Make Clap Sounds That Stand Out

Music genres like hip-hop, electro, and house can't be imagined without clapping sounds. One of the most famous and distinctive claps is the one from the TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines, developed by Roland. Nowadays, many VST instruments are designed to generate clap sounds, but in this following tutorial, we will show you one that we particularly like. Here is a previously made sequence in our SoundBridge: DAW, which contains some essential elements of a full mix. We will use it to incorporate clap sounds in a few different ways. Let's hear how that sounds.

~Full mix - Without Clap

The Clap Machine

The sequence sounds decent, although it could benefit from the sound of a clap here and there. We will add a fresh instance of Clap Machine by 99Sounds and place it on a new track in our project.

As you can see, the interface is pretty simple, with just a few parameters to control. The more significant portion of the interface is taken by two big knobs that control the attack and release of the clap sound. O  the right side of the "Hand," there are two additional knobs that control the overall volume and the dry/wet signal of the reverb. Hit keys on your MIDI keyboard or add notes on the MIDI edit window; you will notice many clap sounds, each located on almost every key. This gives you a wide variety of different sounds to choose from. We will start by adding a simple hand clap sound in the same place where the snare drum hits. Let's hear how that sounds now.

~Full mix - Clap Machine 1

You can hear the snare sound emphasized with the layered clap, which gives a great sense of space to the overall rhythm section.

Build Up and Drop Effects with Clap Sounds

We can also use the Clap Machine to make a build-up with the help of additional effects such as reverb and frequency shifter.

Let's hear this first solo and then in context with the other elements of the mix.

~Clap Machine Build-Up - Solo

~Clap Machine Build-Up - with Full Mix

Lastly, we can use the Clap Machine to make an effect to substitute the sound of a crash at the beginning of the drop. We do this with the help of reverb as well. Here is how it sounds: solo and then with the other elements of the mix.

~Clap Machine FX- Solo

~Full Mix - With Clap sounds from Clap Machine

At SoundBridge, we feel this is a VST worth checking out.