Would anyone know how to make a shaker or maracas sound on Syntakt for house music?
Or do I need a sampler such as a Digitakt or Analog Rytm for that?
Looking at the abstract for maracas synthesis modelling, you could probably approximately a maracas by layering a couple tracks of band passed noise/FM with radomizing from LFOs. It’s an Interesting sound design challenge.
Whatever floats your boat. Any sampler/laptop would obviously be very capable of playing a recording of a shaker 
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Yup! Lots of ways to get there too. My approach would probably be start with a white noise-ish source(I like SY Bits) and then p-lock in a combination of slow and fast amp env attack along with maybe some slight pitch changes
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Legend thanks Robert!
Cheers Florid I’ll give it a go!
Really listen to the rhythm of the way people use shakers and maracas, it’s completely deliberate and the way the beads slide and then make subtle impact inside the shaker body to change the pitch is like it’s calling card. It doesn’t sound the same on every shake but there’s a pattern so try to hear the accents.
Think about how you can use a white noise hit with varying velocities and it can easily pass as a hi hat if given the role of hi hat. More important to have the rhythm perfect and the sound be a little flat because it will still give the impression of a shaker, where as a perfect shaker sound without the correct rhythm will again, sound like a hi hat with an off time rhythm.
If you listen for it, there’s usually also a pattern to the slight variation of the pitch you hear in what might be called one cycle or one bar of the shaker’s pattern, so like a repetition of upper mid tone, lower tone, high tone, lower mid tone and then back to the upper mid tone and so on. So in that way, I would plan on using more than one or 2 pitches otherwise it will just sound like a white noise clock going tick tock over and over. You want some longer notes and then shorter notes on the accents.
Definitely think this is possible though but I would encourage you to establish the rhythm, pattern and the pitches you intend to use before trying any sound design or it will probably trainwreck. You might even be happy with a more simple sound if it nicely fills up the space you’re trying to occupy with the maracas.
Anyway do what you want but that’s how I’d probably approach it. If using LFOs to imply movement after the rhythm is in place, I’d probably visualize the way the shaker beads move faster as they go across and naturally slow when they’re reflected off the opposite wall but are continually rolled around and so speed up a bit and slow down in pulses but never really stop. In that way, unlike hi hats have a more stacatto type of impact (shorter notes) even when theyre smooth, you want to work on having the pattern feel like a revolving door, seamless as it loops back into itself.
That’s all I got, hope it helps. Good luck, post your results!
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I think Syntakt has the noise machine, same as rytm, it’s pretty good for shakers,
example:
patch and trig notes, should be translateable to syntakt
4 trigs loop, trig 1 slightly low passed, trigs 2 and 4 have panning p lock to make stereo and some other decay/high pass p locks, trig 3 has no changes
btw no filter is used, only what’s available from the noise machine
noise machine settings:
amp:
lfo:
trig1 plock:
trigs 2+4 plocks:
trigs 2+4 also have pan plocks:
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Sounds good 
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with second lfo you could add extra variation to the attack making them even more “human”, or high rate peak filter cutoff movement to add grit… second lfo is a blessing 
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You gave him all the cheat codes and unlimited ammo, now he’s gonna turn into an NPC lol.
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I mean, it’s only what the noise gen can do, imagine that + shaker sample with pitch/position modified… 
(I’m not saying you should get the rytm, but I’m not saying you shouldn’t)
but yeah as far as synthesis goes the UT NOISE is very cool
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Are there not any presets of shakers already on the ST (in the sound pool)? I’m not nearby to mine otherwise I would check and I’m curious to know now. Anyway, if there are, it could be worth looking at those for inspiration.
Honestly I could make a better habit of doing the same when I’m looking for certain sounds.
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Saved for later. Cheers for this.
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It’s crazy how much of our impression of a sound is in how it moves, sometimes more than the actual sound itself.
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Your brain tricks you into hearing
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My brain tricks me into buying.
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Only the dead can know peace from gas
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Wow I want to be able to make this on the Syntakt somehow. That’s excellent! Thanks for the detail too I really appreciate it.
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check the patch notes, the layouts of the machines are a bit different but the parameters look the same, this is the layout of the noise machine in rytm
compared to syntakt
you can follow the 4 trigs p-locks and then just take it from there
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Thanks heaps! Yeah it seems to be a bit of a challenge as there isn’t anything in the sound pool but I think I’ll get there with all your guys help!
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