PERCUSSIVE TAPESTRY - Part 2: Ephemeral Rhythms, Stutters and Noise with laces
Added 2023-05-17 18:55:24 +0000 UTCIn this Lux Cache tutorial series, we traverse the rhythmic wilderness of percussive design, probing into its transformative impact on electronic music and its ability to stir intense emotions and create compelling auditory textures. This series delves into the intricate labyrinth of percussive dynamics within music production, spotlighting unconventional techniques, pulsating rhythms, and the intriguing amalgamation of abstract beats and sound design. In this chapter, the self-taught rhythmic pioneer 'laces' uncovers his unique strategies for sculpting captivating percussive narratives. Drawing from his eclectic influences and exceptional musical tapestry that challenges genres and propels listeners into uncharted rhythmic territories, sharing invaluable insights from his experimental journey.
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CONTENTS
- PART 1 - INTRODUCTION
- PART 2 - STUTTERED PERCS / STUTTER RHYTHM, VELOCITY + WARPING (ERUSH)
- PART 3 - VOCAL PERC STACKING (SUNVOCUS)
- PART 4 - NOISE PERC (CARPET SLUG, NOUMK)
- PART 5 - CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
Percussion has always been one of the driving forces in my productions, I’m not sure why but there is truly something ephemeral and electric about well-structured and meaningful percussive moments or repetitions. I have absolutely never studied drums or even learnt any kind of percussive instrument and because of this, I found myself taking most of my cues from drum machine beats, the implicit implications of drum chops and non-percussive rhythmic elements to inform the way I should program my drums. I earnestly believe most of the songs I have the most profound emotional attachment to are composed almost entirely of drums and rhythm if not those aspects being an integral part of their importance.
In particular, I have always been obsessed with the sounds featured in dark techno productions like Borealis - Streamsnare and Clouds - (9600) 1991 UB, decon and grime producers like Osheyack and Scratcha DVA alongside more traditional club music tracks that make use of abstract percussion-like sounds such as Headstone - Blast. In part two of Percussive Tapestry, I will show off a couple of ways in which I have achieved some of the lacelike staccato-y and flowy instances of percussion in my production inspired by these kinds of sounds. More specifically, I’m going to cover four different conceptions of interesting percussive moments from my hard drive using a couple of unreleased WIPs as examples namely: Stuttered percs, Vocal Stacking percs and Noise percs.
STUTTERED PERCS / STUTTER RHYTHM (VELOCITY + WARPING ERUSH)
A simple rhythm that I find echoing around in my head all day is something like that of rolling snare drums or stuttering percussive patterns. In my music, I have tried to implement moments of switching rhythms that utilise this vibe and I’ll show you how to achieve it by analysing some basic beats plus the project file for an unreleased track of mine titled “Erush”. Whilst I think the techniques I’m about to explain are super entry-level and perhaps intuitive for some I think it’s easy to forget how important they can be to giving drums a real feeling of life and movement.
Just to illustrate the basics of this pattern style, this is an example of a typical military snare roll that I have programmed around a simple club beat. To achieve the ebbing and flowing of the drums in this section I have essentially made edits to the “Velocity'' of certain percussion hits to imply a performer putting more or less power into each strike of the drum. In this particular case the “Velocity'' simply refers to editing the gain and tail of each sample independently but in other cases, such as when writing midi drums, this can be achieved through actual velocity sliders under the notes on the piano roll. Personally, I am a big fan of using samples for drums due to the extra control you have over every single hit and visualisations of those changes via the waveform preview but to each their own. On top of gaining the samples, I have then used Ableton’s warp modes to modify some of the snare drums (marked below) in order to curate some more interesting versions of the rolling snare. Warp modes such as ‘Texture’ and the default ‘Beats’ mode can be really good for making weird granular stretches of samples if you pull the sample out using transients on the waveform preview.
🔊 Default Snare Roll Warped/Default Snare Roll Warped with a kick
This is an unreleased track of mine from 2018 or something called “Erush”. The first thing you might notice here is that the song is weirdly delayed a half note at the beginning of each phrase in this section which is an entirely different story lol and probably a good reason as to why this track was never finished but the main focus of this section is to highlight the way the stuttered kick and syncopated snare interplay with one another.
📷Erush snare roll
🔊 Erush Snare Roll Section Preview
In this case, using various tools such as subtle gain adjustment, transient warp adjustment and tweaking the timing, I made this weird revolving rhythm. The goal for tracks like these has always been to create weird off-kilter yet danceable sections and I think stuttering type rhythms really can help to keep order in song’s like this. Below is a screenshot of all the perc elements isolated.
