Quick Tip: Snare Drum Eurorack Modular Synthesizer Patch Tutorial

Published on Oct 1, 2019 Perfect Circuit

"Here is a quick tip showing one way to make a snare drum on a eurorack modular synthesizer.

You will need:
- a trigger source (clock or sequencer)
- two envelope generators (snappy exponential ones)
- a VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) with a sine wave output
- a noise generator
- two VCAs (voltage controlled amplifier)
- a mixer

The patch:
- trigger source to trigger input of both envelope generators
- envelope generator 1 output with short decay to VCO 1v/oct input
- envelope generator 2 output with longer decay to VCA CV control for both VCAs
- VCO and noise output to inputs of VCAs
- VCA outputs to mixer inputs
- mixer output is your snare drum

A snare drum is made of two sounds, a tonal part and a noise part. Here we made the tonal part by using a sine wave oscillator with a short decay envelope modulating the oscillator’s frequency. The noise part is made with a white noise generator. These two signals can then be mixed together and run through a VCA with a longer decay envelope.

To change the sound you could change the tuning of the sine wave or filter the noise. You could also adjust the envelope modulating the pitch of the sine wave and how much it affects the pitch. Adding distortion, saturation or compression to a snare can also improve the sound.

Modules used (left to right):
Make Noise Maths: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/make-n...
Make Noise STO: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/make-n...
ALM MCO: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/alm-bu...
WMD DVCA: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/wmd-dv...
Soundmachines LS1: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/soundm...
Intellijel Quad Att: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/intell..."