Hit a metal bin with a stick and you get multiple sounds. Give a group of professional studio drummers a few bins, a snare and a tom and they will out-punch a drum kit in an open space, which is the entire reason this sound exists.
In the Trash Can Ensemble Kit, we have recorded it properly: four musicians, tracked in a studio so every hit is loud and clean, as a set of industrial percussion samples inside Sonic Atlas.
One Bin – Multiple Sounds
The kit is built around the fact that a metal can is not a single instrument. Where you hit it changes what you get.
- Big metal hits : the broad, ringing strike across the body
- Deep booms from inside the can : the low end, with the body of the container behind it
- Sharp cracks from the rim : the transient that cuts through anything
Metal percussion samples recorded clean in the studio
Why it cuts through a mix
A metal bin produces a transient with a lot of high-mid content and a decay that is unusually convenient in a dense arrangement.
Orchestral percussion fills the low end and the room. Synthetic hits fill whatever you design them to. A struck bin lands in between, with enough edge to read over distorted guitars or a saturated master bus without you having to carve a hole for it.
MusicRadar’s guide to producing cinematic beats is a good primer on how layered percussion gets built up for big-screen work, and Attack Magazine’s drum technique fundamentals covers the layering side if you want to stack these against your own samples.
Miked metal bin, one of the sources for the industrial percussion samples
Trash Can Ensemble Kit Inside Bollywood Rhythms of India
Trash Can Ensemble Kit in action: industrial percussion samples
The Trash Can Ensemble Kit is one of three kits in Bollywood Rhythms of India, a collection built for Sonic Atlas is all about metal and impact, aimed at trailers and drops. Across the three kits there are 3,115 samples: 2,408 one-shots and 707 loops and fills.
The other two cover different ground. The Dandiya Band Kit is the festive dhol band that drives Navratri nights. The Dholak-Tabla Kit is built around the rhythms of sangeets, weddings and festivals..
This is the outlier of the three, and deliberately so. The other two kits are traditional instruments played by specialists. This one is studio percussion made from whatever was to hand, which is its own long-standing tradition at celebrations, and it is the kit you’d prefer when a cue needs impact rather than a traditional sound.
Inside the Trash Can Ensemble Kit
| Performed by | 4 musicians |
| One-shots | 506 |
| Loops & fills | 142 |
| Playable patches | Solo, duo and full ensemble |
| Format | Exclusive to Sonic Atlas — AU, VST, AAX |
| Platform | macOS and Windows |
| Licence | Royalty-free for commercial use |
Velocity layers mean a soft strike and a full-force one are genuinely different recordings rather than the same hit at two volumes. Round robins keep repeated notes from locking into a pattern. Close and room mics are balanced by you, which matters here more than usual, because the room is doing a lot of the work.
506 one-shots of junkyard percussion across solo, duo and ensemble
Where to use it
Trailer percussion
The rim cracks work as the rhythmic layer in a build, and the deep booms sit under hits without muddying them. Because the decay is short, you can run them faster than you could run a taiko.
Hip-hop
Swap a programmed clap for a bin rim and the whole bar gains a bit of grit. The one-shots respond to velocity, so ghost notes actually read as ghost notes.
EDM
Metal in the drop. Layer the big hits under a kick for weight that is not just more low end, and use the full ensemble loops in the bar before the drop to raise the temperature.
Read more: why simple rhythms land harder on screen, our guide to Indian percussion for film scoring, and the full Bollywood Rhythms of India collection this kit belongs to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is trash can percussion?
It is percussion played on metal bins, usually struck with sticks. A single can produces a broad metal hit, a deep boom from inside the body and a sharp crack from the rim.
Where can I get industrial percussion samples?
The Trash Can Ensemble Kit for Sonic Atlas holds 506 one-shots and 142 loops and fills of metal bins, snares and toms, performed by four musicians and recorded in a studio.
Is this good for trailer music?
It is one of the main uses. The rim cracks give you a fast rhythmic layer and the booms add weight under hits, and because the decay is short they stay clean at tempos where larger drums would smear.
How is this different from orchestral or taiko percussion?
Orchestral and taiko percussion fill the low end and the room with a long decay. A struck metal bin has a shorter decay and more high-mid edge, so it reads over a dense mix and can be played faster without blurring.
Can I use it outside Indian music?
Yes. The kit is aimed at trailers, hip-hop and EDM as much as anything else. It is present in the Bollywood Rhythms of India collection.
Do I need Sonic Atlas to run it?
Yes. The Trash Can Ensemble Kit is exclusive to Sonic Atlas, which loads as an AU, VST or AAX plugin on macOS and Windows.
Are these royalty-free percussion samples?
Yes. The loops, fills and one-shots in the Sonic Atlas expansion packs are royalty-free for commercial releases, film and television scoring, trailers and broadcast media.