Q on drum effect

[Ceracryst]

Hey, I've been wondering this for a while.

I've been interested in writing music for a long time, but I know next to nothing about actual audio engineering or any such thing, so any info/tips in unrelated to my question can also help.

I'm wondering how to do get a certain percussion sound. You can hear it in Harry Gregson-William's Narnia soundtrack, "Evacuating London" enter at around 1:44. It's also used a lot in in the MGS2 main theme.

It sounds very filtered and hi-tech spy/military-ish. It's really hard to describe these things without a working vocabulary, but... I'd really like to learn how to mess around with drum sounds. Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks!

[OverCoat]

I'd love it if you had an audio example

Describing an esoteric sound is really hard, it's a lot easier just to host a mp3 somewhere of the noise you're thinking of.

[Ceracryst]

Hii, sorry about that. =D And... sorry again for not being able to provide mp3s, but here's a YouTube trot of game soundtracks that have it.

Um, I'm having a hard time coming up with a song, but you can hear it distinctly here in the first part of the fill at 0:26

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Y3vjtSxFc&feature=related (X-Ray Dog)

Here, as the low-profile beat in the background at 1:15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTTAz4mT_os&feature=related (R6 Raven Shield)

A similar low-key thing at 1:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZaBHuE2Yqo&feature=related (GRAW)

I hope these examples are clear enough. Thanks for your help, guys. =D

*edit* OMG OCR automatically embeds YouTube? A great landmark victory for humankind has been won here this day.

[Yoozer]

The solution is a filter where the cutoff frequency is controlled by velocity, or alternatively, just a lowpass filter that you gradually open and then close again (using automation). After the filter comes a delay effect.

A lot depends on the sounds you're using as a source, though.

[Zephyr]

I managed an effect almost identical to the one in the first video simply by running pure static through an LP filter with some high resonance and moving the cutoff around, add some reverb and delay for awesomeness. BP gave a different effect, so try both.

The other two videos I think are doing something a little differently; it sounds more like a rimshot, I achieved something rather close by taking a crisper rimshot and adding a ton of reverb, with a filter on top of that you could get something close, but I'm sure there's a way to get it closer.

EDIT: did some more fooling around and you can also use static for the second one, use a ton of reverb with the filter on the end, but instead of steady static, just give it one shot and then the reverb will make the sound. Good luck.

[Ceracryst]

thanks yoozer & zephyr! I'll try tweaking around with that LP =D What's a BP, though, if I may ask?

[Yoozer]

thanks yoozer & zephyr! I'll try tweaking around with that LP =D What's a BP, though, if I may ask?

LP : lowpass

BP : bandpass

HP : highpass

BR : bandreject

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowpass_filter < look at the diagram there.

A highpass filter has the mirror image of that diagram - e.g the diagonal side is on the left.

A bandpass can be a combination of a lowpass and highpass, only leaving a narrow "hump" in the middle where the frequencies may pass.