a Fire over Eden Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 Hello everyone! I'm currently in a rock band, and am actively writing music. For a while now, the drummer has been wanting to experiment with electronic-sounding drums on our recordings. Since I do the majority of the recording, it's my job to figure out the best way to do that. While I use FL Studio, I'm not limited to it, by any means. I simply didn't know where else to present this queston. This effect has been attempted and, arguably, successfully achieved by several modern rock bands. A few songs, to give you some examples are Red Sky (by Thrice, from the album Vheissu), The Messenger and Digital Sea (also by Thrice, both from the album The Alchemy Index, Vols. I & II),Liar Liar (by The Used, from the album Lies for Liars), When Two Are One (by Atreyu, from the album Lead Sails Paper Anchor), and Dark Star and Flotation Therapy (each by Fightstar, respectively from the album Alternate Endings and the Floods CD single) to name a few. I can't really think of any other ones (I'm sure there are many), but these one shouldn't be too hard to hear on a site like Project Playlist. My question is: how does one achieve a sound like these? I've had some success in using FL Studio's Multiband Compressor, but that doesn't give me the sound I'm looking for, and performs more like a work around. To summarize some of the sounds, Liar Liar (not a great song, but it serves as an example), features dance-like drums in the bridge, which could be fun to work with. Red Sky features more ambient drums in the verses, while the Messenger and Flotation Therapy feature very sporatic, seemingly random drums in both the intro and verses (this is the sound I'd really like to go for). Digital Sea, When Two Are One, and Dark Star seem to feature well thought out drums (less sporatic) with a similar sound to the previously mentioned ones. Either way, these are all sounds that I'd like to learn to compose. For drums, I primarily record our drummer live, but have also used Toontrack's DFH (Drumkit From Hell) and Native Instrument's Battery 3 for drums. I prefer DFH because Battery sounds muddy to me, but I wanted to mention that it's in my arsenal. Or, perhaps I am aproaching it from the wrong direction, and modifying acoustic drums is not the way to go. Either way, I was hoping someone could steer me in the right direction by, possibly, being able to provide a link to a tutorial (I haven't been able to find any, and I've looked on multiple occasions!) or a video that I could purchase, or by providing some of their own, helpful information! Thanks a lot for the help. I apologize for the long post, but I felt like it was all pertinent information. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a Fire over Eden Posted July 17, 2009 Author Share Posted July 17, 2009 Anyone? I can't seem to imagine this being too incredibly arcane, but no one across the internet has seemed to have an answer... if no one knows, could someone possibly direct me to a forum wherein the users might know? I've exhausted my resources. Many thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salluz Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 Let me take some time to figure out some ideas. Depends on the expected and/or needed level of complexity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 Let me take some time to figure out some ideas. Depends on the expected and/or needed level of complexity. What is the point of posting this? Either post some advice or don't post at all. AFoE, can you post some YouTube links of songs that feature the kind of drum sound you're trying to achieve? It's difficult to tell you how to replicate something without a sample of what you want to recreate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 For "electronic" sound, try frequency modulation, or granulation, or use a flanger, phaser, or chorus on them, or add a delay at just a few milliseconds, or slice them, or apply a filter with a lot of resonance and then open/close it, or pitch them, or just reverse them. Lotta ways you can mess with the sound. How many "wrong" effects have you tried on them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 For digital sea, it's a cinch, just crank up the resonance on a low-cut filter and run a slow sweep. Getting actually electronic sounding samples is a good place to start too, then just tweak them slightly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a Fire over Eden Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 Thanks so much for the responses and great ideas! I'm sorry I haven't been able to post more, I've been having difficulty with my internet. Thank goodness for free wifi at Burger King. Darkesword, I'll go ahead and post some links for youtube videos Digital Sea (Thrice): The Messenger (Thrice): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubyKcp9HIKE (This one is live, I apologize, I couldn't find any others, but the drums in the intro are played through a PA, and you can still hear what I am talking about) I'm only going to post those two because, even though it makes me sound like a fan boy, they are the best examples. I apologize for not posting these first. Rozovian, thanks for the ideas, I will certainly try the things you've said right away. Some of them I'm not sure exactly how to execute (frequency modulation and granulation), but I'll look into it. As for "wrong" effects, I've tried using a compressor to adjust their sound to little success. Thanks again Zephyr~, I'll also try this right away, the slow sweep idea is a great one, I know I've tried to do it before, but I think I was too "obvious" with it. I'll try more subtlety. Thanks again for the feedback everyone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sole Signal Posted August 2, 2009 Share Posted August 2, 2009 Like Zephyr said, just looking online for some good electronic drum samples might be your best bet. You'll save yourself a lot of time and probably have better results if you start with different samples in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr Posted August 2, 2009 Share Posted August 2, 2009 I've always loved Thrice, they have an awesome style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a Fire over Eden Posted August 5, 2009 Author Share Posted August 5, 2009 Thanks a lot everyone I'll look into using some of Battery's electronic drum samples, and do some research to find other ones. You've been very helpful, and I've already had some luck utilizing your advice. Of course, if any one has any more, feel free to share! To Zephyr~, I too have always like their style, but after hearing their new album on their myspace, I'm worried that they've moved away from the hard-cutting rock edge that Thrice has been known for, and has always delivered. But, I haven't listened to it well enough yet. Thanks again for the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theophany Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 I didn't want to start a new thread for this question, since I also have a question about electric sounding drums. There's this track off an Anime OST called Kaiba that has a really cool 80s sound to its drum track, and I haven't been able to replicate it so far. Here's the track: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?wnvmlymwmzk Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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