A collection of vintage toy robots, some colorful and metallic, arranged on a shelf with a retro-style album cover in the background that reads "Mighty 8 with Magic Color."

Weird drums for fun and profit

The Fishermen & the Priestess

01 01 Tap tap tap 0:23

02 02 Crossing hyperspace 0:35

03 03 Scratched vinyl 0:23

04 04 One-two-three 0:11

05 05 Turn the tape 0:11

06 06 Leaky kick 0:23

07 07 Robot v8 0:11

08 08 Waltzing in the rain 0:23

09 09 Alien waltz 0:11

10 10 Space bubbles 0:11

11 11 You're going to damage the speakers 0:11

12 12 Crazy clock 0:11

13 13 Belly laugh 0:11

14 14 Happy bongo 0:11

15 15 Conga 0:11

16 16 Robot space force 0:23

17 17 Drum roll 0:11

18 18 Alien whistle 0:11

19 19 Tuning the radio 0:23

Downloads

I was reading an amazing collection of interviews with music producers by Martin Yam Møller. One of the questions that he asks all producers is "[what is the] most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?"

In the interview with Hainbach he answers by linking to a video where he teaches how to use a phaser to generate drums sounds. Hainbach uses the click from a Korg SQ-1 to generate fantastic sounds by cranking up the resonance in his phaser.

I decided to give it a try at home, using the Empress ZOIA as a phaser and delay. Since the ZOIA has two inputs I decided to use a Korg Volca instead of the SQ-1, so I could have drums and melody from a single machine! I decided to give the Volca FM a try, since I hadn't used it for a while.

I wasn't really happy with the FM sounds, but the drums sounds from processing the sync out on the ZOIA turned out to be super fun! So much that I decided to record 19 loops and make them available for free in a little sample pack. The loops were all recorded by running the Volca FM at 40 BPM, so they are in 80 BPM because the sync runs twice as fast.

I've released the whole collection as public domain, so you can use them commercially, resell them, use them as your ringtone, or whatever! Just have fun!