of time on the patterns, people usually overlook this, they just program a random thing but actually thinking about how it's gonna sound can make sooo much difference. I've recently started doing this, people are complimenting me on my percussion. A percussion track doesn't need to be "original" to be good. It needs to shape the feel of the song. Which brings me to the last and probably most important point: grooves and swing. Use em.

[antipode]

Limit yourself to simple sounds. 808s and 909s are great. Try using gaters and sidechaining. Spend a lot of time on the patterns, people usually overlook this, they just program a random thing but actually thinking about how it's gonna sound can make sooo much difference. I've recently started doing this, people are complimenting me on my percussion. A percussion track doesn't need to be "original" to be good. It needs to shape the feel of the song. Which brings me to the last and probably most important point: grooves and swing. Use em.

post ur 808 perc loops m8

[twilitez]

If you are drowning in hihats and random perc channels, like it often happens to me. Resample them into frequency coherent loops and process them through proper channels. It can sound impressive and 'pro' to have all your drum hits given a special treatment, but in practice it often ends up more annoying than anything else.

tldr; group drums, make loops.

[Peak0ck]

so suppose that i want to go out and bang on stuff.. any suggestions for good/pricerangeable(notawordnotgivingafuck.jpg) stereo digital recorders? something that you can walk around with in your pocket in case the opportunity arises

[travis_baker]

simply put a gate on a group of hats, play with the attack and release

[Hircine]

simply put a gate on a group of hats, play with the attack and release

sidechain to the kick works nicely too

[travis_baker]

a quiet detuned shaker slightly before a hat on 1.2.3

[magnetron_sputtering]

Put random shit through slice to midi (if you're using ableton). Play around with the parameters and you can end up with pretty interesting results. Great for completely mangling breaks or loops.

[hudson]

so suppose that i want to go out and bang on stuff.. any suggestions for good/pricerangeable(notawordnotgivingafuck.jpg) stereo digital recorders? something that you can walk around with in your pocket in case the opportunity arises

I get really nice results with just the mic on my ipod touch. Granted, I'm not really going for a studio quality recording, but I've used sounds I've recorded on it for hats, shakers, snare, ambience, etc. and I'm never dissatisfied with it.