VCV Rack Drums

Prok modular is definitely also worth considering for drums.

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I’d echo the suggestion to use Trummor2 because it’s great but I also like to use it’s ext slot to mix in a little Lindrum via Autodafe Kick. Other stuff I have used include SV Modular, Starling Meta, Fehler Fabrick Psi-Op, Erica Pico Drums and (a long time ago) MSCHack Synthdrums.

Also don’t forget that it’s not that hard to make your own percusion out of preexisting oscilators and filters.

That’s definitely something I will be experiment with. I’m starting to lean towards what mimics the Roland TR-808. But, I love to still experiment with stuff. I gotta say, I’ve never been this much in to playing around with synths till I found VCV Rack.

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I really enjoy creating my own drums using FM. TBH, my results are usually not as “good” as I can get when I use Trummor(2), Atelier Palette, or one of the many sample-based drum modules, but a) the effort better satisfies the itch that I use Rack to scratch & b) I do tend to find the results more “synthy” and compatible with the music I’m trying to create. (Though filtering and other post-drum-module manipulations can also produce the kind of character I’m trying for as well.)

There is a very good video, from @Espen I think, about synthesizing drums. I think he uses a lot of sine waves?

And if you want to get some acoustic drums for VCV, I recommend the new Squinky Labs SFZ Player. Lots of free acoustic drum sample libraries out there!

As far as electronic drums, I have a bunch from “Samples From Mars”, but they aren’t free. I think a while ago they had some super sale "get everything for $40 or something, so I did. Anyway, they have a lot of samples of older drum machines.

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For VCV Rack, I tend to gravitate to Trummor2 for the kick and Hora hihat for the hihat, not the sampled ones because these modules allow me to modulate the sound for a bit of variation. The Trummor is nice and heavy and the Hora has built in close, open and accented hihats. Still need a good snare and rim click (I like rim clicks) that offer the same. If I want samples I guess I can get them from my TR-8S and use some sample post processing for the variation … oh … that’s a thought :thinking:

Ok, something special for you: Vermona DRM [5 drumkits & 50 loops] - Drum Depot by Marco Scherer - free ! Just put the following line at the top of each SFZ-File:

<global> ampeg_release=0.2

:speaker: :sound: :loud_sound: :loud_sound: :loud_sound: :star_struck:

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Oh yeah! This one, right?

I should probably rewatch that; it is a good one. Thanks for the reminder. Perhaps @AlexanderWolle might find it inspiring too. The nice thing about synthesizing your own percussion using techniques like this is that you can spice it up or dial it back according to the role you want it to play in your piece.

BTW @Squinky, when I do FM percussion, your Basic VCO and Kitchen Sink are two of my go-to modules, so thanks for those as well.

glad to hear that. thank you.

You could always try combining different modules to build up the sound.

I was working on something last night and ended up mixing together Audible Instruments’ “Macro Oscillator 2”, Hora’s “Snare Drum”, and two instances of Vult’s “Trummor”. It ended up being a sort of “fuller” sounding large snare. Or a Tommy Gun, if you speed up the sequencer’s clock.

Legowelt’s website is also a great place to get some samples from old hardware machines.

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Reverb Magazine also released a whole collection of old drum machines for free, quite a large collection:

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Hello everyone, :pray:

For drums, nobody mentioned the excellent “Palette” of Atelier which is based on the “Plaits” of mutable instruments. You can really obtain hyper impacting and rich percussions.

Oh, that’s cool! Wish they had SFZ mappings for these, but they are pretty easy to put together.

Thank you for all the responses. This definitely is giving me a lot of ideas. I think tonight, I’ll set aside some time to play around a bit. :slight_smile: I’m finalizing a patch I hope to have up tonight. And one in my head. :slight_smile:

I threw together a SFZ Player patch using Squinky Labs SFZ player and Wave Alchemy’s free Korg MS 20 drum samples. First, you’ll need to download the wave and SFZ files from here (Wave Alchemy includes some SFZ files that you can immediately use): https://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/ms-20-mini-drums/pid154/. There are a few stages in the video.

  1. Unprocessed drum sounds
  2. Drop pitch one octave on SFZ sampler
  3. Switch channels on mixer to the Band Pass Filter.
  4. Turn CV so that the Fc is being modulated by random noise. There are 8 separate noise gates affecting the 8 different channels in the filter. The sounds vary wildly between different filters.
  5. Use the VISH AR envelope to shorten the drum sounds.
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oh, that’s really cool! shows you can start with samples and process away to make them totally your own. very nice.

I really like the Hora analog drums, well worth the money. One really nice feature is the accent input. This is very useful.

Knock is great; also, well worth the money.

Also the starling via module is great. I’ve made some really nice BD’s.