Blawan Drums?

[shahbazi]

Hey guys, was just wondering if anybody had tips on how blawan goes about creating his drums? they have such a particular sound to them i struggle to achieve. His kick drums sound hollow but are so thumpey. Any tips on his kick and snare in this tune? also tips on his percusson generally? cheers

[oblioblioblio]

believe he used to use all software but is now all analogue hardware (no sampling as far as I know).

Think it's just simple starting point sounds, like an analogue kick or a sampled one, then distortion, filtering with careful settings... i.e. what goes before what in the signal chain, gain staging and settings on the effects.

I personally think analogue is the best way to do this... I never really got on that well with software distortion... never sounded good or the right kind of bad. But obviously someone managed to do it and it can be good practice to try to work with what you have (although I rarely follow that princple... always changing my set up).

There are some pics floating around of the Karenn live set up, which shows exactly what gear he is using now.

[ekwipt]

I've seen that picture, he definitely has the new DSI Tempest in there

[simonb]

I've seen that picture, he definitely has the new DSI Tempest in there

Think he's got 2 of them

[shahbazi]

Id be interested to experiment with this, i use samples so i guess i could play with the pitch envelope in simpler. Is it just the decay of the pitch i want to be playing with?

Also in regards to kick distortion, iv been failing to get good results. Would it be best to have the distortion on a send channel and have a high pass after the distortion to prevent the low frequencies getting muddy?

cheers

[simonb]

Id be interested to experiment with this, i use samples so i guess i could play with the pitch envelope in simpler. Is it just the decay of the pitch i want to be playing with?

Also in regards to kick distortion, iv been failing to get good results. Would it be best to have the distortion on a send channel and have a high pass after the distortion to prevent the low frequencies getting muddy?

cheers

It's much easier to get good control of a kick's pitch envelope if you're using a synth, as a sample probably already has some bend to it and some other treatment also applied.

[AK]

Id be interested to experiment with this, i use samples so i guess i could play with the pitch envelope in simpler. Is it just the decay of the pitch i want to be playing with?

Also in regards to kick distortion, iv been failing to get good results. Would it be best to have the distortion on a send channel and have a high pass after the distortion to prevent the low frequencies getting muddy?

cheers

It's much easier to get good control of a kick's pitch envelope if you're using a synth, as a sample probably already has some bend to it and some other treatment also applied.

It's no more difficult with a sampler but I guess that depends on the sampler With say Reasons NN19, you'd just turn up the env amount knob and play with the ADSR envelopes decay. The main obstacle with putting a pitch envelope on a sample like a kick is the sample time to play with - if you're ever sampling kicks off hardware drum machines or using sourcing samples, get them with as much decay as possible, it always gives you much more to play with when you come to do stuff like this.

[mehta]

his earlier stuff sounds like some cool experimentation with sampling, saturation, and of course off-kilter sequencing which is all quite personal and often hard to replicate precisely, but playing with sample delay/off-grid/attack envelopes and of course not being afraid to mangle the sounds are maybe good starting points

the last thing I heard from him (surgeon collab) had some neat stuff, especially the feedback breakdown and flappy/broken percussion in track 1, but the bass didn't have the great murky texture as it does when works solo or with karenn

any comments on the karenn set at freerotation?