FSU Effects

WiresDreamDisasters

FSU Effects - otherwise known as the 'fuck shit up' effects category. Bit crushers, modulators, weird distortions, etc.

I've got ... I dunno... 4 different acoustic drum performances. I want to apply effects to some of them to make the drums sound more electronic, or at least less like acoustic drums.

Anyone got any recommendations? Not really looked for this kind of thing for a while!

WiresDreamDisasters

@Heartfeltdawn @octatonic @guitarfishbay @Cirrus

guitarfishbay

Depends what kind of electronic sounds you want? I’d be gating quite heavily with what would spring to my mind., I’d probably do the whole “dream gate” thing where all the shell transients are their own regions so you can get consistent length hard gating, as consistency would be part of what would make something sound “electronic” to me.

Could get something fun by sending everything except the kick to a reverb that gets distorted/mangled in some way (before or after reverb to taste), then side chain compress that with a processed kick.

I can’t tell if you’re looking to buy a new plug or not, but my guess is you own evough stuff to get cool sounds for this purpose already.

octatonic

I am guessing you want a plugin rather than hardware?

Probably the best for this sort of thing would be Permut8 by Sonic Charge: https://soniccharge.com/permut8
It is a 12 bit delay with a variable sample rate- things can get really fucked up and crunchy and it has a stepped sequencer function for changing functions and a load of alternative 'firmware' for it (actually software but whatever).

In terms of distortion plugins the best are Decapitator (Soundtoys), Black Box HG2 (Brainworx) and Thermionic Culture Vulture (UAD).
The latter two are based on hardware units that sound better than the plugins but both are over a grand and the HG2 is over two grand. The plugins are fine, really.

Cirrus

I like what Soundtoy's LittleAlterBoy can do to percussion - I've mostly used it in parallel on Snares to give them some cloudy low end for looser sounds, but also works for down-pitching Hi Hats which instantly gives them an 808, grainy sort of vibe.

Beyond that (and without hearing the parts or context) my first instinct would actually be to take a whole drum performance, bus it to a mono track, and distort it, compress it, mangle it with eq, stick a rhythmic delay on it using whatever, and generally make it sound like the whole acoustic kit is coming down one mono output of a synth.

Heartfeltdawn

Destroying drums to me means mid to late 90s and the Sherman Filterbank. Plug-in world now, I'd hit Cytomic's The Drop. It's on my 2020 list unless it comes up cheap this year. 

Distortion: everything Octatonic said is cracking. I'm liking Klanghelm's SDRR a lot for saturation and it has a bit crusher built in. Dirt cheap and excellent. 

https://klanghelm.com/contents/products/SDRR/SDRR.php
  

octatonic

All of the Klanghelm plugins are stellar and a no-brainier.

PolarityMan

Trigger battery with it?

octatonic

PolarityMan said:

Trigger battery with it?

Or Slate Trigger, Drumagog or another sample replacement plugin.

Another thing that can be interesting is apply extreme pitch shifts to individual drum voices- snare or bass drum up by an octave, then grid it tightly with Beat Detective (if you have access to Pro Tools) and get rid of the room mics and OH's, just hats/bd/snr/toms.
That will sound pretty synthetic.

lasermonkey

I bought the Audio Damage FSU bundle for that specific purpose. I use Automaton and Replicant most of all. They're a lot of fun!

oaf

Vocalsynth 2?

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/products/vocalsynth/using-vocalsynth-2-on-different-instruments.html

gibsongretschfan

Do you have Reaktor? Get on to the Reaktor forum, theres loads of really out there FX etc on their for you to download from the community. Its a serious rabbit hole though, you have been warned