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Posted : Feb 28, 2016 18:55:41
Hey! SO im relatively new to production, only a few months in... I know its not something u become pro in just some months, I know it takes years to achieve that professional sound.
Well, the thing is im struggling really bad with percussion, and I don't know what my problem is (compression? layering? idk)
NEBULOsity
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Feb 29, 2016 15:39
I am not prof so...
First Lyctum has a lot more powerful baseline so percusion sounds better.
First:
You can try paralel processing for example compression or distortion. But I will use it only on highend. Take return channel of effect track (I dont know which DAW you use). Put HighPass filter (for example 8Khz) and compressor on it. Compressor settings should be very drastic you want to squash the sound. And them mix it with dry signal according to your taste. Simple trick but very effective.
Second:
I think that your sound is more narrow so you have to wide stereo image. Close hihat on left side, open on the right side and so on. Or you can use little delay for this. Short delay settings 20-50ms on one channel but second leave dry. Flanger or Phaser can also help but just a little bit of effected sound not full wet.
Third:
You can play with humanization. Percussion needs to breath and have space. When your drum hitting all the time with full power you lose accent. You need to make contrast weak spot and powerful spot. So play with velocity and quantization. Swing or Groove for some percussions. And I think that your track needs some mid frequency range percussion. Play only bassline and drums check if they sounds right alone
frisbeehead
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Feb 29, 2016 20:57
First: get your levels right. sounds easy? it is easy.
Second: do nothing else, as far as processing goes, until you strike the right balance with number one.
Third: you don't necessarily want to squash the sound, you must always pay attention to the transients for all sorts of percussion sounds. This means, quite simply, you need to be careful with the type of compression you use, you're probably going to need to dial in some attack so as to allow the sounds to keep their initial punch.
Fourth: get to know compression, it's probably the most important tool at your disposal, even more so then EQ.
Fifth: Stereo effects can work, they can add movement and so forth, but please have in mind that they can also introduce a range of problems if you don't account for all the things that they do by definition. Phase is important. Your sounds should start with positive (from the line in the middle upwards) rather then the opposite. This is correlated to the way your woofer moves. Less noisy (more nicely rounded waveforms, in general) behave in a more predictable way and sound cleaner.
Best
frisbeehead
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Feb 29, 2016 21:11
You should probably take your time and search on this forum and not just that - there's plenty other sources available these days - to drums sound design.
It gives you some insight. Some drum sounds are usually made of a combination of more then one sound, so different areas of drums can be worked out on their own with full attention to detail.
More often then not, such as with Kicks, this will give you plenty of insight as to how to mix this sounds too!
For example: A common 808ish Kick is a sine wave that's pitched down fast with a fast closing curve (or envelope) until it lands on the root note.
To further enhance it's presence in the mix and to give it a bit more frequencies to work with, there's usually a short burst of a noisy source (that can be just that, noise) mixed with the previous. To have a good Kick you need to get a good relationship between this two things, as in balance, tone, etc. And you need to make it as long or as short as is needed to fit within your song.
So, above everything else: the length and volume shape.
morsei
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Posted : Feb 29, 2016 22:49
Thank you so much for the replies! This is awesome help and feedback, tyvm!!!
Getting on it right away, I will post again when I have an improvement so u can see how it goes!
cheers!
knocz
Moderator
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Posted : Mar 2, 2016 14:14
Not much more to add - there are tons of mixing tricks to make things more interesting (and definitely many more tricks to be discovered ), but whenever I want perc ideas I love listening back to the Hallucinogen albums, there are soo many little nuances and details that I'm still discovering them years after.. but do show your results, this tune already sounds great
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Posted : Mar 13, 2016 09:07
I think what you mean is this stab like thing. There 1k synth with these kind of stabs/percussive things. Omnisphere in example. Just pick some nice preset like this. This particular one has distortion and compressor on it.
You could also just use white noise from operator etc. - route thru a filter play with the envelope...
https://soundcloud.com/fungophago
try clipping the master with percussions.
make a submix where you send all non percusive elements
and limit that shit up.
send all percussive stuff directly to master that has no limiter.
Soo your submix is in some way your master now...
), but whenever I want perc ideas I love listening back to the Hallucinogen albums, there are soo many little nuances and details that I'm still discovering them years after.. but do show your results, this tune already sounds great 
