Non-drum drumsounds

[Knights Who Say Neve]

I am starting a bedroom project and have neither the space nor the soundproofing for a traditional drum kit. I am wondering what substitutes there are for a "snare" sound, a "kick" a "hi-hat" etc. I would really prefer to avoid samples and drum machines altoegther if possible. I'm not expecting anything that will mimic traditional sounds exactly, just something that will serve more or less the same purpose when overdubbed into the track. (For example, I've used a 5-gallon plastic water bottle struck with a mallet for a kick drum). Any suggestions?

[evan]

I'm very much interested in the responses to this question, as I am also drumless.

I've used a big rubber ball (the exercise type) with a mic stuck up against it and tapped it for a bass drum. It worked OK in the context of the mix, but required a great deal of EQ'ing and reverb to sound right.

Another bass drum-like sound was had by stomping on a desk and mic'ing it under, but not really the best method for quick songs (or if you like the desk a lot).

I also got an alright snare-like sound by recording me slamming a sliding wooden drawer, and cropping off the sliding part so only the slam remained -- not very easy to do live in time, but sampling it enough and shifting things over works OK for it. A heavily compressed, slightly distorted handclap with a really quick delay might work as a snare too.

The last two mentioned drum sounds are in this beat I made using stuff around my dorm.

[kronosonic]

I recently found that my flight case for a 1x12 combo amp (amp removed and a mic placed inside the case) makes a giant kick drum substitute. Just massive. Use some high pass to roll off some sub bass freqs and you got it.

[OM15.2]

Yeah I think you'd find all non-drum drums need eq and quite a bit of tweaking to work but i like hearing about this kind of thing too.

I'll try to explain a couple of things that have worked ok as a bass drum for me. (might not make to much sense though)
- My couch has big heavily padded arms BUT ALSo right behind the arm is a big hollow area that's just covered with fabric so if I reallreally hit the arm and mic the hollow I get a useable kick.

- I've got this thing that is basicly meant to be a foot rest. It's wedge shaped, covered in carpet, hollow underneath (and this is the hard-to-explain-bit) you can kinda lever it up and down with your heal and toe, or stomp on it and I can get a nice dead kick sound. Micing it under a closed in desk kinda gives it more bass, and because you're using your foot (or feet) its got more of a drum feel to it when you play so it works ok.

I'd love to hear about useable snare or hithat sounds though...
I guess we should never under estimate the usefulness of handclaps, and shakers and cheesey stuff like that too.

[elberto]

your hand hitting a pocket full of keys or change, properly miced makes a great un-hihat. i remember a fun thread like this from alt.music.4-track; let me see if i can dig it up

[elberto]

here we go. apologies for the long cut/paste

In a bedroom studio arrange the following on the bed from left to right:

an upside down cardboard box (bass drum)
a single piece of paper (snare drum)
a sock full of pennies (high hat)

Ride on the pennies with your right hand. Alternate between box and
paper to play kick and snare. The paper gives a decent snare sound if
you kind of smack it with the side of a stick or a brush (not with the
tip). It doesn't have the sound of the shell of a good snare but it
does have a sort of sound of the snare itself. It's important that
the paper be on a mattress or cusion of some sort. It won't work on
something hard like a table.

Yes it's cheesy. Some times cheesy can be kind of cool though.

--------

I have used all sorts of different things when I ran my studio out
of my dorm room a few years ago. I had a trap set at home, but noise and
space limitations forbade me from bringing it in. I used everything from a
mattress as kick and an overturned wastebasket as snare (a very low tuned tubby
sounding snare... actually sounded really good), to a practice pad as a snare
(didn't sound too good). The best "alternate" sounds I have gotten percussively
went like this...

I filled my pants pocket with my keys and a bunch of coins and
taped a Shure lavalier mic to my pants and used it as the high hat, used
different surfaces on my mini fridge as snare and "gated" toms (at least that's how
it sounded... HEAVILY gated), the wastebasket from above as kick (a tight,
highly tuned kick), and an empty clothes rod in the spare closet as this
weird industrial sounding percussion "object". It sounded pretty darn cool.
Nothing like a standard drum kit, mind you, but it lent itself very well to the
song. I wish I knew what happened to that tape...

Now, I use a Boss DR500MkII along with some standard percussion
toys (shakers, concert toms, etc.) to fill in a more "live" sound. I sold my
drum kit, because I still don't have space in the apartment where I live!

-------

> In addition, If it is cost and space for the "trap set" and not a violent
> repulsion to the concept of creating percusian sounds via percusive act,
> try some of the following: 5-gal water bottles, 5-gal plastic buckets,
> metal fuel tanks, plastic barrels, and so on. Mic placement, effects
> processing, and of course variation and experimentation will give you
> some cool shit. You can create multi part rythms even recording by
> youself by ping-ponging just remeber to bounce high-end freq. sounds the
> least, but the more you do the lows, the more space-bass-ie they will
> sound. Signal degeneration can be your friend!! If you have a high tape
> speed selection on your 4-track use it for increased fidelity.

