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5 tips for drum synthesis

Ever wanted to make your own kicks, snares and noises to make your percussion more personal?   It's a difficult road to tread, with cheesy beats tripping your confidence along the road to self sufficient sound production.

But never fear!   Here are 5 top tips to remember when synthesising your own drums!

1. Pitch drops

By having a really fast pitch drop from a high to a low note, you can get anything from a tom to a dancey kick to a dirty low sub bass drum.   Just alter the speed of the drop (One-shot LFOs or preferably envelopes are really good for this) and you can modulate the sound to your heart's content!

2. Snare Secrets

Want to get that punchy undertone to a snare but the noise generator isn't quite cutting it?   Let's think logically - an undertone is just that.   We need more than noise to make the punch, so filter a low sine wave underneath (make the frequency of the sine around the 200hz mark - if it's in key with the song then so much the better!) and listen as it punches like Mike Tyson in an annoying person convention (I'd advise never going to one of those).

3. Parallel distortion

That essential beef is only added when you route the sounds through distortion, then mix the newly distorted version with the original clean one.   That way, you maintain the clarity and introduce some gritty awesomeness to the tone!

Tube distortion works particularly well - if you have a guitar amp (or a guitar amp sim) try running your samples through it for some insta-grit to your beats!

4. Don't be afraid to layer

Samples are there for a reason!   Maybe by layering your home-grown sound with a sample, you can get something closer to what you want!   Try high-pass filtering a one shot sample from XXL Hip Hop Drums and putting a simple dancey kick underneath - Electro House-tastic!

Band Pass filtering can be a blessing here as well, allowing you to filter multiple sounds without overlapping the frequencies, making some really unusual and synthetic sounds.

5. A resounding yes!

Resonance is great for getting some weirder harmonic overtones from your drums, so don't be afraid to introduce it in droves when creating less conventional percussion!

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