How do you use your drones?

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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Shift_24
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How do you use your drones?

Post by Shift_24 »

I would like to know what do you think when you make drones, do you have in mind some certain kind of sound and try to evolve to "tell" something?; Or just use it to fill a 6 minutes track with a loop and make it not repetitive.

I usually do the last case, and I feel like can't connect my loop with a proper atmosphere sound (probably due to my lack of knowledge synthesizing drones xD)

Do you make them by sampling or use vst?

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by nomadjames »

I let the Lyra-8 generate them, send some to a tape delay, and fuck with it till it’s time to drop a beat
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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by intrusav »

I use it to spy on my sexy neighbour. She has a shower on a Thursday night and she has a butterfly tatoo on her left cheek. It sets my heart aflutter ..

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by intrusav »

I actually only posted cos the title made me laugh, and I'm drunk, again ..

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by Prophän »

I like to record bassy drones, put some lfo'd filtering on it for several bars (autofilter is a good example), resample that, then I side-chain it to the kick and may resample the sidechained version to try to get something decent sounding. maybe throw some automation too (delay amount and reverb decay time are good examples)

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Lost to the Void
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Post by Lost to the Void »

I send them out to do my bidding in the world of the proles.
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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by rabbit »

intrusav wrote:I use it to spy on my sexy neighbour. She has a shower on a Thursday night and she has a butterfly tatoo on her left cheek. It sets my heart aflutter ..
:lol:
same same i was about to write
over.

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by nomadjames »

intrusav wrote:I use it to spy on my sexy neighbour. She has a shower on a Thursday night and she has a butterfly tatoo on her left cheek. It sets my heart aflutter ..
She only showers on Thursdays? That hot.
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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by Shift_24 »

hahaha yeah I know the title seems a bit weird

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by P0607r0n »

intrusav wrote:I use it to spy on my sexy neighbour. She has a shower on a Thursday night and she has a butterfly tatoo on her left cheek. It sets my heart aflutter ..
Can I come for a "jam" on Thursday? :ugeek:

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by acesd619 »

I tend to use drones on a sectional downbeat for impact rather than trying to fill an entire track with a drone. You ideally should want to automate parameters and effects if it is going to be an important part of the track.

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by acesd619 »

Shift_24 wrote:I usually do the last case, and I feel like can't connect my loop with a proper atmosphere sound (probably due to my lack of knowledge synthesizing drones xD)

Do you make them by sampling or use vst?
In addition, I think it is not so much about the synthesis but rather the processing especially since I would lean towards using an external LFO with a more interesting shape to modulate something. Saturation, filtering, reverb, maybe try some ring modulation and then comp and EQ if needed. The synthesis is the easy part methinks - a couple detuned pulse oscillators is a solid enough starting point. Improper atmospheric sound as you describe it would come down to processing and mixing - not synthesis. Just my two cents.

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Aren`t we kind of past drone filled techno now already?
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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by dubdub »

Lost to the Void wrote:Aren`t we kind of past drone filled techno now already?
You don't get it, it's the hottest, most edgy underground sound of 2009!

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by jordanneke »

I use them to hunt down people in a post apocalyptic future. They only work in black and white.

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by jordanneke »

intrusav wrote:I actually only posted cos the title made me laugh, and I'm drunk, again ..
And now?

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by acesd619 »

Lost to the Void wrote:Aren`t we kind of past drone filled techno now already?
You strike me as an artist who would fancy being in a white padded room composing with the noise of a broken clock radio. We are past everything and the smoke is all that remains.

This reminded me to bring up using a handheld field recorder. Record the hum and buzz of household appliances and you have your drones. That is what a drone is supposed to be. I'm fixing to record the drone of a drone before I send it out into traffic to record more drones.

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by Lost to the Void »

acesd619 wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:Aren`t we kind of past drone filled techno now already?
You strike me as an artist who would fancy being in a white padded room composing with the noise of a broken clock radio. We are past everything and the smoke is all that remains.

This reminded me to bring up using a handheld field recorder. Record the hum and buzz of household appliances and you have your drones. That is what a drone is supposed to be. I'm fixing to record the drone of a drone before I send it out into traffic to record more drones.

Field recordings you say?

Would be great if there was a thread on that.

http://subsekt.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=7262
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Lost to the Void
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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by Lost to the Void »

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Re: How do you use your drones?

Post by acesd619 »

Some good insight there thanks for sharing. I think it's high time for me to get back to finding sounds with my handheld. I knew there was a purpose for this detour!


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