Building a sound palette
Build a sound from layers that each do one job, add a found sound, and save your night-time kit.
Body, top and tail
A big drum is often several sounds played at once. The body gives weight and pitch, the top gives the bright attack, and the tail sets how long it lingers. Describe the drum you want, then give each job to one layer.
Layers that don't fight
Layers work when each owns a different height (low, middle, high) and a different moment (the start or the tail). Two layers doing the same job just get louder and muddier.
Found sounds and texture
Burial built percussion from sounds like video game effects and laid crackle under his tracks. Kiasmos used a lighter's wheel as a hat. Small, odd sounds give a track its own world.
A kit is a palette
Your six track sounds together are a kit. The Model:Cycles can save the whole kit, and a preset lock lets a single step borrow a different sound.
Lesson 7
- Building a sound palette.
- In this lesson you will build a sound from layers that each do one job, add a found sound, and save your night-time kit.
Three layers, one hit
A short, bright top for the attack, a body for weight and pitch, and a tail for length. Played together, the ear hears one drum.
Switch through the three versions while it plays.
Each row is one layer on the same two steps. An example of the idea, built from this page's simple sounds.
With all three, it stops sounding like three sounds and becomes one fuller snare.
Think of your kit as a palette
Each sound owns its own spot, low or high, short or long.
A new sound fits best in an empty spot. Leave room for the bass and chords you'll add later.
- Play B01.
- Your soft snare from lesson 5 is the body.
- Give it a tail: select T2 and turn DECAY up a little, until each backbeat lingers.
A longer, softer hit.
Add a top layer on T3
Press RECORD, select T3, make sure the first page light is on, and press 5 and 13 so a hat plays with each snare.
The snare gets an edge, but your dark hat is the wrong colour for it. Shape it next.
Shape the top
- Hold 5 and turn DECAY right down.
- Then PITCH and SHAPE up.
- Do the same on 13.
- Hold both, press LEVEL/DATA until VEL shows, and set about 50.
A tiny bright tick that only adds edge. Listen to the snare: it should sound like one drum.
Copy the layer to every bar
- Hold 5 and 13 and press RECORD.
- Press PAGE for page 2, hold 5 and press STOP to paste.
- Repeat on pages 3 and 4.
Every backbeat has its top now, locks included.
Make a found sound on T4
Select T4, hold FUNC and turn PITCH up an octave, turn DECAY short and COLOR up until it sounds like a lighter's wheel or a click, not a drum.
A small, odd tick drifting on its 12-step loop and coming and going with its chance.
Borrow a sound with a preset lock
- Still on T4, hold 10 and press MACHINES to open the PRESET menu.
- Browse with LEVEL/DATA, press T4 to hear each one, and press LEVEL/DATA to lock a small, strange sound to that step.
Once round each 12-step loop, T4 plays a different sound. MACHINES lights when you hold that trig.
Save the kit
- Press RECORD to leave grid recording.
- Press FUNC + MACHINES.
- Then FUNC to open the save menu.
- Choose SAVE KIT and press LEVEL/DATA.
- Name it (hold FUNC and turn LEVEL/DATA to change a letter), press LEVEL/DATA and choose YES.
Your six sounds are now a kit you can load in other projects.
Save the pattern too
Hold FUNC and long-press SETTINGS.
In your layered snare, what job does the short T3 hit do?
Answer
It's the top layer: a short, bright attack that gives the soft snare an edge. The snare itself is the body, and its longer DECAY is the tail.
Describe the drum first (body, top, tail), then give each job to one layer.
This lesson's challenge
Listen to Burial's "Near Dark" again and list three sounds that are neither drums nor melody. Try to make one of them on T4 and preset lock it to another T4 step.