Electronic clap sound

[A. Einstein]

 

I'm pretty sure the same thing has been said about distorted electric guitar.

 

 

guitar is not en vogiee this season, that's why I added some

[rasputin1963]

How many of you disco-lizards remember this Italo-dance hit from 1984? I used to love this retarded record. (synthy-handclaps galore, and a suitably cheezy DX7 pan-flute patch at 1:56)

 

[video=youtube;WSW2I5U5338]

[Folder]

 

 

 

I've never heard that one, but then again I've never been to Italy.

The claymation combined with the live action is pretty cool and was probably pretty advanced for 1984.

[Folder]

 

I too bought the RX15 for that same reason. !!! The Shakers sounded good too if I recall.

 

 

Yeah, I used the shakers more than I ever used the clap sound.

 

Another thing about the RX15 was that it seemed to have a really good feel.

I bought a second hand Korg a few years later and no matter how I programed it, I could never get it to groove right. Everything I ever recorded with the Korg sucked because the feel was all wrong.

 

Now you would think that as far as feel is concerned a drum machine is a drum machine.

They have different sounds but they should all have the same feel.

 

Years later I read that one of the reasons the Akai MPC became so popular was because the hip-hop guys said it grooved better. Particularly the swing function.

 

I started thinking that maybe the electronic signals in the Yamaha might have had some kind of timing irregularities or something. Maybe the snare was being triggered ever so slightly late or something. It doesn't make any sense to me but even to this day using MIDI in Sonar I've never been able to program anything that felt as good as that Yamaha RX15.

 

Once I started using MIDI and Acid loops of real drummers I gave up trying to program my own drum tracks. There's really no point in it anymore considering I can now choose tracks played by some of the best drummers in the world.

[PermaNoobie]

I don't mind the simulated clap sound, but I also don't have a particular association attached to it.

 

For me, it's just a relatively dry sound that cuts through and gets out of the way quickly.

On an acoustic kit, I'll occasionally get that kind of sound (not my original technique) by placing a splash cymbal on the snare's batter head and striking the cymbal itself.

[Anderton]

I must steal this idea for a Craig's List in Electronic Musician - "The Five Cheesiest Production Techniques of All Time." Or maybe "The Five Most Cliched Digital Sounds of All Time."

[Folder]

Can't tell if this is an actual clap sample or not, but it pretty much ruins what I consider to be an otherwise great song and recording.

 

[video=youtube;BnN4dRrPSPc]

[Folder]

 

I must steal this idea for a Craig's List in Electronic Musician - "The Five Cheesiest Production Techniques of All Time." Or maybe "The Five Most Cliched Digital Sounds of All Time."

 

 

Please do.

 

Maybe some of the R&B producers might decide they'd like to try some new and creative production techniques that would distinguish their music from all the rest.

 

Maybe they could hire a real drummer.

[Folder]

 

I must steal this idea for a Craig's List in Electronic Musician - "The Five Cheesiest Production Techniques of All Time." Or maybe "The Five Most Cliched Digital Sounds of All Time."

 

 

Please do.

 

Maybe some of the R&B producers might decide they'd like to try some new and creative production techniques that would distinguish their music from all the rest.

 

Maybe they could hire some real drummers.

[rasputin1963]

 

 

 

I would forgive this one, perhaps, seeing as the musicians and producer are, artistically, seeking to break rules and create a most unusual record (not rock, not folk, not C&W, per se, but something else. White R&B ?). "Reclaiming" a tired sonority in a PoMo fashion. And it is an amazingly hip record. (Am I reading too much into it? People tell me I do this.)

[BlueGreene]

I find the claps sample in the Missy Higgins song appropriate. It feels dank, low down 'n homey -- Like there's a whole group of people helping deliver the emotional narrative.

 

I can understand it feeling out of place in music that uses a standard drum set. There's something that goes hand in hand with the snare and the hihat. But what about other types of music incorporating all types of rhythmic sounds into the drum set/rhythm section -- Does the clap 'ruin' the experience? (even if one doesn't like say.... electronic music in the first place)

 

*in attempts to not take up too much space with my banter...*

Sweet feel on the hihat on this one. Sounds kinda like bundle sticks to me. Crazy snap/whip 'snares'.

 

 

And Eskmo... In one word: crispy. There's probably more than ten sounds used for the 'snare' in this one.

 

[rasputin1963]

Funny thing about the clap (the standard synthesized sound as we have come to know it). There have been times when I thought I'd be more "organic", and record some handclaps of my own... Maybe layer three tracks of my handclapping into one big pleasing "slap" sound of sharp white noise that, as a digital sample, could nicely augment my snare's backbeat.

 

But I found it was sometimes hard to get a nice, and fairly uniform, "clap" sound this way (the right amount of sharpness, noise, chorusing, immediacy, reverb, etc.) I remember, in some of my mixes in the early 1990's, I just went ahead and used a generic synthy/drum handclap patch, because it was uniform, and conveyed the idea of a "clap" (if not the reality of it).

[Folder]

 

I find the claps sample in the Missy Higgins song appropriate. It feels dank, low down 'n homey -- Like there's a whole group of people helping deliver the emotional narrative.

 

 

I listened to it a few more times and I still don't like it. I think it's too loud in the mix and like I said, it ruins the entire song for me. I guess I'm picky like that but I've really grown to dislike the clap sound over the years (especially when it is used in place of a snare drum). I don't like the DX7 rhodes and reverb gated snares either but nothing compares to my disdain for the clap sample.

