Percussion, tribal vibes. How do i get it to live?

[Epoxtacy]

Yo, i just love to make tracks with percussive vibes but it sounds kinda dead to me.
I would like to know what you guys think its the way to work around that element?

[Brothulhu]

Play with velocity or use multisamples of the percussion being played in different ways to make it more varied, dont have it quantised to make it less robotic, play with panning to give it space and use some delay and reverb

[fragments]

short answer is multisamples/velocity/delay...subtle delays can work wonders for quick ghost notes that will fill out a tribal riddim. I like a dark sounding analog-ish delay. If the delays are too bright it sounds like you are using a delay, know what I mean? Play around with unsual sync settings, different delay settings on several drum sounds or even try just an unsynched tape echos all with different settings... or something. Also using a bit of pitch automation can add a lot of life to not only hand drums, but high hats as well.

Personally, I also like to use subtle, stacked tape emulations for just a tad of saturation and to get that tape drift, wobble and flange.

Also, I find all kinds of these kinds of samples on like....Ravi Shankar albums and shit. You can chop/rearrange things you sample as well.

[SunkLo]

Don't play on the grid.

[Epoxtacy]

short answer is multisamples/velocity/delay...subtle delays can work wonders for quick ghost notes that will fill out a tribal riddim. I like a dark sounding analog-ish delay. If the delays are too bright it sounds like you are using a delay, know what I mean? Play around with unsual sync settings on your delay or even try just an unsynched tape echo or something. Also using a bit of pitch automation can add a lot of life to not only hand drums, but high hats as well.

Personally, I also like to use subtle, stacked tape emulations for just a tad of saturation and to get that tape drift, wobble and flange.

Also, I find all kinds of these kinds of samples on like....Ravi Shankar albums and shit. You can chop/rearrange things you sample as well.

great ideas man, will try some things tomorrow, dont really understand the part about tape emulation etc, i guess im kindoff a noob
i tried delays but it didn't sound right in the mix at the time, will look more into that.

what kinda instruments do you prefer to use?

[Epoxtacy]

Play with velocity or use multisamples of the percussion being played in different ways to make it more varied, dont have it quantised to make it less robotic, play with panning to give it space and use some delay and reverb

Aiight will try that for sure man.

[Icetickle]

Play with velocity or use multisamples of the percussion being played in different ways to make it more varied, dont have it quantised to make it less robotic, play with panning to give it space and use some delay and reverb

I just love panning shit whole day.. btw. SICK AVATAR

[ThisIsSovereign]

Play with velocity or use multisamples of the percussion being played in different ways to make it more varied, dont have it quantised to make it less robotic, play with panning to give it space and use some delay and reverb

I just love panning shit whole day.. btw. SICK AVATAR

Yeah that avatar has the potential to cause nightmares and bad trips.

[test_recordings]

If you like a rhythm but don't like a sound, use the rhythm through a gated trigger on samples

[Brothulhu]

If you like a rhythm but don't like a sound, use the rhythm through a gated trigger

Could you elaborate on this, sounds interesting but I don't know ow to try it

[outbound]

- Sample live percussion (plenty of live taiko, bongo etc albums out there)
- Process heavily (huge compression, filtering etc)
- Layer (ya know how people layer multiple snares to get a huge sound? same deal here)
- Be smart with reverb, have some hits have only a little reverb, have some hits have huge tails of it. Helps give a sense of space.
- Look to more sample packs than just vengeance (Too many to name but go explore!)
- I don't use midi for it but same rules apply in audio, change volume, place off beat, change fades to shorten tail, reverse, chop etc
- Listen to percussion only tracks, listen to the phrasing, use of call and response, dynamics etc good influence.
- Automate, automate, automate!!! fx, volume, whatever keep it interesting.
- Experiment with resampling your sounds for heavy stuff.

That should get you started

[test_recordings]

If you like a rhythm but don't like a sound, use the rhythm through a gated trigger

Could you elaborate on this, sounds interesting but I don't know ow to try it

I'm not 100% sure how to do it digitally but put a noise gate on the track you want to put the new sample/sounds on etc then set the trigger to the track you want to use the rhythm from.

There must also be some way to 'beat map' a clip to midi notes then you could lay samples across it?

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

You need to play off the grid and layer bongos on to of each other slightly staggered off from each other every now and then to get the sound of two hands hitting a drum for example. There tends to be a few distinct layers that can work on their own and also work all together (eg. hand drums, shakers, tamborine), that's what makes it difficult to make tribal percussion sometimes.

[Brothulhu]

Ah so get a percussion track you like the rhythm off but not the sounds and have it trigger sounds you do like?

[Epoxtacy]

- Sample live percussion (plenty of live taiko, bongo etc albums out there)
- Process heavily (huge compression, filtering etc)
- Layer (ya know how people layer multiple snares to get a huge sound? same deal here)
- Be smart with reverb, have some hits have only a little reverb, have some hits have huge tails of it. Helps give a sense of space.
- Look to more sample packs than just vengeance (Too many to name but go explore!)
- I don't use midi for it but same rules apply in audio, change volume, place off beat, change fades to shorten tail, reverse, chop etc
- Listen to percussion only tracks, listen to the phrasing, use of call and response, dynamics etc good influence.
- Automate, automate, automate!!! fx, volume, whatever keep it interesting.
- Experiment with resampling your sounds for heavy stuff.

That should get you started

Thanks man, i'm glad i'm getting so much response to this thread, this should really get me going!

I'm having a shit ton of samples of drums and percs and not only the cheesy loopmasters/vengeance crap.. still nothing seems to have that natural sound to it.. will definatly try and tear some percussive music cd apart for samples man.

The part of resampling, whatsup with that?
I read a lot about it and the point is just having a sample, put effects on it and export it to a sample?
what's the effect of resampling stuff?

So when i play my percussives should i never play on the grid, or just slightly away from the grid?

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

just slightly off usually, too far and youll be nearly playing triplets, although this often sounds good. there are no rules just move things around til it sounds good. If you move things forward off the grid it makes a lazy rhythm, if you move it backwards of the grid it makes a more frantic sound.

[Epoxtacy]

just slightly off usually, too far and youll be nearly playing triplets, although this often sounds good. there are no rules just move things around til it sounds good. If you move things forward off the grid it makes a lazy rhythm, if you move it backwards of the grid it makes a more frantic sound.

Awesome man, i tried to do that but the result was just a mess at the time, i seem to be super autist when it comes to music, need to have everything structured or it will fuck up my workflow. definatly need a way to get over this.

[test_recordings]

Ah so get a percussion track you like the rhythm off but not the sounds and have it trigger sounds you do like?

Exactly

[Epoxtacy]

Ah so get a percussion track you like the rhythm off but not the sounds and have it trigger sounds you do like?

Exactly

and how do you do that? that sounds fucking interesting though

[Epoxtacy]

Thanks for the advise guys, tried some stuff and it really helps alot!
Got some stuff down and gonna try to make it into a tune in the next few days.