# Percussions: mine sounds bad every time



## dreamnight92 (Feb 26, 2016)

I'm really struggling getting percussion line (epic or not epic)...they sound wrong in all the aspects: they are poor in the sound, the don't feet the mood of the piece, they don't melt with other orchestral instruments and so on...

That's frustrating because I usually achieve a good result from orchestra, then when I add percussions I fail. 

Actually I mostly use stormdrums 2 and stormdrums 3 for ethnic and epic stuff, Hollywood percussions for orchestral stuff...I've minded to try some other VSTs but they feet the room of the Hollywood orchestra. 
My goal is to use drums to enhance drama, but also fill the groove. 

I upload a short portion of the piece I'm working on: orchestra (strings, brass, choir) seems to sound wright, but percussions sound shitty. 

Any tips?

[AUDIOPLUS=http://vi-control.net/community/attachments/percussions-mp3.5183/][/AUDIOPLUS]


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## acicero (Feb 26, 2016)

If you're going for the Hans Zimmer percussion sound, why not check out Hans Zimmer Percussion by Spitfire? 

Stormdrum is a good starting point but the big boys probably layer the crap out of it and get it to have a massive bottom end. Out of the box I never found Stormdrum to have the massive impact that a lot of trailer and Zimmer music has.


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## dreamnight92 (Feb 26, 2016)

Yes, the main problem seems to be big percussion stuff, they sound thin, while ethnic and shakes stuff seems to sound nice. 
A part from HS percussion (out of my badget), other libraries for big stuff?


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Feb 26, 2016)

Your tools are fine. Having more things to choose from is cool, but it's a different topic and buying more stuff won't do anything to solve your particular problem.

In your example, the percussion doesn't sound good because it has little to do with the rest of the music. It's out of place and sounds like a pattern from some other piece of music. It's in meter and time, but not in the groove of the piece. You need to listen closely to the natural inherent pulse and "motion" of the music and "feel out" which beats of a measure need emphasizing, what needs de-emphasizing, where you should build up tension, where to relax it, etc. Try to think percussion in a visceral and physical way. Think about what the natural pulse of the music feels like: does it rush, does it grind? Is it light, or is it heavy? Is it steady, or is it nervous? Is it bouncing, or is it flowing? Does it rock, or does it roll? Stuff like that. Is it few bigger and louder hits, or lots of small, but nimble thingies? Think of it as bodies, or material. What kind of mass moves to where, in which motion, in what kind of pace?

Perhaps it helps if you listen to your music without percussion, but try to lock on to the inherent groove of the music and move to it. In any kind of way that feels natural to you - move your sholders, bob or bang your head, clap your hands on a surface, dance, whatever. Chances are, you're instinctively start to organize your motions into some kind of groove-oriented pattern - one that goes with the music. That should give you a first general idea of what your percussion should be doing. In your particular example, the string ostinato figure will tell you all you need to know.

Don't think about percussion as a bunch of hits that occur here and there. Try to listen to percussion in phrases, just like tuned and melodic instruments. It's not just a bunch of hits. Try to hear them as sensefully arranged phrases that are almost singable, only that most of it happens to be unpitched.

View your percussion instruments as an ensemble not unlike strings. You got some very high stuff, you got some stuff in the middle, you got a few things way down below. Arrange your percussion parts in such a manner. 

Making drums sound bigger and more powerful is easy. Layering different hits can help. Parallel compression is huge on drums, also saturation, distortion and bass enhancement. Transient shaper is a not-so-secret weapon. There's so much you can do with a rather basic set of tools, without necessarily investing in another dozen of gigabytes of samples.


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## dreamnight92 (Feb 26, 2016)

Thanks for your advices, actually I'm a disaster building up grooves :/ I cannot feel the groove, I tried several and this one was the one that fit most. 

I tried also to start from the ostinato, but it didn't help: the ostinato is quite always the same (1/16 notes), maybe I should start with 1/16 notes then build up the grooves putting some accents? 

By the way my impression is that snares and shakes fit the piece nicely, the problems are the big hits (toms, bass drums and timpani) that aren't good. I don't know if it's better to put a single hit at the beginning of each beat...


