The Making Of… “Cape Town Trailer Drummers”

Gothic Hybrid’s latest release sees our finest trailer composers mould incredible drum recordings by Jika Drummers from Cape Town into powerful trailer backbones, full of impact, energy and intensity. We spoke to composers Marko Tica, Sami J. Laine, Tyler Olsen, Joao Gabriel Rodrigues and Maks Piszczek about how they approached this unique project.

How did you go about adding trailer power to these evocative and wonderfully organic drum recordings? Was is difficult to keep the organic feel when adding extra power?

MT: With recordings that good and with such awesome players, it was no problem at all! I just gave it all a bit of a trailer-ish push with some nice sound design elements. Tried my best to keep it all as organic as possible.

SJL: I mostly tried to create and find similar percussion to what was recorded, only making them sound bigger through production techniques. This made it fit in but also feel way more exciting and aggressive.

TO: I was able to identify room around the drum recordings sonically that allowed me to not only amplify what was already there, but to also support around it making the recordings the star of the track. I did not find it challenging to utilize something already so great sounding, even with the extra power.

JGR: Working with percussion based tracks is one of my favourite puzzles! It was just a matter of finding the underlying rhythmic power of the patterns being played and emphasising them with trailer-sized elements and added percussion lines.

The power and the syncopated frenzy was there — it was just a matter of properly identifying them.

MP: Trailer slams and hits were a must to make it sound massive and powerful. Adding neutral SFX and drums was the key here.

Did you have a clear idea of how you wanted to trailerize these recordings? Or did you have to wait until you got your hands on the audio?

MT: I had some assumptions of how it all would sound. I did some research too. I wanted to have clear trailer structure but to retain organic tempo balance from original recordings. It really helped to hear that original recording has a natural rise to it, building the track up from start to the end just like we do in trailers.

SJL: At first I have to say I had no idea how I’d do it, but once I heard the recordings things became more clear, although I did spend a full day adding hitpoints.

TO: I had listened to Ludwig Göransson’s Black Panther score before getting my hands on the audio for Cape Town Trailer Drummers, which gave me some ideas when going into a trailerized version of the audio. Once I got the audio, I had a clear vision on how I wanted to proceed with the track.

JGR: Being Brazilian I grew up surrounded by complex syncopated rhythms being played by large percussion ensembles, so the process was extremely natural to me.

MP: I started working with these recordings having a clear idea how to trailerize it and the final result is what I wanted to achieve.

Can you imagine a perfect usage for either your trailerized version or the original drummer’s version of your cue?

MT: Ohhh I can hear it and see it in sooo many scenarios. From action trailer to superhero stuff and all over any sort of intense thriller or sport advert.

SJL: Probably some sort of dramatized documentary about wildlife or alternatively maybe an ad campaign for action-focused game/series/film set in Africa.

TO: I don’t imagine my track would get used in full from start to finish, but I’d like to think there is an African themed show or film out there that could benefit from a hard hitting trailer track that still holds true to the organic rhythms played there.

JGR: Anything in need of POWER — from sports ads to massive trailers.

MP: I think it would fit perfectly for a movies such as Godzilla, Kong, Black Panther.

There’s an immense amount of skill and talent present in the original drummer’s recordings, what did you think when you first heard them?

MT: My first thought was: why do we ever bother to use libraries when live recording sounds sooooo much better and feels way more natural.

SJL: Definitely felt like picking up drumming again! It’s really inspiring hearing talented musicians play.

TO: I think after hearing the live audio recordings I was hit with inspiration and excitement to hit the ground running with the track. The amount of energy and drive the recordings provided was amazing to say the least.

JGR: Again, being Brazilian, it instantly felt like home. Brazilian traditional genres are a direct relative to African music, and I grew up surrounded by the very same instruments and rhythms found in the recordings.

MP: I thought that there’s nothing better than live recorded drums because they contain the details and nuances impossible to obtain in the digital world.

Were there any specific instruments (live or virtual) that helped you create these trailerized versions?

MT: I used my moog synth for some pulsing elements and risers. I also live played two floor toms and sound designed them into custom hits cause I wanted to mach tonality and feel of the live drums.

SJL: Mostly Dhols and Taikos. They fit in very well even if they’re not strictly of South African origin.

TO: I was able to utilize a wide variety of ethnic libraries within Logic Pro as well as EW Silk & EW Ra in addition to the wonderful sound design elements from Keepforest’s wonderful sound design packages.

JGR: Nothing specific, no. Just a whole lot of experimentation.

MP: Actually no. Just pure percussion and touch of sound design.