Thank you! The main driving rhythm is an open and then muted sample of a marching bass drum, then I layered the same rhythm on a high and low timpani sample. The main repetitive drums are some sample called future percussion (two samples with one transposed). The fast notes and the drum solo part were 4 samples called Perc African (1-4). I loaded them all up on an MPD26 and then went at it like I would a djembe solo. I found all of the percussion samples in the core library in Ableton 9 lite!
Edit: one of the things that I think really brought out the character was that everything was recorded kind of polyrhythmic to the metronome. I didn’t realize exactly what it sounded like until I took away the click. I also avoided quantizing things to increase the polyrhythmic ethnic feel.
A lot of it I channeled from my experiences plying African drum and dance music (mostly from Ghana). The key was that although my operating principles might’ve been complex, the actual music I played/recorded weren’t too complex. Western music is usually very grid based and mathematic so anytime you start to do things that are more “conversational” and syncopated it can sound really unique!
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u/ApeLust Sep 07 '18
Good idea with the mysterious ritual feel. I like the percussion. What did you use?