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## Zhao Shen (Feb 26, 2016)

Hollywood Percussion + SD3 is plenty of percussion-writing material, so libraries aren't the issue. Are you applying a lot of EQ? Sounds like some frequencies are missing. And you might also want to not douse your drums in reverb - the snares almost sound like white noise. 

As for groove writing, a simple technique is to insert a full measure of sixteenth notes and make most of them quiet. Experiment with accenting different notes, and make a decision on which grooves fit the piece best.


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## dreamnight92 (Feb 26, 2016)

No, I'm not using eq, just out of box (but with reverb and proximity effects)


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## jason.d (Feb 26, 2016)

dreamnight92 said:


> No, I'm not using eq, just out of box (but with reverb and proximity effects)



Can we hear a version with the percussion on its own? Maybe the issue is a matter of fitting it into the mix with everything else.


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## Dean (Feb 26, 2016)

dreamnight92 said:


> I'm really struggling getting percussion line (epic or not epic)...they sound wrong in all the aspects: they are poor in the sound, the don't feet the mood of the piece, they don't melt with other orchestral instruments and so on...
> 
> That's frustrating because I usually achieve a good result from orchestra, then when I add percussions I fail.
> 
> ...



Hey, just had a quick listen and I think you're being way too hard on yourself,..perc sounds pretty good to me so far and with a little more work you'll have some great perc going. I dont agree that it does'nt sound good or fit with your track.

What you need is some 'sonic glue' to fit the perc into the track a little better,..I suggest you try using some deep sub perc hits on all the downbeats,..also load up another big but low /mid perc instrument and double your perc but play it at low velocity and louder volume,(this should help take that 'slappy' thin edge off the hits and give them more power.),..make sure to slightly adjust the velocities/timing/peformance of each perc track so the percussion sounds more natural,you get more of an ensemble sound that way too.

Re EQ: half the battle of making perc work is all in the EQ so i suggest you bounce all your perc lines seperately to audio import them and start EQing,,,the difference it will make believe me!

Make sure to take all the muddy bottom frequencies out of the mid/high perc (if you use some sub hits to double the down beats that will give that bottom end and fatness you need) and as a rule you shoudnt have the reverb tail from one perc hit overlapping the next perc hit and so on,( otherwise you get this constant reverb rumble,mud sound going.(make sense?)
D


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## renegade (Feb 26, 2016)

What sound are you aiming at precisely? Could you link to a youtube video or something you think is exactly the sound you're after?
I had a listen to your piece and I don't think it sounds "shitty" either


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## dreamnight92 (Feb 26, 2016)

Thanks everyone for the answers. Actually I tried to change the groove with slower accents and seems to work fine.

As soon as I go back to the DAW I'll make a separate export of the percussions and the orchestra.

I know about EQ, but usually I keep the mixing process separated by the arrangement /orchestration process. And by the way string and brass seems to sound right without any FX (apart from proximity effects); but I think percussion should need a little more work with compressors and Eq.

I'm try to achieve a "solemn" sound: something like this: 2:00

Obviously the composition is completely different, but the fact is that this kind of percussion sound "full" and huge, and I'm distant light years form that.
I'm trying to figure out how to achieve this sound, and trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong: arrangements? Sounds choices? Mixing/eq/compression? Probably everything of this!


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## Dean (Feb 27, 2016)

dreamnight92 said:


> I'm try to achieve a "solemn" sound: something like this: 2:00
> 
> Obviously the composition is completely different, but the fact is that this kind of percussion sound "full" and huge, and I'm distant light years form that.
> I'm trying to figure out how to achieve this sound, and trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong: arrangements? Sounds choices? Mixing/eq/compression? Probably everything of this!





Think of the perc in 3 layers,.
top layer; for bite and presence (snare ensemble,hi toms/mid toms)
mid/low layer; for body and power ( low toms.ensemble hits)
low deep sub layer (sub boom hits/Godzilla hits (from SD2))
Maybe layer in a really low Tuba stac note,(crunchy/raspy effect)
Then EQ,EQ,EQ,...

The tips I gave you earlier will achieve that sound (with practice),..give them a go. D


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## afterlight82 (Mar 9, 2016)

This sound is crazy easy once you do it the right way.