 

I liked a lot of songs from the eighties that used the clap sample and I still like them but it doesn't mean that I don't notice it when they come on the radio.

 

I used to work at a studio in the early 2000's and most of the other producers who worked there all used the clap sample "excessively". I hated 99.9 % of the music they produced. I thought their music was deriative and souless and all of them were trying to sound just like each other.---- I guess I've been conditioned to rebel against it.

 

I still like this song though.

 

[video=youtube;xtrEN-YKLBM]

[techristian]

 

 

 

Yes that song has CLAPS on 2 and Finger Snaps on 4. A good drummer would play heavy snare on 2 & 4. So this may be a possible reason for a producer putting in claps. If the drummer doesn't play a consistent volume on 2 and 4 (like in all of our great Motown hits) the producer might just overdub claps ? You think? ..and also this was a fad back then.

 

Dan

[Jorge7]

This computer clap/snap sound is the most annoying I have heard.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XKirCbflZU&feature=related

 

The singer / songwriter (India Arie) is so talented and creative, with really good musical taste, I find it very hard to understand how she could tolerate that totally artificial tacky sound. It smears the time and degrades the sound of the song. Surely she could have found 5 people to clap live in the studio, or one to overdub 5 times, or something, anything, that sounds better than that. She uses that sound on many of her songs, not just this one. I don't get it.

Full disclosure: I am a percussionist (live not sequencer) with lots of unemployed friends and colleagues.

[Folder]

 

I'm pretty sure the same thing has been said about distorted electric guitar.

 

 

Maybe so.

 

I associate the distorted electric guitar with peace, love and futuristic space travel.

 

The clap sample is associated with gangsta rap. Gangta rap is associated with violence, misogyny, and narcissism.

 

We all associate. It's a basic human instinct.

[MargeHowel]

That might be something to focus on...that personal association.

 

I notice you're in Atl which might strengthen that association with the hand clap sound.

 

I don't have those same associations with that or the electric guitar.

 

come to think of it, a lot of what people call R&B now doesn't register as R&B to me

[Folder]

 

I notice you're in Atl which might strengthen that association with the hand clap sound.

 

 

Huh?

[BlueGreene]

 

Maybe so. I associate the distorted electric guitar with peace, love and futuristic space travel. The clap sample is associated with gangsta rap. Gangta rap is associated with violence, misogyny, and narcissism. We all associate. It's a basic human instinct.

 

 

Maybe I'm slow on the uptake, but there's the whole crux of the matter.

[MargeHowel]

 

Huh?

 

 

Atlanta, with its music scene

[Folder]

 

Atlanta, with its music scene

 

 

You must not know much about the Atlanta music scene. It's VERY diverse.

[Anderton]

 

You must not know much about the Atlanta music scene. It's VERY diverse.

 

 

Indeed, but rap is big compared to some other places. I did a digital mixing seminar and there were a couple hundred people. One group was all suits and ties and Turner broadcasting, the other was all gold chains and shoes, with a bunch of rockers sprinkled in to keep it interesting.

 

I've done several seminars in Atlanta over the years. The level of knowledge of people coming into the seminars, and the questions that were asked, were generally above average. Seems people there take their music seriously.

 

OTOH the traffic getting to the airport in the morning...not so good. It was weird to stay at an airport hotel a couple miles from the airport, and being told to allow for an hour or so of transit time.

[MargeHowel]

 

Indeed, but rap is big compared to some other places..

 

 

yup, just that, nothing more

 

Folder, it wasn't a slam on Atlanta. I never said Atlanta was a musical monoculture, just pointing out those styles has a bigger presence there (in a way, it's saying Atl can be somewhat MORE diverse)

Like you mentioned working in a studio with a lot of that sort of sound happening...like Craig points out, it's not so big other places.

It sounds like you might even have a more negative opinion about some of the music, than I do - so for me pointing out relative popularity of a music style doesn't include the negative connotation you might be putting on it.

[kurdy]

The electronic clap in and of itself doesn't really offend me. But I do mourn the loss of the snare in pop music. To me, that's the element that always contributed heavily to a track's energy. In the '80s, even though it was often just an electronic snare sample that may sound dated today, it really propelled the beat, and your body often wanted to move along with it. Just listen to almost any track by Michael Jackson or Prince. A tinny little electronic clap thing just doesn't have that same impact.

 

Styles change, trends change...I just hope someone eventually brings that element back. As they say, everything old becomes new again, which is very often true. So maybe there's hope for it yet.

[PermaNoobie]

TO me, the "snare" role (I use the term functionally, I hesitate to just classify it as the "backbeat" which would constrain the music structure possibly too much) is one that is especially amenable to timbral expression (myself, I'm quite taken with the Pearl symphonic snare with the multi-strainer to allow for a variety of tonal coloration on-the-fly).

So I tend to find the "snare" position can be filled by any variety of generally sharp sounds. While, in-vogue, certain sounds may, perhaps, be overused in an attempt to lazily leverage some already existing association (or to access novelty while the getting's still good) - I, personally, enjoy alternative instrumentation comprising a now-traditional trapkit.

 

In regard to the specifically electronic...I think, in context, the overly mechanical can lend just that aesthetic statement - a driving mechanical as opposed to human force. This doesn't necessarily have to be aggressive music, in fact I find some of the sound can be quite light as the mechanical nature lends a lot of structure to support a lighter sound and still give it emphasis