# How on earth do you create such staccato and percussion?



## minimax (Mar 15, 2017)

I know it is an easy thing for you guys, but whenever I try doing this, I end up with downbeat drums, and some not as fast as this, but similar sounding staccato.
If someone can explain, or make some short midi, so I can understand it.


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## Tysmall (Mar 15, 2017)

I mean, do you want sound design tips, or an informative discussion on how to hit the keys on your keyboard really quickly?

short verb, quick compression ('transient shaper' tools were made for this), alternatively you could use something like xfer's lfo tool to shape the tail. In this case you want a really small tail, because you want that 'snappy' sound. Your drums will sound mushy if the tail leads into the attack of the next signal.

I guess the real key is finding the right drum sound that is short. Once you find it, or make it - you could record at 60 bpm per say and turn the tempo of your track to 120 post recording, and pray it doesn't sound like someone had a seizure on a timpani.

If you've ever heard Jack U on the radio or hi hat rolls in rap music, you'll notice they have those really quick snappy snares/ hats. They get that by literally chopping off half the signal. Imagine in your head what it would sound like to play a big drawn out bass drum sample at that speed.

notice the crescendo as well. Do that with volume envelope automation post production to make it sound more real and less programmed. The key to realism with drums is fiddling with velocity per note. 

I don't know if I'm answering what you're asking, let me know if any of that made sense.


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## NoamL (Mar 15, 2017)

That track is hilarious...


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## minimax (Mar 15, 2017)

Tysmall said:


> I mean, do you want sound design tips, or an informative discussion on how to hit the keys on your keyboard really quickly?



I meant on placing notes for staccato, placing percussion, tempo...and such things.

I always end up having this repetitive thing...

And this percussion is pretty hard to make it follow to any staccato, usually such percussion puts many things in orchestral track behind, and instead of sounding good, things that percussion muted are just making an track muddy.

His way of doing it is kinda different, percussion is not following every "accents" on staccato, and it is placed very nicelly, kicks are placed on right laces, I like that roll before first accent kick, I like cymbals, and how on one place it were softly "crashing" 3 times in a row with drums.

For staccato, it is also a placing of notes, fast changes, flow, can exist alone in tracks, fills up everything.

That's basically it, I heard this in so many tracks, almost every track by Two Steps has this staccato, and similar way of placing percussions. So I wonder if there is some modern, well, must be some rule that everyone nowdays use to place notes of staccato and place percussion on such way.

By placing I mean on Steps, Bars, Beats...

Hope I explained well.


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## desert (Mar 15, 2017)

minimax said:


> I meant on placing notes for staccato, placing percussion, tempo...and such things.
> 
> I always end up having this repetitive thing...
> 
> ...



I have no idea what you mean so I'm going to guess...

Firstly -staccato is a technique used to make a note sound shorter. Maybe you mean a staccato riff?

Secondly - In this track you provided, the strings are the foundation and are simply playing notes from the chord in 16ths. The percussion is just using fills or rolls on TOP of the string rhythm. 

The piece you wrote, the percussion is providing the beat (not the strings this time) so I'm assuming it's the opposite of the effect you want?

Just write strings first?


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## minimax (Mar 16, 2017)

desert said:


> Secondly - In this track you provided, the strings are the foundation and are simply playing notes from the chord in 16ths. The percussion is just using fills or rolls on TOP of the string rhythm.


That's exactly what I ask, placing of the notes, their lenght, which ones he lowered volume, on which ones he put accent, raised volume to get this staccato.
When you said 16th, I realized I was trying to get same fast staccato on just 80BPM.
However, I created just one triad example, and if nothing is wrong with Metropolis Ark 1 patch, and this lag on few notes I hear, than I am really that stupid.







And, about percussion, what I was pointing on is that this kind of staccato as I created now, doesn't do well together with percssion I created, and I ask fro advice how I can change percussion to fit it to this style of staccato.

Hope you understand me, I am not good with professional music words, nor I am some very good english speaker.

I am sorry, I am trying my best to ask question on right way, but many times I don't know the way to ask it.

Anyway, I appreciate your time, and I will try to explain any of my questions as best as I can.