A few tips...the harder you hit a big drum the more "crack" you get but you get less "body". Basically, if your velocities are all 127, your percussion will be all "crack" and no "body". If I'm recording bass drum live, I *always* do a "soft" bass drum part and a "loud" bass drum part, sometimes even the same exact part, just one played piano or pianissimo all the way through, regardless of the track volume. Gives you tons of low end information.

Flams are hugely important. If you want a big "ensemble" sound like the above, there needs to be a bit of a "spread" between the players in the ensemble. This is true the higher in frequency range you go. You can use iterative quantization to spread them randomly a little. One way to do it - tightly quantize all "sub" instruments. Randomize the quantize by 3 ticks of "low" parts. 5 ticks for "mid low". 7 for "mid" 9 for high. It's an interesting way of spreading...the theory goes that the higher parts will tend to be more complex than the low, so they are more likely to be rhythmically slightly off the beat. It doesn't always hold but it does work quite well.

The sound in that track is layered with an impact hit from like a hybrid library by the sounds of it. Loads of those out there. I went through all my libraries and pulled out the ones I actually like and made a kontakt instrument, but they're really easy to make. Often it's a "reverse element" with a "hit element" and a "boom element", run through a limiter with a judiciously eq'd reverb and delay, plus saturation/distortion on any and all of those elements where necessary. That's pretty much it.

I differ from the above post in one respect. EQ last and try and get it as far as you can without eq and compression. You can do huge perc without much eq. It's mostly about sound selection. I've never heard the wrong sounds eq'd to being "right"! As for compression, you're often best trying to handle it on the faders and not coloring the sound - unless you want that. Limiting is a little different. Transient shapers can help. I'm not saying compression isn't very useful - nay, pretty ubiquitous in the style - but the most successful versions of this would sound pretty good without the compression too.

For your track I'd:

1) vary the perc more, ghost some mid/hi patterns in the middle of the bar, give it some movement, syncopate occasionally esp on fourth bar or second bar of a pattern, so it feels like it progresses perhaps? The sparseness isn't bad though...

2) find your favorite bass drum sample, crank the volume and channel up and double your downbeats with the lowest velocity or one up from there. I did my own for this purpose, but cineperc epic has a good one, spitfire perc bass drum is pretty good too. Then solo your main bass drum/big hit patch, and slowly bring up the "boom" track you just created until you feel it doing its thing. Then back it off 3db, then group them and treat them as one thereafter. I sometimes low pass this "boom track". I sometimes also high pass stuff that's mid/high perc (but not always). EQ is a fix...it does smear the transients, but filtering seems to be least destructive to my ears.

3) try backing off most of your percussion velocities 10 or so, and turn them up audio wise to compensate. In fact, I'd mix your perc a bit louder generally. When you hear a familiar "big sound" like an orchestra/brass going full tilt, we subconsciously judge the size of everything else by it, so if you have a percussion sound that really cuts past something the ear tells you is a "loud" sound, it tells us that sound is "bigger". Judiciously though... 

4) layer in a couple of doubles on the main rhythm, even medium taikos, keep the velocities not too high so it's just steady "body" in the ensemble, and if you have two of these you can spread them around a little. Balance them to just support, not dominate. These work great if you then send them to a reverb which you high pass so you get some perc "air" but not "low end crap".

5) Always have one low part quantized dead on for the transients. Line up your transients where they should be lined up. (i.e. where you're not deliberately flamming for spread). I'd always suggest taking a sweep through this kind of stuff printed to audio so you can really see what's going on, since sample editing isn't always all that great. Obviously, the ear rules, but in a dense track you'd be surprised how much you can improve by just going through tidying stuff.

6) Lastly - for balancing frequency range - if you have a bunch of percussion tracks, try the "pink noise" mixing trick as a learning exercise. It's interesting how lots of people are actually "low end" shy. This is very true also of strings, where people seek "warmness"...yet have their violins much higher than the "true" balance of a string section. EQ can do wonderful things, but if you can achieve the effect without touching an eq your production will always benefit. Alternatively listen to recordings of percussion only (or whatever section "only"). If you're trying to get a sound that's a notch larger than life, it's often good to be able to make it sound "exactly" like life first...then hype it up a bit from there!


