This past week I've been walking around town with my 404 looking for sounds to make a beat out of. I found kids chanting for a cymbal, a bus door opening for an open hat, a wrench dropping on a Jiffy Lube floor for a snare, and a hammer nailing a board for a bass drum. I was just wondering if anyone else has done stuff like this and what kind of sounds they found to use for drums.

i have. skateboard sounds. train sounds. hand claps. kicking a box. i've used MFX 22 to sub-sonic "kick" sounds, etc. basically anyfing will work.

half of my tunes consist of found sounds. but I am using other mobile recorders to record these. most of the time its the mic input from my cellphone. which is great cause it records in the worst format ever: .amr but there is always this really delicate blanket of noise over everything, I like it.
Ive recorded a lot spanning from ambient noises (rain, people passing by, mumbling in and around trains, highways etc.) to classic field recordings of birds, frog lakes etc. unfortunately a lost of that recordings got lost recently because of an HD crash.
I am planning to get more serious soon regarding field recordings and purchase something like the H1 mobile recorder. but I am afraid I will always come late afterwards cause there is just too much sonic beauty around us all day.

recorded ambient sounds adds a nice atmosphere! Im trying to make down tempo songs with ambient sounds. Next week i will bring my sp-404 to the train station. For some additional stereo recordings.

Let me hear what you come up with!

I like the sound of this. Seems like it would make nice organic songs.
What do you use to record, the external mic?

I get some of my drums by cockslapping various objects.

i remember i recorded me and my girl once she sewed me

Just tried that and got a sweet sample of someone saying "What the fuck are you doing?"

yeah i just use the internal mic on the 404. it works pretty well. I just go wandering around town and record stuff if i hear something cool. its a pretty relaxing thing actually. i've gotten several people asking me what i'm doing though, because i just walk around with headphones plugged into the 404, and i just tell them it's my brand new mp3 player!

I'll post when i've got something finished.

Drew

tell them its the iPhone5 and you'll start a riot.

i also carry around my Zoom H2, and record ish with that, come home, dump it over to pc and then mess around w/ the samples / samplers.

i've done a beat where i had some drums on loop, resampled it via an external device with the internal mic open, making some ambient-type drum sounds to complement and add some variation to the loop. i really liked the result.
i will try more of that type, but i also want to try recording outside, in the park and such, or record car doors smashing, people shouting and so on.

If you can try not to think about 'this will be a good cymbal' etc..

Try to forget all the preconceptions about beats.. it frees you alot with field recordings..

look for rhythms in things, pitches, layers, etc.. mesh together 3 recordings/slice of recordings, instead of separate things into separate percussion instruments.

yeah, that's a great idea. i have found that trying to make drums out of sounds can produce very stiff sounding beats. And while it's still pretty cool sounding, it just doesn't seem quite right. But you are totally right that it's all about rhythm and not necessarily percussion.

I have done this.. I use my car keys as hi hats, I use a empty water bottle (by squeezing it) as a rim shot, open and close your mailbox for a tom (jsut as long as you get the woof part when you open it, it is short so you might have to do this like 10 times then layer them)