Drum by mouth.

This is another unusual percussion sample set I made. This time, it is made from sounds of mouth. I took a session of myself making strange noises in front of microphone and then cut the sounds to make them drum alike. I used slower playback for some of the sounds to lower the pitch, which is something I enjoy doing with all kinds of sample recordings. Lowering the pitch was helpful in making some samples sound closer to bass drum, as I think my mouth is not big enough to emit a proper kick sound. Original recording was 88.2 kHz, some sounds has been then set to playback at 44.1 kHz and some at 22 kHz. In the end, all sounds have been re-sampled to 44.1 kHz. I used no effects, besides mentioned manipulation of playback speed. Hardware I used is Audio Technica AT3035 microphone, Focusrite ISO One preamp and Echo Audiofire card. Samples were edited in Wavosaur and re-sampled with SOX. It sounds like this:




Download - 8MB. The archive contains 222 samples, wav format, mono 44.1 kHz / 24 bit. It's free to get and use in your music. I included Battery 2 kit I assembled for demo track, made from selection of 40+ samples. I suggest you to make your own  mapping for your sampler, one included is just a hint.

Breaking bread (crunchy percussion)

I was in fairly strange mood that day. I have found quite impressive collection of super dry bread pieces, buns, bread sticks and matzoh, dwelling upon my refrigerator. This stuff was crispy and crunchy and somehow I've seen a drum kit possibility in it. I took them to studio room and started to crush, smash, destroy, break up and take them apart with my bare hands in front of the microphone. Then I cut out some tasty slices out of the recording. I know it was a weird idea, but in the end, it sounds better than one might have expected. Here, listen, it's a short demo made with bread sounds only, with a pint of reverb:



You know, it may be a perfect candidate for your bread and butter drum kit. Get it here: download package - 3MB, 90 samples, wav format, mono 44.1 kHz / 24 bit, and for free. Also there's an example kit, using some of the sounds, in Battery 2 and sfz formats. The samples are split into two folders. '44 raw' contains 74 slices cut out of the original 88.2 kHz recording, re-sampled to 44.1 kHz. In '44 processed' folder, you will find heavily processed samples, basically the samples have been slowed down a great deal, cut and then up-sampled to 44.1 kHz. This way I transformed, crunchy bun breaks, into something more or less suitable to mimic bass drum or snare.

Trivia:
1. Matzoh wasn't kosher.
2. The side product of this production has been given to a friendly family of field mice, who live in my garden.

Stone age percussion kit.

This is the real rock percussion kit. One holidays I happened to stroll a mountain road into area filled with piles of stones and rock pieces. The weather was fine, the wind was blowing elsewhere and I took the opportunity to take a stone smashing session onto Zoom H2n recorder. Later I chopped it, to make a set of one shot rock hits samples, which I used to build a percussion kit in the sampler. It's fun and it sounds rather unique.

Sound demo - this is made of raw samples, with no effects:


And here's a song, in which I used this fine percussion kit for all of the "drum" sounds:


Download package - 9MB, includes samples in wav format, stereo 96kHz / 24 bit and mappings for Battery 2 or newer, which should also load into Kontakt. Not all of the sounds are mapped in the Battery kit, so take it as a demo and explore the sounds. Also there are no velocity layers or fancy programing, it's stone age kit after all. Free download.

Zombietronic drums.

I always loved weird robotic drum machines. This is set of electronic drum hits that I generated using virtual synthesizers and effects, back in 2008. It's in the face, electric slapping, whit no fancy velocity layers and such.

Sound demo:


Download package - 4,5MB, includes samples in wav format, 44,1 kHz / 24 bit and mappings for Battery 2 (which can be also loaded to Kontakt 2 or newer, or possibly, some other samplers). Free download.

And here's the discussion at KVRaudio.