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## afterlight82 (Mar 9, 2016)

ps think of compression and EQ for percussion as being a bit like Photoshop. 
You can make a rubbish picture look "ok" but not win any awards, but you can make a great picture look insanely awesome. You are trying to amplify what is good about the picture, but if the picture is really good to start with you can only improve. The balance and the framing of the picture has to be there first, no amount of color saturation or image compression will help if it is out of focus. Get the balance of your perc right first such that it sounds good without compression, then go from there...at least, that's what I reckon. YMMV!


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## dreamnight92 (Mar 12, 2016)

I followed your advice. Here is a new version: there is just a basic pattern of bass drums and toms...what do you think?

[AUDIOPLUS=http://vi-control.net/community/attachments/percussions-2-mp3.5247/][/AUDIOPLUS]


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## Ollie (Mar 12, 2016)

dreamnight92 said:


> I followed your advice. Here is a new version: there is just a basic pattern of bass drums and toms...what do you think?
> 
> [AUDIOPLUS=http://vi-control.net/community/attachments/percussions-2-mp3.5247/][/AUDIOPLUS]


I prefered the first version. More interesting rhythms and the perc in the new one sounds a tad muffled without the more hi end drums.


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## ed buller (Mar 12, 2016)

before you use eq try parallel compression. Set the treated to extreme and go for a 50/50 mix.

E


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## afterlight82 (Mar 12, 2016)

Well for my taste the drums are now just too quiet! They don't sound bad at all, they're just buried. Turn 'em up! I mean, what would it sound like exactly the same but turn the drums up 6-10db. Seriously. If you like the weight of them when solo'd, if they have a good frequency balance and they sound sonically pleasing, then it's probably just a balance thing against the orch. As I said before...if you want the perc to feel big it has to be loud in relative volume compared to things that we hear as "big" - which includes the orchestral stuff you have going on. So many people mix percussion shy...

Everything else in your mix sounds pretty great by the way.

This might also be a case of splitting the difference, with what you had before. I'd get the balance spot on first before you touch an eq or a compressor.

And of course, it's your music so for the love of god we could all be wrong and it's entirely up to you!


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## afterlight82 (Mar 12, 2016)

p.s. if you compare it to your ref track, you'll hear it's not far off, but you're definitely percussion shy mix-wise in comparison. And you might need to add back a bit of your highs if you need their support and simply being a bit perc heavier doesn't help, and some 2-buss love might help. But your starting point wasn't terrible either...don't let us all eff it up by steering you this way and that.


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## ghostnote (Mar 14, 2016)

Here's the best tiipp I can give you: Watch out for the area around 150Hz. Maybe it's just my room, but I always feel that there's a lot of rumble going on. Especially with SD2.


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## dreamnight92 (Mar 16, 2016)

After lots of tries, I think I should by some new instrumentations: I'm trying to reproduce an ensemble, but I have few ensamble patch on stormdrums, and no one sound "big". That's like trying to get ensemble strings with solo string samples. 
So that: that's what I'm looking for: ensemble bass drums, ensemble snares, ensemble. I know there are several VST, maybe I just have to listen to demos then buy the one fit my pursuit...but I'm sincere, I fear to spend money in vain :S


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## col (Mar 16, 2016)

The Metropolis Ark has an ensemble percussion patch - some are almost to big to use all the time ! 
Plenty bottom end to layer though.
Good luck.


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## Smikes77 (Mar 16, 2016)

Forget Eq etc for the moment, get the groove right. I would start by just listening to the ostinato strings without anything else. Listen to where the accents naturally fall. These are the first accents you should work with. I like where you`re going with this - it reminds me of this...


