Published on 2020-04-22 by Kenneth Flak
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A kick will only get you so far. For a bit of an old-school groove we also need something snappier in a higher frequency region, and the traditional way to do this is by synthesizing a snare drum. A passable synth-snare can be created by a burst of pink noise.
First of all, let's create the raw material by going to Generate -> Noise and select Pink for our Noise Type. Set the amplitude to 0.2 and duration to 8000 samples. This will give you a burst of approximately 0.18 seconds.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00003.png" >}}
Zoom in on the waveform.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00004.png" >}}
Create a simple amplitude envelope by fading the whole thing out.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00005.png" >}}
Copy the result and paste as many copies as you like into the timeline.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00006.png" >}}
Use the Time Shift tool to move things around until you are happy with the result.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00008.png" >}}
For a bit of variation, you can also select some of the hits and reduce their amplitudes with varying amounts, typically a value around -3db will do the trick.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00009.png" >}}
Create a bit of silence at the end of the loop...
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00010.png" >}}
... as well as a bit in the beginning...
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00011.png" >}}
... and glue the loop together by selecting the whole thing...
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00012.png" >}}
... and run Edit -> Clip Boundaries -> Join to get a single loop out of it.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00013.png" >}}
The final result should look something like this.
{{< figure src="/images/soundTech/audacitySnare00014.png" >}}