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Scoring loops/rhythms for high end area

Stevie

Use the modwheel, Luke!
Hey all,

for a long time now, I'm looking for a library that will add some high movement / suspense (hi hats, cymbals, metals, etc...) to the low and mid end area of a rhythm (drums, taiko, epic perc, etc...), unfortunately, to no avail.

There's a lot of stuff out there, especially the Heavyocity libs, like Evolve, Damage, Master Series. They all feature tons of material, but it always sounds too processed and gritty. And sometimes even worse: there are intentional pauses in some loops, that take out the "speed" of it.
Still, I love these libraries, but they don't offer anything more universal and less in the face for my purposes.

A lot of mileage I got out of Stylus (wish they would release new stuff!), but once you used a loop, it's burnt. Yes, you can use the Chaos engine, that's true. But most of the time, I come up with something I don't like. Maybe I need to dig deeper...

I also got Momentum from Impact Soundworks, whereas the library is interesting, it doesn't give the sound that I need. It's more for unconventional stuff. Again, it serves it's purpose, just not for my particular case.

Got all the HybridTwo stuff (Alpha, Bravo, Chaos), nice libraries and in terms of high end rhythms they might even come damn close to what I'm looking for. But it's just not 100% there, yet.

Almost forgot about DM-307... whereas it's a nice drum machine, I never liked the concept of it. There's no drag and drop for MIDI files, the instrument slots are limited to one instrument for each category...

I want something that you add on top of your existing perc / drum rhythm and the groove really speeds up.
I know, I should really sit down and take the time to create my own loops. But as always, when you need it, you don't have time to do it.

So, do you guys have any tip for a library, or do you use a certain drum VST, that can create these kind of loops in no time?
 
If you want a natural groove, brush stick epic drums at lower-medium velocities have a nice high end. If you find the drum is to solid you can try eq or hi pass on it. These kind of drums create a nice middle ground between hat like and drum like. And you can easily make your own midi pattern in seconds, tweak it afterwards. Damage Armageddon kit has a few of these kind of brush drums, and I think a few of them would exist in most libraries.

Also try hi pass on full sounding loops you like, there will probably be some gems you find that way in your existing libraries

Metals, personally the bell like "tink tink" quality doesn't usually work for me. The attack is to immediate and bright.

8dio hybrid tools series has some good choice of gated noise like pulse loops. Rhythmic gate fx / sequenced envelope on top of distorted sounds could work too. A VST like Tantra is great for this - the mileage you get from presets there is much longer than what you get with loop libraries because you can still change the sound you put through the effect.

If you have a vocoder VST (I don't, but on my to-do list) I think it's also not to much effort to modulate a pad sound with a percussive loop for nice high frequency rhythms. Zynaptic has a morph VST that can breathe new life into loops you like by blending between them. The only caveat with these kinds of fx is that side chaining can sometimes be a pain to set up just for experimentation.

I think rhythms played by melodic instruments can work well too. Guitar chugs, crunchy string ostinatos, the right kind of pluck synth.
 
Have you already tried NI Action Strikes? It offers many high percussion loops that are very consistant.

If you are going for a more Damage like sound, maybe you could try Trinity Drums from Sonuscore, they separate low, mid and high sections and the loops are consistant and have variations, I use this a lot.
 
I'd reiterate the high pass idea. I'm always surprised by how much you can change the function of an instrument with an EQ. This is even easier with percussion, since most drums have some kind of broadband noise burst. You can hack one bit of the spectrum away completely and still have something very useful left. And best of all - you can do it with the samples/loops you already own.

I get a lot of mileage out of the harp-body slaps from impact soundworks' highland harps this way. When you cut away the boxy, thumpy body, you're left with a little organic tick with a bit of release. Then you can reintroduce however much of the lower bits you want.

I actually find this useful for ambience too. Chop away the body of a drum, put a long, diffuse reverb tail on it, and you have a non-tonal bed to put things on. Then put a rhythmic gate/tremolo on it, and there's your movement.

Of course, a good synth might be even better suited to these purposes. Zebra has some really great sounding noise oscillators and filters, and has whole slew of ways you can rhythmically modulate them. "Functional" elements (low reinforcement, high movement, air, etc), are sometimes easier to manufacture in a synth than extract from a sample.

All just fun/quick things to try. :)
 
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Thanks guys for the valuable feedback!

@Saxer: of course I already have Shimmer Shake Strike :P
Although, it doesn't feature any Hi-Hat stuff, it might be a good idea to combine it with other
(highpassed) loops, to get something completely new.

The problem with Action Strikes is: it gears more towards the whole percussion stuff, as pretty much every library does. You can't make a living from selling high end loops, I guess. So it's the whole shebang, but I'm so covered with all low and mid end stuff already.
Will check out Trinity Drums, though.

@averystemmler very interesting tips, thanks! I really need to get some time on my hands to create some loops BEFORE a project starts ;)
 
Thanks guys for the valuable feedback!

The problem with Action Strikes is: it gears more towards the whole percussion stuff, as pretty much every library does. You can't make a living from selling high end loops, I guess. So it's the whole shebang, but I'm so covered with all low and mid end stuff already.

Just in case that you don't know that: they have a mixer page where you can choose high section only. And there is an "Instrument" nki with lots of only high perc instruments and sounds, the generic but useful tikitaka stuff with different rhythms. You could use this and maybe turn on the high pass in addition.

I use this a lot and I like it, as it sounds very naturalistic and no overprocessed.
 
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