Hey people I'm working on creating my own samples with Logic synths and maybe some Pd programming. Kicks seem easy enough, but boy do I have a tough time with snares! I'm looking for two things:

1. I seem to recall some sort of pdf manual on the principles of drum synthesis, and I'm not finding it. Anyone know where this is?

2. How do y'all synthesize your snares?

I'm listening to a lot of Autechre here, as they represent (to me) the masterclass on synth drums. Thanks for helping me on my quest toward snappin', idiosyncratic rhythm tracks!

d

[noise~]
some filters (e.g [bp~]) and an envelope (e.g [envgen~]

Using noise by itself leaves the snare a little to hihaty. I like using it in conjunction with wavetable synthesis to lower the noise's pitch.

This example here uses [tabosc4~] to do just that. It's just a demonstration. You can set the pitch to taste, add filters and change the envelope.

You could also use it mixed with the unaltered noise to get more high frequencies.

Just open help-snare-wt~.pd and click on the bang.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/snare.rar

diplipito posted a nice simple sequencer the other day , in which you can find an example of snares and kicks and how to manipulate them.
http://puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-2515-drum-machine

Here are some I made: http://www.lubbertdas.org/pd/snare1.html and http://www.lubbertdas.org/pd/snare2.html

(I suppose it was bad form for me to put unnecessary GUI objects and fanned connections, but whatever.)

A simple snare obiwannabe turned me on to was a burst of noise and a 230hz sinewave.

somethig like this

[osc~ ] [noise~]
| |
| [*~ 0.05]
/
[+~] [bang(
| |
[hip~ 2000] [1 , 0 150(
| /
| [line~]
| /
[*~]
|
[dac~]

http://www.puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-3034-vintage-drum-machine also you can take a look inside this patch

Sound on Sound's Synth Secrets articles by Gordon Reid have some good designs and theory, including 808 and 909 schematics. You have to do a little trial and error as he doesn't give all the details, like frequency and bandwidth, but they're generally not too difficult to translate to Pd. Using a frequency-shifted oscillator for the "tuned" portion of the sound is a great trick he mentions.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Apr02/articles/synthsecrets0402.asp

Genius, guys. This is very helpful.

d

im having a lot of trouble myself emulating that one "CRACK" sound that you get slamming the stick down so it "whips" on the edge of the rim, and smacks real hard into the head.

snare emulation definitely is not trivial.

and of course you'd already know this ...

http://puredata.hurleur.com/viewtopic.php?pid=29625#p29625