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## Smikes77 (Mar 16, 2016)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Your tools are fine. Having more things to choose from is cool, but it's a different topic and buying more stuff won't do anything to solve your particular problem.
> 
> In your example, the percussion doesn't sound good because it has little to do with the rest of the music. It's out of place and sounds like a pattern from some other piece of music. It's in meter and time, but not in the groove of the piece. You need to listen closely to the natural inherent pulse and "motion" of the music and "feel out" which beats of a measure need emphasizing, what needs de-emphasizing, where you should build up tension, where to relax it, etc. Try to think percussion in a visceral and physical way. Think about what the natural pulse of the music feels like: does it rush, does it grind? Is it light, or is it heavy? Is it steady, or is it nervous? Is it bouncing, or is it flowing? Does it rock, or does it roll? Stuff like that. Is it few bigger and louder hits, or lots of small, but nimble thingies? Think of it as bodies, or material. What kind of mass moves to where, in which motion, in what kind of pace?
> 
> ...



This is excellent advice, and it would serve you well to take this on board. Good luck, I hope to hear more of your track soon!


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## Boberg (Mar 17, 2016)

Michael Chrostek said:


> Here's the best tiipp I can give you: Watch out for the area around 150Hz. Maybe it's just my room, but I always feel that there's a lot of rumble going on. Especially with SD2.



I agree with this. SD2 has been my main percussion library for a long time, and in the start it always got quite busy around 150Hz. Nowadays, I'm more careful there, might do some slight EQ cuts in the region, and it sounds a lot better in my opinion.


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## SillyMidOn (Mar 17, 2016)

For what it's worth: SD2 is pretty old now, and from what I remember it does not have any RR (round-robins), so if you use the same hit/note repeatedly, it will sound repetitive and midi/machine like. I stopped using SD2 quite some time ago.

Someone mentioned that Metro Ark hits are almost too big. I would politely disagree, as I layer more stuff even on top of those hits, but you have to use EQ and compression well otherwise your headroom is gone just for the hits.


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## dreamnight92 (Mar 17, 2016)

SD2 hasn't many round robins, but it has lots of different hits on every patch, so you'll work around with some drum programming. SD3 have lots of round robins, maybe just a few dynamic layers for my taste. 
Most of people reference resonance between 150 Hz for stormdrums, but also for other libs from EW studio 1 (Hollywood series), so maybe is the studio that have this sound.
By the way I don't have many problems around this range (maybe because I add an extra air with the proximity unit).

I checked some VSTs for epic perc ensemble:
-HZ london ensembles: sound good, but I don't like the sound at all, they are mostly ethnic perc, taikos and I'm happy with SD3's ones. Also is out of my budget.
-Metropolis ARK: stunning sound, but is out of my budget and I nee just just percussions, not the other stuff.

Some VST that sounded nice to me:
-Damage: old library, but looks perfect for my purpose. It's an old VST by the way, what do you think about?
-Soundiron: apocalypse percussion.
-8dio: epic perc bundle. A little expensive and they sound a little too wet from demos, and they have just 1 mic position.


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## SillyMidOn (Mar 18, 2016)

dreamnight92 said:


> SD2 hasn't many round robins, but it has lots of different hits on every patch, so you'll work around with some drum programming. SD3 have lots of round robins, maybe just a few dynamic layers for my taste.
> Most of people reference resonance between 150 Hz for stormdrums, but also for other libs from EW studio 1 (Hollywood series), so maybe is the studio that have this sound.
> By the way I don't have many problems around this range (maybe because I add an extra air with the proximity unit).
> 
> ...



Damage has a very particular sound, to some extent like SD2, where if you hear a piece and there is a Damage Hit, or especially a Loop, you can instantly recognise it. Not sure that's a good thing. Damage is great product, but not if you are after more natural sounding percussion, and a lot of Damage consists of Loops and "industrial sounds" if that makes sense.

I haven't got Soundiron's Perc, but do have the 8dio stuff (which was mostly done when they were still with Soundiron under the Tonehammer banner, which is why I then didn't go and buy Soundiron's offering as well). You can have dry patches, though, as certainly with the Epic Toms and Dhol you can adjust the amount of reverb with the Mod wheel. So Mod wheel at 127 is fully dry, at 0 fully wet. Taikos have close, drier patches and wet, more distant patches. The Toms and Dhols are huuuugge and loud and peak very quickly, but I love them. You could just get one of two of them, rather than the full bundle.

Also consider Audiobro's LADD.

I'm being cheeky here, but in another thread you mentioned recording at Paramount M stage, yet Metropolis Ark is out of your budget - dude, someone is not paying you enough


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