EDIT: Tips for people who want to improve with percussion:
I'd say I do percussion pretty well since I use it in a lot of my sequences. If you want to see how I use percussion, check them out here:
https://onlinesequencer.net/members/569
Before I start, have a sample of the potential of percussion:
https://clyp.it/dwypdhxm (despite this being a clyp link, it was made in OS. It is a 16k note sequence that can crash browsers due to the immense instrument stacking, so I recorded it and uploaded it to clyp instead.)
Percussion is a tricky instrument to use, and I think it's one of the most underutilized instruments in OS. Percussion done right generally stands out and is one of the best ways for me to break away from the usual OS emptiness/OS sound, and make something sound complete. Over the years, I've learned and figured out some tricks to get percussion to sound pretty good.
1. The percussion instruments sound better if they're layered with the other percussion instruments.
The percussion instruments played alone sound pretty lackluster, so add more of them together to make it sound more complete. A good example is to use both Kick Drum 1 and 2 as a single kick in your sequence. Sometimes you can even add the toms or the high Q along with kick 1 and 2 to make the kick as crispy, loud, or distinct as you need it to be. The same applies for the hi-hats and cymbals. I rarely ever use a single hi-hat as a hi-hat. I typically use more than 3 cymbals to get that crispy crash sound I want.
2. The percussion should not be drowned out by the other instruments in your sequence.
If one uses multiple instruments in a sequence, or even increases the volume of instruments with the volume slider, I have observed that some instruments get drowned out more than others, and a perfect example of an instrument easily drowned out is percussion. Good percussion is audible percussion. Unless you intention is to let the percussion be drowned out, crank that volume slider to max, and stack as many percussion notes as you need to get that percussion to shine.
3. Proper rhythm is essential.
If it wasn't obvious enough, all these stacking/sound layering techniques won't matter at all if the percussion is off-beat. The more off-beat it is, the worse it gets. Off-beat percussion sticks out like a sore thumb, and can ruin a sequence. It's pretty easy to get rhythm down right unless you're trying to pull off some Math Rock-esque stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNcXo7_b9M4
4. Add some drumbeat variety. Monotony/repetitiveness is pretty boring.
Unfortunately, I can't properly explain this since I taught myself how to make music just by listening to music, so I don't know a lot of proper terminology. Percussion usually has variations at specific intervals to reduce the monotony/repetitiveness of the beat and keep it f r e s h.
5. Don't sleep on percussion.
We all know percussion is pretty tedious to do, especially if you already put a lot of effort putting the rest of your sequence together. Even if it is tedious, don't slack on it. Like the other instruments, percussion needs some time and effort to truly shine. Oh, and if you decide on how your beat goes in terms of layering and stacking, PLEASE COMMIT TO IT. Percussion quality that degrades as the sequence goes due to laziness sounds pretty bad. I've been there quite a lot. Remember that copy paste is a thing, and is an absolute GODSEND for percussion. I'd likely spend hours trying to get the stacking down if I did it manually.
EDIT: I THOUGHT THIS WAS A POST ABOUT NEEDING TIPS FOR PERCUSSION GOOD ***** 6 AM READING SKILLS, anyway, I hope it's still relevant and can help people. I can also help with adding percussion for people if necessary.