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## Puzzlefactory (Mar 16, 2017)

The staccato sounds like the same pattern of ostinato as Jean Michelle Jarre's Rendez Vous (IV I think).


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## storyteller (Mar 16, 2017)

minimax said:


> That's exactly what I ask, placing of the notes, their lenght, which ones he lowered volume, on which ones he put accent, raised volume to get this staccato.
> When you said 16th, I realized I was trying to get same fast staccato on just 80BPM.
> However, I created just one triad example, and if nothing is wrong with Metropolis Ark 1 patch, and this lag on few notes I hear, than I am really that stupid.
> 
> ...



The library he is using has both staccato and spiccato patches, as well as a "slam" knob which can create more bite in these two patches. From what I can tell, he is using Spiccato, which is a shorter sounding articulation than staccato. That helps him get the faster sound you are looking for. The staccato patches will sound too slow in comparison. But every sample library developer has a slightly different definition for staccato, so a staccato patch from Spitfire may be a little longer (or shorter) than a staccato patch from Orchestral Tools, etc. In the NI series, there are both spiccato and staccato to give the user options of length. Sometimes you may find developers include a staccatissimo patch for a shorter sounding staccato.

Also, you could try reducing the "release" in your library to see if that helps reduce the note length. Hope this helps. Another bit of advice - though certainly not a golden rule - is to do percussion last to accent your instrumentation rather than trying to fit your instrumentation to a percussion track.


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## desert (Mar 16, 2017)

minimax said:


> And, about percussion, what I was pointing on is that this kind of staccato as I created now, doesn't do well together with percssion I created, and I ask fro advice how I can change percussion to fit it to this style of staccato.



okay, well for starters they are in different time signatures. 7/8 and 4/4 which will change the downbeat of your strings line.

Why don't you match the important beats of the percussion with strings, then fill in the rest of the triad in the space?


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## minimax (Mar 17, 2017)

desert said:


> okay, well for starters they are in different time signatures. 7/8 and 4/4 which will change the downbeat of your strings line.
> 
> Why don't you match the important beats of the percussion with strings, then fill in the rest of the triad in the space?



Thanks for your response.
Do you mean to match the song accenting to the accenting of percussion?

I usually get stuck, if I go first with long lines, sustains or legatos, and create harmony and melody this way, after that, no any percussion actually gets well along that, so I have to turn some of the instruments, like cellos, violins to the short staccato or spiccato runs and after that it gets a bit sense to epic percussion, and as sustains or legato i have maybe second violins left, and brass.


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## MarcelM (Mar 17, 2017)

i guess he is asking how to how to do those zimmer style spiccatos.
there has been a post by daniel james explaining how to do it a few years back, but it got deleted. 
never understood why though.

tutorials on this are welcome


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## Puzzlefactory (Mar 17, 2017)

I think he talks about it on the 
Masterclass, just has to be super tight (not a problem with midi). I'm sure Spitfires time machine patches would help too.


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## desert (Mar 18, 2017)

Puzzlefactory said:


> The staccato sounds like the same pattern of ostinato as Jean Michelle Jarre's Rendez Vous (IV I think).


Think it's from dark knight as well


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## markleake (Mar 19, 2017)

minimax said:


> Thanks for your response.
> Do you mean to match the song accenting to the accenting of percussion?
> 
> I usually get stuck, if I go first with long lines, sustains or legatos, and create harmony and melody this way, after that, no any percussion actually gets well along that, so I have to turn some of the instruments, like cellos, violins to the short staccato or spiccato runs and after that it gets a bit sense to epic percussion, and as sustains or legato i have maybe second violins left, and brass.


You know that if you are creating "epic" style music especially, you don't necessarily run out of string sections, right? It may not be "real", but you can have the 1st violins playing longs or a theme AND also ostinatos. It's OK to cheat!


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## markleake (Mar 19, 2017)

If you are having problems with ostinatos and drums, Project SAM have a good video series that covers the basics for various different track types. Here's one that seems to answer your questions:



CineSamples also have done various YouTube videos that give good insights, similar to this one.


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