Auto-filter on drums - so cool!

dynomike · Post by **dynomike** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:05 am

Yesterday a friend was over who is working on some rap material. I was doing some beats on his direction (tempo, time signature, feel, etc) that we'll chop up and make loops from later. After about 15 minutes of recording I started listening back. Just for fun, I slapped this free plugin called "auto-filter" on the drum buss and started playing with a HPF at around 130 hz with a fair bit of resonance (peak at the cutoff frequency). Controlling this is an envelope follower. Anyway the result was this incredible, pumping kick that was very focused but would change pitch depending on how it was hit.

On the clip with bass (track1) I also used the autofilter blended in about 50% with the original bass signal, doing a LPF at around 300hz or so, also slightly emphasized by the envelope follower, with (I think) great results.

I'd love to hear if anyone else is doing this too

Mike

http://www.puremagic.ca/other_users/mik ... k%2001.mp3
http://www.puremagic.ca/other_users/mik ... k%2002.mp3
http://www.puremagic.ca/other_users/mik ... k%2003.mp3
http://www.puremagic.ca/other_users/mik ... k%2004.mp3
http://www.puremagic.ca/other_users/mik ... k%2005.mp3

Btw, please don't sample or loop these for anything but private use, since I plan on using them. Thanks!

YOUR KONG · Post by **YOUR KONG** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:19 am

I've only done this to make sampled snares sound less samply - I'll triple the snare track and put auto-filters on the other two with slightly different settings - it sorta kinda emulates the different overtones you would hear with each snare hit were it a real drummer.

Sounds great, though, I'll have to try this out!

Beneficial · Post by **Beneficial** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 12:15 pm

Definitely post results when you get a chance. Thanks!

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:03 pm

I've got an outboard filter/follower that is tons of fun on lots of things. It just kills on piano.

Beneficial · Post by **Beneficial** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:56 pm

what outboard filter?

MD · Post by MD » Mon Feb 13, 2006 3:05 pm

I've run this

through this

Very alesis-y.

apropos of nothing · Post by **apropos of nothing** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 3:23 pm

Filtering breaks, loops and live playing is something I consider to be hysterically fun. I have a Dave Smith Evolver that I use for this. The cool part being that you can use its internal sequencer to (among other things) specify which beats the filter will open and close.

I also use a Moog (analog) Lowpass Filter as an envelope-follower. Cool part on that is that it has a control-voltage output which I've used to trigger other effects.

Highpassing (Evolver also does this) is another fun area of exploration. Gradual sweeping in of the low-frequency material is prety hep. You hear just the top partials of the high-hats and snare for a measure of fill, and then open the highpass full on the second measure, where the full pattern kicks in. Sweet.

Filters are really neat for tone-shaping. I've been playing with this for several years now and still discover neat stuff I had missed previously.

dynomike · Post by **dynomike** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 3:52 pm

Adding the links to my original post...

blakbeltjonez · Post by **blakbeltjonez** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:54 pm

envelope filtering drum fuckery has been standard operating procedure in a lot of techno for many years..... used to love to run drums through the external input of a Yamaha CS-15 synth - two mulitimode resonant filters with LFO and 2 separate ADSR's

Sherman Filterbank is also a great mangling tool, although it has a tendency to sound like a wound-up Marshall amp - clean it is not.

YOUR KONG · Post by **YOUR KONG** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:49 am

Oh man - the Philtre is so good on drum loops. Throw a BITRMAN in there and you'll be twiddling knobs elatedly for hours - just remember to record it! =D

will.record.for.food · Post by **will.record.for.food** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 9:55 am

Is that kick side-chain-comped? The mix sounds real good, but when the kick hits my ears, i hear alot of compression...especially on 1 and 2

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:26 am

Beneficial wrote:what outboard filter?

Electrix Filter Queen\\

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:30 am

The samples sound very cool Mike.

I have a couple questions. What's the side snare you're using for grace notes? Is it under the hat and your panning is audience perspective? Are those 13" hats?

dynomike · Post by **dynomike** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:30 pm

Yeah the compression is pretty over-the-top, but I like it that way. Its not side-chained, actually, its just the combination of buss compression and that filter that brought the kick out/brought everything else down so much.
Tony: I actually just used one snare (rogers powertone) but, as I often do, stuck a sm91 under the snare and compressed it a bunch. That's actually what's panned hard right, otherwise the overheads are mixed from drummer perspective (hihat on the left). Because the snare mic is heavily gated, it sounds like the snare moves to the center when I do a hard hit!

And good ear! Those are indeed 13" sabian AA flat hats.. which kind of sound plasticky to me sometimes, but suitable for this style.

aeijtzsche · Post by **aeijtzsche** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:55 pm

How the world could use more rap in 5, or any odd or compound time. Very nice to hear.

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Auto-filter on drums - so cool!

Auto-filter on drums - so cool!

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