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I've been trying to incorporate some toms into my precussion. I normally just stick to cymbals (ride/crash), hi-hats, snares and kicks.

I have absolutely no idea about placement, patterns, EQing or volume.

Anyone know of a good recourse for learning?

many, many toms here:

http://subswara.com/steam/

Toms are one of those things where it depends on the drum beat playing - you got to experiment.

Ideally you'll want to EQ the drums so they sit in the mix properly(duh haha), also correct panning (having it panned like a real drum kit) would be nice, otherwise it wouldn't make much sense.

I would suggest building a drum beat relative to a real drummer playing it, if you want to use more traditional drum sounds. Don't have like a open hat, a closed hat a tom and snare all hitting at once..

legend4ry wrote:Toms are one of those things where it depends on the drum beat playing - you got to experiment.

I use them for quick fills mostly. Just a short roll at the end of a 4/8/16 bar loop or whatever. I think they give the drums a bit more flavour and energy.

like this:
K_______K_______
____S_______S___
h_h_h_h_h_h_h_h_
______________Tt

This tune has some nice toms in the beginning:


Also, Mannie Fresh has the best descending snare/tom rolls. The best, Jerry.

The problem with toms is they have a lot of tone to them that could create dissonance. If they are just playing by themselves in a fill they should be ok. Using them with in the whole beat you should probably tune them to the song as usually is the technique for recording bands. I think these are the reasons you don't hear them a lot in bass music. Even sometimes the 808 style basslines can serve as toms since toms basically sound like higher pitched kick drums in the first place.

Here's a pretty cool use of toms:

Gotta love dj nate.

I use them for rolls and fills a lot. Try playing them In live and work them into the rhythm just like any percussion sound. No rules just what sounds pleasing to the ear. Subswara is niiice with the complex tribal type percussion.

http://deadlyhabit.tentativerecordings. ... ection.mp3 tom/drum workout from ages ago

I love toms, tom fills are awesome and great fun to make ( check at about 3min 10sec in the tune in my sig ). I don't really have any advice other than to load up a nice set of toms and just go fucking mental with them and see what you can come up with, other than that try and think what is actually possible as a drummer, you got cymbals, a snare and a selection of toms but a drummer only has 2 arms, I think baring this in mind helps making cool fills.

As with most things in a mix it depends on the tune you're writing. If you're going for some sort of tribal percussion fueled tune then you'd put the more to the front than if they're just there for the odd ornamentation.

Personally, taking into account the way that I usually use toms, I often take a lot of bass out of them and focus on the treble/attack portion of them. Also panning automation on tom fills sounds pretty cool (I need to do this more).

But with 100% of sounds that you use in your tunes what sounds good, sounds good; you get me?

unfortunately just saying think like a drummer goes over most producers heads

This is how you use toms.




or like this: