Drum VSTs - how do you program your MIdI??

Ive only ever used GetGoodDrums PIV kit but have had good results from it. The velocities allow many different samples, feels, and styles of drumming. I would easily recommend it.

As far as writing goes I like to draw in my beats with a mouse for the most part and just move things like the kick and snare to see how different grooves feel. This was tough at first but after a bit of time I find I can program what I need a lot quicker than punching things in with my fingers.
 
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Ive only ever used GetGoodDrums PIV kit but have had good results from it. The velocities allow many different samples, feels, and styles of drumming. I would easily recommend it.

As far as writing goes I like to draw in my beats with a mouse for the most part and just move things like the kick and snare to see how different grooves feel. This was tough at first but after a bit of time I find I can program what I need a lot quicker than punching things in with my fingers.
I used to work that way and found it terribly time consuming. An AKAI MPD or similar would greatly speed up your workflow. Anything with a few pads on it, really.
 
SD3 all the way for me, Love writing to their Metal Midi packs then Edit accordingly wha La Song, also write with NI Kontakt S49 in Logic, such a great hobby for this old guy
 
Bfd2 had an automation writer tool

does anyone know more about it and if they exist in the new version ?
BFD3 has that feature, and it works almost like on the fly jam session automation. I had more success on the BFD2 side of things than this, but they still do work - basically you set a “palette” and it’s like a matrix set, and then you can tell the playback how to “automate”- either randomly , sequentially or however you set it ... thing is I could only jam but I couldn’t get it to record the tracks (at least not as midi events)

in any case, the Best VST, bang for your buck, best and most stable coding goes to XLN addictive drums 2, and while i say that as a well informed opinion, it’s actually more or less the truth - and that’s the facts Jack - please refer to my comparison thread about XLN and Logic drummer if you wish

best of luck
 
SD3 all the way for me, Love writing to their Metal Midi packs then Edit accordingly wha La Song, also write with NI Kontakt S49 in Logic, such a great hobby for this old guy

I see my previous posts in here were before I got SD3. In a hissy fit one evening, not being able to tweak the sounds in EZD2 enough, I bought SD3 and it was one of my favorite gear/studio/plug-ins I’ve bought yet. Remarkably powerful and being able to shut off all the processing in the onboard mixer so you just have the raw drums is great, but the fact that the onboard mixer is so damn good, I barely do any post-VST processing outside of a parallel bus and a separate reverb bus just for the snare.

I can’t remember which SDX it was, Metal Foundry or Metal Masters, but I wanted the Tama Starclassic kit and though those SDX’s aren’t cheap ($180) it was worth it! Even the presets are awesome and I haven’t said that about any of them so far!

The other night, after loading up Cygnus, I took a song I’ve had a demo of for a while, re-amped the guitars/bass and ran the drum MIDI through SD3 instead of EZD2, put on the Starclassic kit I put together and when I listened to the bounce in my truck the next day, I was grinning ear to ear. There’s a specific sound I’ve been going for with my recordings and those upgrades/updates has given me the ability to obtain that sound. Now the work starts of taking all the demos and turning them into finished songs. Thankfully, I’m REALLY excited about doing it.
 
I see my previous posts in here were before I got SD3. In a hissy fit one evening, not being able to tweak the sounds in EZD2 enough, I bought SD3 and it was one of my favorite gear/studio/plug-ins I’ve bought yet. Remarkably powerful and being able to shut off all the processing in the onboard mixer so you just have the raw drums is great, but the fact that the onboard mixer is so damn good, I barely do any post-VST processing outside of a parallel bus and a separate reverb bus just for the snare.

I can’t remember which SDX it was, Metal Foundry or Metal Masters, but I wanted the Tama Starclassic kit and though those SDX’s aren’t cheap ($180) it was worth it! Even the presets are awesome and I haven’t said that about any of them so far!

The other night, after loading up Cygnus, I took a song I’ve had a demo of for a while, re-amped the guitars/bass and ran the drum MIDI through SD3 instead of EZD2, put on the Starclassic kit I put together and when I listened to the bounce in my truck the next day, I was grinning ear to ear. There’s a specific sound I’ve been going for with my recordings and those upgrades/updates has given me the ability to obtain that sound. Now the work starts of taking all the demos and turning them into finished songs. Thankfully, I’m REALLY excited about doing it.
Glad to hear that, and sounds like you have the skills to make it happen! I have like 1 TB External filled with all my EZD and SD3 stuff and would be sad if I ever lost it lol
 
Glad to hear that, and sounds like you have the skills to make it happen! I have like 1 TB External filled with all my EZD and SD3 stuff and would be sad if I ever lost it lol

Yeah, I really need to invest in a couple hard drives to store stuff on. Between the VST’s and amount of Logic sessions I have on my iMac, the 2TB drive is getting filled QUICKLY.
 
I'm still interested in what I thought was the originally intended topic of this thread, how people WRITE their drum tracks. My guess is that most people here don't have the skills, gear, or space to perform them polyphonically live on a full e-kit or acoustic kit with triggers.

Do you point and click on a grid?
Perform an instrument or two at a time with your fingers or sticks on some sort of drum pad thingy?
On a keyboard?
Edit grooves that come with your DAW or drum plugin?
Generate tracks with software?

Once you've got something down, do you edit it by hand in your DAW?
Quantize or apply "groove templates" ?
If you do, a little or a lot?
 
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Once I throw a groove on my track, I then use Editor in my DAW, and on the parts I need more intricate accents I play parts in with My Midi controller; A 49 Komplete.
 
Cubase drum editor with EZD2 and use Akai MPD232 pads programmed to EZD2. I usually create small loops with the basic bass kick and snare. duplicate over many bars then add in other notes with mouse clicks here and there. eventually , and after learning from studying the midi loops avail on EZD, you get sense of the patterns visually. and then going back n forth with the quantize grid so you are getting the notes to hit where they should. I'm no drummer but have decent sense of what drums are being hit...challenged myself to create drum track for Rush Tom Sawyer. I have to say after about 25 bars of painstakingly trying to recreate how much i came to appreciate Neal Peart.

Long ago I saved some youtube vids of Misha Mansoor and his process for programming drums. I learned a lot of simple tricks/tips there..as he also used cubase. Here's a link to one if you're interested.
 
I see my previous posts in here were before I got SD3. In a hissy fit one evening, not being able to tweak the sounds in EZD2 enough, I bought SD3 and it was one of my favorite gear/studio/plug-ins I’ve bought yet. Remarkably powerful and being able to shut off all the processing in the onboard mixer so you just have the raw drums is great, but the fact that the onboard mixer is so damn good, I barely do any post-VST processing outside of a parallel bus and a separate reverb bus just for the snare.

I can’t remember which SDX it was, Metal Foundry or Metal Masters, but I wanted the Tama Starclassic kit and though those SDX’s aren’t cheap ($180) it was worth it! Even the presets are awesome and I haven’t said that about any of them so far!

The other night, after loading up Cygnus, I took a song I’ve had a demo of for a while, re-amped the guitars/bass and ran the drum MIDI through SD3 instead of EZD2, put on the Starclassic kit I put together and when I listened to the bounce in my truck the next day, I was grinning ear to ear. There’s a specific sound I’ve been going for with my recordings and those upgrades/updates has given me the ability to obtain that sound. Now the work starts of taking all the demos and turning them into finished songs. Thankfully, I’m REALLY excited about doing it.

Appreciate your posts in this thread. :)

I have been using an old Roland V-Drum kit direct and am
eager to use it to trigger software in Reaper. Haven't pulled
the plug yet, though. Still researching... I mean.... hemming and
hawing. :)

I still like a lot of the sounds I am getting out of the Roland module,
but know I can improve that dramatically using the kit to trigger software
via MIDI.

And yeah, drums are damn fun to play.
 
Good thread. Drum programming is THEE most tedious part of my home-made song making workflow. I've used EZD2 and Addictive, combination of midi patterns and playing fills with keyboard. I've also done a few things with .wav drum loop libraries. Good to read about how others do it.

I'm not a hard rock guy, I write a lot of songs with straightforward verse/chorus pop structure. I usually sketch out the song on guitar and then imagine what instruments and how to arrange. When I'm ready to make tracks I start with drums, but by this point I already have a clear picture in my brain of exactly what the drum tracks need to be, usually very specific beats with fills and stops and stuff all in the right places. Makes it hard to find canned midi loops and just drop em in.. usually a lot of tedious editing required, playing fill in bits with keyboard, quantizing and dragging stuff around the editor with my mouse.

Honestly, it's a pain in the ass. I would produce a LOT more music if I didn't have to program drums. I'm absolutely dedicated to guitar, proficient on bass and dabble in keys. Never really wanted to be a drummer. But if I was young and knew I'd still be making music well into my 50's like I am now, I would invest in a midi triggered drum kit and learn how to really play drums like a real drummer. Even if took years to be proficient. Hell, I might even still do it. Would be a dream to put on headphones, click Record, and lay down the exact drum take I want with sticks and my feet on the pedals.
 
Good thread. Drum programming is THEE most tedious part of my home-made song making workflow. I've used EZD2 and Addictive, combination of midi patterns and playing fills with keyboard. I've also done a few things with .wav drum loop libraries. Good to read about how others do it.

I'm not a hard rock guy, I write a lot of songs with straightforward verse/chorus pop structure. I usually sketch out the song on guitar and then imagine what instruments and how to arrange. When I'm ready to make tracks I start with drums, but by this point I already have a clear picture in my brain of exactly what the drum tracks need to be, usually very specific beats with fills and stops and stuff all in the right places. Makes it hard to find canned midi loops and just drop em in.. usually a lot of tedious editing required, playing fill in bits with keyboard, quantizing and dragging stuff around the editor with my mouse.

Honestly, it's a pain in the ass. I would produce a LOT more music if I didn't have to program drums. I'm absolutely dedicated to guitar, proficient on bass and dabble in keys. Never really wanted to be a drummer. But if I was young and knew I'd still be making music well into my 50's like I am now, I would invest in a midi triggered drum kit and learn how to really play drums like a real drummer. Even if took years to be proficient. Hell, I might even still do it. Would be a dream to put on headphones, click Record, and lay down the exact drum take I want with sticks and my feet on the pedals.
I just traded in my TrapKat and Roland pad thingy a few months ago, in recognition of the fact that I'm actually not a multi-limbed polyphonically-capable drummer, and unlikely to become one. The space was more valuable to me than holding onto that dream for another decade or two ;)

Plus all I do these days is play guitar, with occasional outbursts of bass.
 
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Good thread. Drum programming is THEE most tedious part of my home-made song making workflow. I've used EZD2 and Addictive, combination of midi patterns and playing fills with keyboard. I've also done a few things with .wav drum loop libraries. Good to read about how others do it.

I'm not a hard rock guy, I write a lot of songs with straightforward verse/chorus pop structure. I usually sketch out the song on guitar and then imagine what instruments and how to arrange. When I'm ready to make tracks I start with drums, but by this point I already have a clear picture in my brain of exactly what the drum tracks need to be, usually very specific beats with fills and stops and stuff all in the right places. Makes it hard to find canned midi loops and just drop em in.. usually a lot of tedious editing required, playing fill in bits with keyboard, quantizing and dragging stuff around the editor with my mouse.

Honestly, it's a pain in the ass. I would produce a LOT more music if I didn't have to program drums. I'm absolutely dedicated to guitar, proficient on bass and dabble in keys. Never really wanted to be a drummer. But if I was young and knew I'd still be making music well into my 50's like I am now, I would invest in a midi triggered drum kit and learn how to really play drums like a real drummer. Even if took years to be proficient. Hell, I might even still do it. Would be a dream to put on headphones, click Record, and lay down the exact drum take I want with sticks and my feet on the pedals.

Do it!!! :)

I am 53 and have a Roland kit that I play daily. I have yet to use it via MIDI
to trigger a drum plug in my DAW, and am still going direct from the brain
to interface. Still sounds pretty decent for my uses.

I started on guitar and dabbled with my roommates kit when we lived together
in our 20s. Sometime around 40 I started to invest in drums and ended up owning
multiple kits. Found a way to be proficient enough to play live gigs as a modern rock
drummer and even did a few "oldies" gigs. I love playing them. Something primal
about working those skins --- even if they are just V-drums.

Never too late, right?? :)
 
My home studio demo workflow is the best it's ever been: FM3 for gtrs and bass, basic Roland Cloud subscription for keys (sometimes bass), and SD3 into a midi instrument track. I use Studio One but all the DAWs today support the features I depend on for FX plugins, midi editing, etc.

All in all, SD3 and MIDI instrument track is the best thing I've found for composing/demoing drum parts.
 
My home studio demo workflow is the best it's ever been: FM3 for gtrs and bass, basic Roland Cloud subscription for keys (sometimes bass), and SD3 into a midi instrument track. I use Studio One but all the DAWs today support the features I depend on for FX plugins, midi editing, etc.

All in all, SD3 and MIDI instrument track is the best thing I've found for composing/demoing drum parts.
How do you enter drum parts? Keyboard? Drum pads? Mouse? Have some software generate them? Purchased or free tracks made by someone else?
 
sorry, I've used a combination of approaches in the past. These days I just loop over a section and use the DAWs midi grid.

I've never tried purchasing midi sequences or wav loops. Can't speak to that.
 
You can get great results with drag and drop stuff, BUT:

You almost always have to write TO the drag and drop song/loops, not try and fit loops to your existing ideas. For me, that has never really worked perfectly. If you write to the drum part, the parts will naturally fit. I've also found trying to modify drag and drop to fit my click recorded ideas was more work than building the parts from scratch.
 
You can get great results with drag and drop stuff, BUT:

You almost always have to write TO the drag and drop song/loops, not try and fit loops to your existing ideas. For me, that has never really worked perfectly. If you write to the drum part, the parts will naturally fit. I've also found trying to modify drag and drop to fit my click recorded ideas was more work than building the parts from scratch.
I usually have a drum part already in mind anyway, so the DnD option seems like it'd be more work, like you said. I sometimes try to play drum parts with a MIDI keyboard, but I end up quantizing to grid 90% of the time afterward. In 3/4 and 4/4 I find the DAW MIDI grids to be intuitive enough to get a lot of work done quickly.
 
I usually have a drum part already in mind anyway, so the DnD option seems like it'd be more work, like you said. I sometimes try to play drum parts with a MIDI keyboard, but I end up quantizing to grid 90% of the time afterward. In 3/4 and 4/4 I find the DAW MIDI grids to be intuitive enough to get a lot of work done quickly.
My issue (and journey with this stuff, its been LONG) is drum libraries aren’t really mapped well to keyboards and tended to make my workflow more tedious. Drum programming was always a big SIGH when I started because I knew I was in for a slow, laborious process that stifles creativity. As I stated upthread, my workflow didn’t actually get FUN where I looked forward to writing my drum parts until I bought my Akai MPD (roughly 130 bucks). 16 pads, 4 banks, assign and store your kits and DONE. Free to write and just like a drum set, each kit piece and articulation is where you want it, far closer than a 61 or 88 key keyboard. JMO/YMMV and whatnot.

Bonus tidbit: Studio One (not sure about other DAWs) can actually set your quantization points to your Guitars (or bass, or anything’s) transients! talk about locking in the part.
 
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