📷Erush Perc Isolated
📷Erush Perc Isolated 2
📷Erush Perc Isolated 3
VOCAL PERC STACKING
Another technique that I found myself implementing often was using vocal layers to add extra texture to percussive elements. I love the way drums sound obviously but when conceptualising songs I often find myself sort of imagining weird hybrid drum layers that occupy multiple functions in the mix that a simple hi-hat or snare cannot hope to fill. My usual solution to this is to layer additional elements under drums to fill out the hits in the mix. In Erush you can hear the main melody is composed of vox chops that are paired with a stuttered kick drum in order to sort of serve both the purpose of melody and rhythm. In this snippet, there are several instances of vox chops being used to differing effects on top of the main drum layer but also embedded into the fills and transitions between phrases. In the second image, I outline how I’ve used 3 separate chops of the vox in order to accent each snare hit differently on top of changing the pitch of several chops in order to construct a melody. Plus a sweeping reverb seen in the automation to add movement to the phrase.
📷Each vox
📷Each vox 2
The main technique I would suggest here is to find vox samples that occupy a complimentary area of the frequency range such as a top perc (roughly 2kHz to 20kHz) spliced with a mid vox chop (roughly 200Hz to 2kHz) or vice versa. Basic EQing and a bit of creative processing can really elevate splicing these layers together and overall can achieve a pretty sick result in terms of a unique perc. Here is another example of me using this technique in my track ‘Sunvocus’ along with some explanations of the processing.
📷Sunvocus Preview
In this track, I made use of a motif of this vocal chop at the beginning of each phrase not only to command the melodic direction of each phrase but also and most importantly to add depth to the initial drum hit by filling up the frequency spectrum. This vocal registers around the top half of the eq representing the brighter highs and mids of the moment whilst the 808 fills out the bottom half. This allows for a moment of full submersion in the track where all frequencies are present and filling your ears, or at least that was the intention.
📷Sunvocus Layer Detail 2
This example, whilst not being the best at showing off vocal perc layering distinctly, I think best shows off an instance of using vocals with the intention of filling out a specific beat and the ways it can add to a drum moment. Without the vocal, the first beat of this section fails to take on any identity other than that of an 808 but ascends to something unique when stacked.
NOISE PERCS
Probably my favourite technique when attempting to achieve unique and notable percussive moments is the use of “Noise” or chops of otherwise non-percussive elements in order to achieve an interesting rhythmic idea. In my music, I usually do this in the form of smashing together snippets of audio from various kinds of sources into the space of a single or few beats in order to cut between sections of drum patterns. In order to illustrate this I’ll use an example from my unfinished track ‘Noumk Of Blighttown’.
📷 Noumk Noise perc
This track features quite a lot of noise based percs and generally distorted drum hits. As seen above, I’ve stacked various layers of samples under the initial drum sound in order to add character and fill out the first beat of the drop to add impact. Included here is a second kick, perc layer and an impact layer (Antidote Oblivion sample) I’ve reduced to noise with basic eq.
📷 Noumk 808 Kick Close up edit
The sample used has barely been altered if I’m honest but the simple ebb and flow of the impact sample allows for a much more dynamic first beat of the track as everything punches in for the drop. Trying to match the character of the frequencies in a single beat like this is the key to a good Noise perc in my opinion. For example, to attempt to match the biting transient of a kick with a fast attack mid-freq tom or noise sample adds meat to the bone for the first half beat whilst then filling the off-beat with a sort of reaction to the initial transient that coincides with the low end boom of the kick. In another one of my unreleased “Carpet Slug”, I’ll show you a noise layer of percs that add to the overall rhythm of a section.
📷 Carpet Slug Preview
CONCLUSION
These techniques represent a small slice of what can be achieved with more unorthodox percussion ideas. I try to use interesting motifs across each of the tracks I work on but it can help to try to unpack the percussion elements of other artists by detailed listening and experimentation. From my experience, the best percussive moments typically find themselves a result of pure happenstance and require an openness to more aggressive chopping and cutting of drums in order to express rhythm more distinctly. Typical drum machine style patterns can only take you so far.
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laces is an experimental club and electronic producer based from Melbourne, Australia. His recent track ‘Pace’ with TEEN is available on Bandcamp.
You can follow laces on Instagram @laceslaceslaceslaces & find their work at laceslaceslaceslaces.com
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