| One of the most overlooked and powerful tools | | | | limited percussive functionality in a |
| for creating percussion sounds in this modern | | | | real-time sense because the ramp-up time for |
| age of soft samplers, emulators, and other | | | | the envelope is a bit too long for |
| sophisticated tools is the humble subtractive | | | | sequencing- if this is the synth you are |
| analog synthesizer. Learning how to generate | | | | using, try a different one if available or |
| exciting drum sounds also takes a lot of the | | | | edit the sound in a computer to correct the |
| mystery out of creating other percussive | | | | timing after recording), decay at one third |
| sounds, such as basses and plucked-string | | | | to one half, zero sustain, and little or no |
| type sounds, as well as providing an exciting | | | | release. Play with the decay time to taste |
| way to personalize your music. | | | | especially. You should now be able to play a |
| | | | bass drum pattern from your keyboard and |
| First, let's make a basic kick drum type | | | | record or sequence it for later performance. |
| sound. Most any analog or virtual/soft analog | | | | |
| synth with one or more of the following will | | | | Now to augment the bass drum sound. Here are |
| suffice: An oscillator,preferably with a sine | | | | some suggestions: |
| wave generator, a resonant filter, a white | | | | |
| noise generator, and an envelope (that | | | | Use a bit of white noise blended with the |
| preferably can be routed to the filter as | | | | oscillator to give the sound a bit more |
| well as the amplifier). With these simple | | | | excitement, and if the volume of the white |
| parameters a wide range of percussion can be | | | | noise can be controlled separately, apply a |
| achieved. | | | | different envelope with a very short decay |
| | | | time to help keep things snappy. |
| The bass drum sound can now be divided into | | | | |
| at least two components: The harmonic content | | | | If you can modulate oscillator pitch with an |
| and the envelope. To begin, program an | | | | envelope, try a slight amount of downward |
| oscillator to generate a sine or triangle | | | | decay. This models an acoustic drum's |
| wave, so that when you play a key, a muted, | | | | property of, when excited (by a hand, beater, |
| boring sound comes out of the synth. A sine | | | | or stick), initially tightening against the |
| wave is best for bass drums, but a triangle | | | | drum head and loosening, which translates to |
| can be used to great effect and alternate | | | | a slightly higher pitch at the initial |
| waveforms can also provide different takes on | | | | transient, followed by a lower sweep to the |
| the more classic sounds made by vintage drum | | | | fundamental frequency. Again, moderation is |
| machines of yesteryear. If a sine wave is not | | | | key for this type of sound. |
| available (as is true on many analog synths), | | | | |
| try a triangle wave, but pull the filter | | | | Effects can be very useful for percussion, |
| cutoff frequency down a fair amount, to about | | | | but as far as bass drums go, there seems to |
| half its range. This should pull out some of | | | | be a bit of consensus on most-handy sonic |
| the overtones, providing a strong | | | | treatments. Distortion, compression, and |
| fundamental. | | | | slight equalization (EQ) can be quite |
| | | | beneficial for making a kick drum have more |
| Really, the only other portion of this basic | | | | personality and sit more easily in a mix. |
| sound is the envelope, which should have the | | | | Also adjust the pre-effect sound to see if an |
| following parameters (which of course can and | | | | effect is actually necessary. Often by |
| should be tweaked to your individual taste): | | | | tweaking other parameters in the synth patch, |
| Immediate attack (this is where some synths | | | | effects become less necessary (and can be |
| can show their true colors, as some older | | | | covering up for sloppy programming). |
| analogs like the Roland JX-3P or JX-10 have | | | | |