New Eurorack Modules

[TechDiff]

 

Incidentally, if you want to tune the kick drum, I've personally had a good experience simply using the sine wave of my VCO, feeding in an envelope generator with a short decay and release and the attack and sustain totally off into its second CV pitch input, and of course attenuating it with similar settings (or using simple decay-only envelope generators for these). The lack of attack results in a click unless you have a fancy waiting-for-the-oscillator-crossing-the-zero-threshold type envelope generator, and if you run the whole thing through a lowpass filter, that becomes the initial click of the kick drum, an integral part of the sound rather than seeming like a side effect. But if you're playing lots of parts at once, you probably wouldn't want to use up so many modules on just one sound. :)

 

I'm in kinda 2 minds about the 808 drum modules.. they do look interesting and from what I've heard, sound good too. However, It'd seema bit boring to use an all in one kick module, when there's so many other, more interesting way to do it. As you said though, uses up a lot of modules.

 

You can get reasonably convincing 808 kicks with just a vcf and an envelope generator or two. Set resonance so it's on the brink of self oscillation, then ping the input with a short trigger. Can also use an EG for frequency modulation, to give a bit of attack. Basically mimicking the way the Bridged T network oscillators work in the 808. Is the same concept for toms, claves, snare too (x 2 with other bits for noise etc).

 

Also, if you're using a VCO for kicks, if it has a sync/reset input, you can use this to eliminate the pop you get at the start, if you want to of course.

 

The drum module that does appeal to me though is a HiHat. You can get a decent sounding thing using a HP filter and some noise, or heavy FM. Would be mega wasteful trying to emulate an 808 hat/cymbal though. 6 pulse waves, and a tonne of filtering! Cymbal especially is mega complex, like 5 different filters in there!

 

At the moment, getting some satisfying kicks by using an LPG instead of a VCA. Can use some more gritty sounds, but the reduction in high end as signal is attenuated means the body of the kick still has all the thump still. LXD is well worth checking out if you're after an LPG.

 

http://www.makenoisemusic.com/modules/lxd

[ZoeB]

I'm in kinda 2 minds about the 808 drum modules.. they do look interesting and from what I've heard, sound good too. However, It'd seema bit boring to use an all in one kick module, when there's so many other, more interesting way to do it. As you said though, uses up a lot of modules.

 

You can get reasonably convincing 808 kicks with just a vcf and an envelope generator or two. Set resonance so it's on the brink of self oscillation, then ping the input with a short trigger. Can also use an EG for frequency modulation, to give a bit of attack. Basically mimicking the way the Bridged T network oscillators work in the 808. Is the same concept for toms, claves, snare too (x 2 with other bits for noise etc).

 

 

Ooh, I'll have to try that with the subtle use of FM, thanks! Yeah, I'm still in two minds about the 808 modules myself. On the one hand, they give you that nice, familiar drumkit quickly and easily. On the other hand, sounds being familiar aren't necessarily a good thing, when there's a whole world of new and interesting sounds out there to explore. As nice as, say, Ageispolis and Sam's Car are, AB4 track 4 and No Cares sound far more interesting for their use of original sounds you won't hear anywhere else. It's taking advantage of the synth medium. But realistically, I'm pretty bad in that I can listen to pretty much any piece of music I like and want to make something similar. It's just how I respond to entertainment I like, by wanting to make my own similar pieces. So sometimes I use TR-808 style sounds, even if doing so can sometimes seem like a wasted opportunity. It's the culture I'm familiar with.

 

Now, if you want to hear something really bad, although the Analogue Solutions drum modules are the most versatile, I'm probably going to sell them soon, keeping only the Tiptop ones, simply because they look tidier and take up less space. That's how bad I am these days...

 

Yeah, you can make your own TR-808 style sounds... and you can make your own less TR-808 style sounds, which is even more fun. :)

 

Now what's this about two drum sounds in the snare? I've been using one drum sound (like a kick drum up an octave) and one snare sound (a brief burst of noise), sometimes running the noise through a spring reverb and then running that through another decay-controlled VCA. (My thinking was this would sound like the 80s reverberated and gated snares, but sounds like its own weird thing instead, a snare sound I haven't heard anyone else use. You can hear this in my Doggie Dogster remix of Faith in Machines.)

 

Also, if you're using a VCO for kicks, if it has a sync/reset input, you can use this to eliminate the pop you get at the start, if you want to of course.

 

Nice idea! I tried it a while ago and couldn't get it to work, for some reason. I can't remember why not offhand, as I can get that oscillator sync sound (as on BT's Orbitus Teranium) easily enough, so in theory it should be able to avoid the clicking when just triggering that once with the original gate signal. Nina and I hooked it up to the siggen and oscilloscope and everything, but couldn't get it to work. Maybe it's time to look into it again... At any rate, I tend to run custom 808-style kick drums through a lowpass filter after the VCA, which tempers the clicking into something that vaguely sounds like it ought to be there.

 

The drum module that does appeal to me though is a HiHat. You can get a decent sounding thing using a HP filter and some noise, or heavy FM. Would be mega wasteful trying to emulate an 808 hat/cymbal though. 6 pulse waves, and a tonne of filtering! Cymbal especially is mega complex, like 5 different filters in there!

 

Well, as a slightly more modular approach, the A-117 includes the six pulse waves mixed in together for you to play with, though I never managed to get that into much besides a right royal raucous, in the Blast Off! album as various crashes, if memory serves.

 

I really need to try out FM properly at some point. So far I've mostly managed to make sounds that resemble cheap Mega Drive sound effects I wouldn't want to grace an album, hehe.

 

At the moment, getting some satisfying kicks by using an LPG instead of a VCA. Can use some more gritty sounds, but the reduction in high end as signal is attenuated means the body of the kick still has all the thump still. LXD is well worth checking out if you're after an LPG.

http://www.makenoisemusic.com/modules/lxd

 

I'm still hazy on lowpass gates, I really need to invest more time in reading up on all this and experimenting...

 

Thanks for some neat ideas, I'm going to try some of these things out... And for what it's worth, I think P.Conv is the only dubstep album I have. Top stuff!

[koolkeyZ865]

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