I think it's Buddy Holly's hit "Every Day," or maybe it was "Heartbeat,"
or both, among others, that features a cardboard box for a rhythm
section. I'm sure Bo Diddley records have similar examples of "non-drum
percussion." A friend of mine made what is probably the best cassette
4-track tape I've ever heard using bedroom percussion. He said he used a
cardboard box for bass, and a piece of paper on a soft surface for a
snare. Pocketfuls of change really do sound like a hi hat. The further
advantage of this approach is that you can record yourself, whereas trying
to singlehandedly play the drums, set mic positions, set levels, EQ,
record, and HEAR what's being recorded is just about impossible. Using
these quiet, tiny little "drums," you can set up your machine right next
to you and monitor with headphones that can easily compete with the room
sound.

There's a band in Minneapolis called Savage Aural Hotbed that consists of
3 percussionists and a bass player. One drummer uses some real drums but
the other two use solely industrial junk. They beat on steel barrels,
plastic barrels, circular saw blades, etc. They also grind (very
rhythmically and musically, I might add) on their steel barrels with
electric grinders and circular saws. The pyrotechnics (sparks) are cool,
too. They have a very full rhythm section and although they change sounds
a lot they play some very danceable stuff and for a while sounded very
much like typical techno music but all naturally made.
I was reading on rec.audio.pro recently about a dance/rhythm outfit that
beats on huge slabs of stone hanging in the air!

[chetatkinsdiet]

Everyone always looks for that "basketball" kick sound. Why not get a basketball and dribble in on a hardwood floor. Try capturing that....might be great. Snare....depends on the music. The far extremes are rap type kicks that are little more than a finger snap or maybe a knock on a wooden table. You could try to layer this with a piece of paper ripping or maybe some sort of homemade shaker. A coffee can with nails, etc might work. An old aluminum salt shaker with bb's in it works great. Just be sure to tape it up if you are a heavy shaker....
One thing to think about, or look for would be very faint sounds. Think about times when you've hit something very lightly and it's resonated in a very nice way. Well, with a nice mic/pre combo, you might be able to capture some of this and amplify it to where it's useful. If this were my project, I'd prolly go into the kitchen and start emptying the cabinets...try every piece of tupperware in there. Lids on....lids off...empty....with some liquid in them to tune....etc....
Maybe you could get some interesting loops by recording the dryer or washer and then running that through some filters to shape the sound.
later,
m

[Rigsby]

I used to use a metal bin with wrapping tape over the top as a snare and a large cardboard box (hit with a kick drum beater) as a kick. Yeah, i've done the pocket/bag full of change too. Oh, and viva la egg shaker.

[televator]

just this past weekend i recorded myself doing knee-slaps for percussion. i slapped one knee with my fingers for "snare", and thumped the other with either a closed fist or just the ball of my hand for a kick sound. It was very "dead" and needed a lot of gain, but after a bit of eq it actually sounded kinda cool.

[vvv]

I think I read where the Jackson Browne (OK, OK, but he did have Carly Simon(?) when he was like 12 and she was like 54 or something) version of "Stay" was recorded on the tour bus with cardboard boxes.

And probably lotsa pot.

[JGriffin]

Yes, parts of Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty" album were recorded in hotel rooms with the drummer using flight cases and suitcases as kick drums. I forget which tunes but the info is in the liner notes on the remastered CD.

Of course, I'll drop that lest this thread turn into the Toto thread all over again--Lord knows we don't need that.

I saw a really good gypsy jazz group a couple of weeks ago in Madison where the singer/percussionist had a cardboard box on a stand in front of her with a hole cut in the front and a mic stuck up inside it, which she played with brushes and it sounded great.

I did a record last year where all the percussion was: a real snare with brushes, a fist on a snare case for kick, and a pair of paper plates taped together with coffee beans inside as a shaker.


Oh yeah, and Jackson Browne is three years younger than Carly Simon. Not that big a deal.

[wenzel.hellgren]

SPray can = snare drum or high-hat.


Like hairspray, whatever. Pigface used Lemon Pledge at a show. Made a nice oder in the hall.

[brokenchairs]

I took my friend bumping into a mic and it distorting, cut it up and used it for a bass drum. I took a pencil sharpener and recorded me using that and cut it up for a snare. Maybe i'll post it sometime. Dressers and sometimes bookshelves make good bass drums if you hit the back of them with your hand. It's definitely a lot of fun to try to make drums out of things that shouldn't be drums.

[evan]

It's definitely a lot of fun to try to make drums out of things that shouldn't be drums.

Yes, that's definitely one of the great things about microphones. I was thinking it would be fun to make a miniature drumset out of toothpicks and cellophane and such, and close-mic it up...or how about a miniature band? I tried the cardboard-box-as-a-drum trick on a song of mine (I've decided for the sake of the interesting to not have any drums on the album) and it worked well. Teapots make great cowbell-like sounds. I think dishes and kitchenware in general are a good place to start for percussive elements.

Also one of the great things about non-drum percussion is that you can have it buried in the mix, and yet it still contributes to the rhythm of the song. I like that.

[NewAndImprov]

just this past weekend i recorded myself doing knee-slaps for percussion. i slapped one knee with my fingers for "snare", and thumped the other with either a closed fist or just the ball of my hand for a kick sound. It was very "dead" and needed a lot of gain, but after a bit of eq it actually sounded kinda cool.

I recorded the guitarist of my old band doing thigh slaps on one tune from our last album. We decided that bare skin sounded better than pants. Also, we decided it sounded better doubled. And then tripled. It was a 10-minute tune, his legs were totally red and bruised by the time we were done. But it ended up sounding like some wierd pygmy percussion group, very cool...