Some heady stuff. I think I understand you to mean the “a” on “one-e-and-a”, you would but a low Tom.
So not a down beat, but the last upbeat, I think.
There is this song “Let’s Stay Together” by this guy Al Greens and the drummer on it another Al something and he uses toms in it but probably not good to listen to because it came out too long ago and people like to argue if it’s actual a congo not a tom but I guess either Al knows the answer.
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In this song by Michael McCann, the toms are put to creative use and appear to be layered with other drum or percussive sounds: https://youtu.be/eL1jPWOEwB8?t=148
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Mute the toms. Load up a spectrum analyser on your drum buss and see where the sound may need filling out. Adjust toms to taste.
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Sits in my ever rotating top 5 songs of all time. When I die, if I get a choice, it will be to Let’s Stay Together
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When I die, It better be Thriller playing at my funeral, speaker in the casket for Vincent Price’s part.
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Totally depends. As mentioned earlier, toms are used in rock quite a bit. Just listened to Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave.” The drums are basically all toms. And definitely not like an idiot at a party. Also, if you are trying to emulate many Middle Eastern beats on modern drum machines, then toms are super useful. For instance, I program the “dum” sound with a high tom and “mah” with a low tom.
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For studying drum patterns, specifically famous breakbeats, I recommend this book (although not specifically about toms).
The Breakbeat Bible: The Fundamentals of Breakbeat Drumming
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I want Van Halen’s Jump played on the bagpipes but now I am starting to think it should be accompanied by some congos.
Ever listen to Muslimgauze? He used some tom-ish percussions and if he was the idiot at the party if and I was there I would hope he stayed until all night.
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Never could get the Rytm toms how I like it. With the TR8S(909 kit) I love them for baselines.
One workflow : 8 Step pattern. No trigs on the kick. Separate out for toms and than back into the input for sidechain ducking. Lowpass filter on the toms to taste. Short decay. When you placed the trigs for all three toms (no two trigs on the same step) than you can make different “melodies/basslines” with the tune of each tom. Super fast on the TR8S, because you have the tune knobs right to adjust without any menus diving or switching menus.
Sounds like this : 909 tom action
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Jeezus.
I clicked the link and found you staring into my soul!
The backbeat is the 2 and the 4 of a 4 beat measure. In 16 step drum machineland that would be step 5 and 13.
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Thank you.
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Me ? Really ? 
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hihi, yes that’s me ! I am harmless ! Maybe I should change the picture if people get scared ?
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Not the same at all, different things.
Attack phase of the filter affects the attack of the envelope applied to the filter. So let’s say you have an envelope applied to a filter where the envelope opens the filter up more (positive Filter Envelope Depth). A long attack would mean that the filter opens up slowly at the beginning of a held note, then transition into whatever else the envelope is doing (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release - ie ADSR). A fast attack on the filter envelope in that scenario would mean that the moment you play a note the filter is opened almost instantly.
Amp envelope affects the amplitude or loudness/intensity of your note itself. So a slow attack on an amp envelope would mean that your note will fade in slowly, then do whatever else the envelope is doing. A fast attack would mean that your sound/note is there instantly at full volume.
Velocity is how hard you strike the note and how that modulates “peak loudness” across the notes entire duration.
Example: you have a slow attack set for your amp envelope, so the note fades in slowly as you hold it. Whether you hit the note/key hard or soft, it will always fade in slowly, only the final volume/peak loudness it reaches will be different (louder for the hard hit than for the soft hit).
Amp envelopes are essential in shaping a sound. Eg a guitar and a viola both are string instruments, though they sound very different, a good part of that being their different envelopes (next to timbre etc). the attack of a fingerpicked guitar will be very fast and the sound will decay quickly as well. On a bowed instrument, if we bow slowly, the attack will be slow, decay & sustain will be slow/long, so you get a totally different sound.
Filter envelopes add movement to filter settings and can make your sound sound more alive and dynamic (filter envelope application can be linked to velocity, pitch etc…so you can get some nice variations in the filter’s settings across eg a bassline without ever touching the filter controls).
When affecting toms, you might want to mess with the decay if you want them snappier (shorter decay) or more resonant (longer decay). Attack could also be interesting to manipulate for a more resonant tom sound.
In general toms are used for fills and to add interest/variety to your groove. There are no hard rules of course, but I’ve always been told that the kick provides the “call” and the snare the “response” to a groove, while the hihats/ride connect those two into a conversation. Toms, crashes etc are for accents, fills, surprises and generally “turns of events”…maybe that’s a bit of a crude categorisation and in the end you just gotta do what sounds good n right to you, but I always found this helpful to reduce the “pressure” on using all the sounds in a drumkit when constructing a groove.
Banger.
No two trigs on the same step? What do you mean?
But yeah, 909 toms work great for this type of basslines. 909s just work great for techno stuff in general.
Btw, is the high pitched sequence (the one that’s playing 16th) also from the TR8s?
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No keep it. It’s a nice picture.
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You have Low, Mid and Hi Tom. Only one plays at the same time. If I remember right, the sound is from my modular. Mutable Instruments Plaits + Ripples and sequenced by Metropolix.
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