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Creating dark sounding drums


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I know this may be an odd question, but I'm hoping in one of my incoming tracks to manipulate the drums so that they sound really gritty and dark sounding, but I don't want to overdo it and be shrugged off as a noob when I do that (:P) so I thought I'd come here for help.

All I want to know is what kind of effects I should put on the drum kit being used, in what order and if possible in what quantities. If it helps, this is what they currently sound like. (Default demos for the win.)

Thanks for the help in advance :)

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It would help if you mention which one :P Distortion? Flange? Delay?

Nonetheless, what I'm thinking specifically tone-wise is late 80s-early 90s dance riffs, with artists I'm looking at here including the Prodigy, the Crystal Method and the Chemical Brothers. I could even point at Khalan's "DevilLab Acid" for the kind of mood to look for, but that's five years old and I don't even know if the effect remains now.

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It would help if you mention which one :P Distortion? Flange? Delay?

Nonetheless, what I'm thinking specifically tone-wise is late 80s-early 90s dance riffs, with artists I'm looking at here including the Prodigy, the Crystal Method and the Chemical Brothers. I could even point at Khalan's "DevilLab Acid" for the kind of mood to look for, but that's five years old and I don't even know if the effect remains now.

I have pretty much every CD from all three artists you listed, but I wouldn't characterize their drums as "dark" at all. Can you please provide an MP3 example with a specific time of the exact effect you're referring to? I guarantee I can help you if you can do that.

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These are really stupid drums, in my opinion, and I have no idea why you would want to make something like them (they're also much different from typical TCM, Prodigy, or TCB material). However, that being said;

It's a Roland TR-909 kick and what sounds like an 808 or 909 handclap or similar electronic snare/claps. They are both being distorted heavily with standard waveshaping distortion, as well as samplerate and bitrate degradation (I estimate somewhere around 8-12 bits and 22khz). Both delay (low feedback) and reverb (metallic) are being applied. As the clip progresses, the samples are pitched down further and additional bit degradation is applied. At :09 they are pitched much higher. Finally, heavy compression (low threshold, high gain, high ratio) is on the whole thing.

It is conceivable that the distortion and bit reduction were applied on the entire loop before the compression, rather than to the individual samples. I'm not sure, but the effect is similar.

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Well, I'm saying that we are not wholly aiming for cold-as-possible drums, but rather just simply dark. Warmth can be applied, especially when dealing with large booming drums (coldness makes them song repugnant.)

And no, I wasn't refering to the specific mp3.

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when rexy was asking for dark drums i didn't think she was asking for this lame shit :(

which is really, really, quite lame.

while i understand that imitation is the first step to synthesis and further innovation, why the hell would you want to base your sound on this flaming pile of dung?

i'm disappointed to say the least.

There's lots of interesting stuff based on these kinds of drum sounds.

Antigen Shift, Muslimgauze, Gridlock, Detritus, Stendeck... It's a style that works really well when contrasted against ambient sounding pads, or ethnic instrumentation.

EDIT: some clips of a couple of the above-mentioned artists.

http://www.5-25.com/gridlock/playlists/formless/return.m3u

http://www.adnoiseam.net/label/catalog/51/sounds/detritus-dead_daffodils-excerpt.mp3

http://www.adnoiseam.net/label/catalog/26/sounds/detritus-atone-excerpt.mp3

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It's not necessarily the samples used in the clip (a reason why I would never work with 808 kits), but it's more like the kind of effect work that's being driven across. I will consider experimenting with what's been said in the thread, but even here I understand there's some controversy on the sample I've put up with.

That said, if anyone knows any places to find reference drum samples, I should be able to find a better explanation for my intensions.

And if anyone must know, that clip was done by Bentley Rhythm Ace. I'm expecting more missiles being hurled towards me after what I towed back, but that's the problem when the usual web browsing won't give me much else :oops:

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That said, if anyone knows any places to find reference drum samples, I should be able to find a better explanation for my intensions.

For the third time, the best way to communicate an effect you're going for is to simply load up a song that has the effect you're going for, edit out the section you want to show off, and upload that clip. It's really VERY VERY simple. For example..

Downtempo, "phat" acoustic/electronic drum sequencing;

http://soundtempest.net/example1.mp3

(The Crystal Method - Over the Line)

Electronic drums w/ pwm/sync bassline.. very 'techy' sound;

http://soundtempest.net/example2.mp3

(The Crystal Method - High and Low)

Huge synth bass with phat electronic and acoustic drums;

http://zirconstudios.com/example3.mp3

(The Crystal Method - PHD)

"Chemical" type breakbeat, with very tight processed acoustic drums;

http://zirconstudios.com/example5.mp3

(The Crystal Method - Comin' Back)

Massive, hugely saturated and compressed drums.. very 'in your face';

http://zirconstudios.com/example6.mp3

(The Crystal Method - Name of the Game)

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