How do you transition between movements with drum midi vst

[Yours To Behold]

Simple as I can ask; when changing from part to part or movement to movement in a song, how do you make “proper “ or “appropriate” drum transitions

I know there are tutorials that I’ve endlessly consulted, and I have ask video and groove 3 tutorials. The thing is i don’t make fluid transitions like from verse to chorus to bridge

can someone show me, with a Logic Pro file with midi, the events for a full metal song? Like does anyone understand what I’m asking?

im a serious shredder but my drum programmer is no longer working with me. I use XLN and Logic drummer so it sounds like mechanical shrapnel records drum machine

I want to make drums like pantera megadeth and opeth

can anyone make a suggestion
Thx

 

[RevDrucifer]

Adding a fill in the last half/quarter measure usually does the trick, sometimes nothing but a cymbal change is needed, like going from a closed hi hat in a verse to just banging on a crash in the chorus. Really depends on the song. Of course, we get to have fun with metal and go nuts with fills.

This is a demo of a tune I threw together a few months back as part of a songwriting challenge on another forum. There's a lot going on with the drums, but I'll point out the transitions from verse to chorus, chorus to bridge, etc-



Right in the intro, there's a fill that leads into the guitar playing by itself, around 0:20, then another fill brings the whole band back in. There's plenty of shit going on during the verses (like I said, we get to have fun in metal) but there's almost always something indicating a transition is coming up. The chorus doesn't start until 1:17 and a fill leads right into that.

That song is a good example of changing up the drums under a guitar pattern to move the song along, in the first verse, the riff stays the same but the drums are constantly changing patterns, not just to keep it interesting, but I had vocals in mind when I wrote it and I base ALL my vocals off what the drums are doing.

As for actually programming fills, it's not easy unless you know what drummers are doing. Your best bet is to get some MIDI packs and use the fills in those as examples until you get a better idea of what to do. I hear a LOT of guitarists programming drums with stuff that'd be impossible for a real drummer to play. Just remember, you can only hit, max, 4 things at the same time. In reality, the most things being hit at the same time is 3.

I spend about a week programming drums (not the one above, I pulled that out of my ass in an afternoon and didn't spend a lot of time on it) because I'm a glutton for punishment and don't have the space to set up a kit in my house. I actually like playing drums more than any other instrument, including guitar!

If you want to send me a MIDI track of what you're working on, with a basic recording of the song so I can get a feel for it, I'll gladly help program some fills into it. I use Superior Drummer, but the MIDI mapping is general basic across all platforms.

 

[Yours To Behold]

Adding a fill in the last half/quarter measure usually does the trick, sometimes nothing but a cymbal change is needed, like going from a closed hi hat in a verse to just banging on a crash in the chorus. Really depends on the song. Of course, we get to have fun with metal and go nuts with fills.

This is a demo of a tune I threw together a few months back as part of a songwriting challenge on another forum. There's a lot going on with the drums, but I'll point out the transitions from verse to chorus, chorus to bridge, etc-



Right in the intro, there's a fill that leads into the guitar playing by itself, around 0:20, then another fill brings the whole band back in. There's plenty of shit going on during the verses (like I said, we get to have fun in metal) but there's almost always something indicating a transition is coming up. The chorus doesn't start until 1:17 and a fill leads right into that.

That song is a good example of changing up the drums under a guitar pattern to move the song along, in the first verse, the riff stays the same but the drums are constantly changing patterns, not just to keep it interesting, but I had vocals in mind when I wrote it and I base ALL my vocals off what the drums are doing.

As for actually programming fills, it's not easy unless you know what drummers are doing. Your best bet is to get some MIDI packs and use the fills in those as examples until you get a better idea of what to do. I hear a LOT of guitarists programming drums with stuff that'd be impossible for a real drummer to play. Just remember, you can only hit, max, 4 things at the same time. In reality, the most things being hit at the same time is 3.

I spend about a week programming drums (not the one above, I pulled that out of my ass in an afternoon and didn't spend a lot of time on it) because I'm a glutton for punishment and don't have the space to set up a kit in my house. I actually like playing drums more than any other instrument, including guitar!

If you want to send me a MIDI track of what you're working on, with a basic recording of the song so I can get a feel for it, I'll gladly help program some fills into it. I use Superior Drummer, but the MIDI mapping is general basic across all platforms.

Thanks so much - I am going to experiment a little with it, try to come up with something in GM and see what you think....since you don't seem to mind that sounds killer btw

So basically, it depends on the guitar playing for your method mostly? Im just trying to get accustomed to your workflow since im following your lead

thanks again

 

[RevDrucifer]

Thanks so much - I am going to experiment a little with it, try to come up with something in GM and see what you think....since you don't seem to mind that sounds killer btw

So basically, it depends on the guitar playing for your method mostly? Im just trying to get accustomed to your workflow since im following your lead

thanks again

I try to set it up so the next section comes in with more impact, that’s the goal anyway. Sometimes it can be super basic, sometimes you don’t need anything at all. This song shows that; from the first verse to the chorus, there’s no fill, in the 2nd verse to the chorus there’s just two tom hits, not even all that hard. The chorus is drastic of a change enough that putting something busy there would take away from the impact of the chorus.



In the first song I posted, the riff before and the chorus are both fairly busy riffs, so to keep the intensity of the song up but still put some kind of break in there to set up the next section, I put a busy fill in.

You can find some free drum MIDI’s floating around the internet, just do some google searching. If you can spare a few bucks, you can buy specific packs on Toontrack’s site, you can just toss the MIDI fils right into the Drummer track in Logic. They’re about $20 a pack and are usually filled with tons of stuff, grooves, beats, fills, cymbal chokes, etc. From there you can open the piano roll in Logic and move the hits around, which is GREAT when you come across something that’s almost perfect but just needs a couple tweaks.

I generally write mine out from beginning to end, but it’s over a long period of time. When I make a demo of a song, like the one above, I write it as quickly as I can, so I’ll use the MIDI’s I’ve picked up along the way, but as I fine tune the song and really start to track it for real, I’ll re-write the fills to fit the riffs/song better. In general, fills are like a guitar player’s solos; it’s the one time they can break out of standard rhythm patterns and do something creative. No one cares about drum solos, except maybe 1 out of every 5,000 drummers. Or if it’s Neil Peart, because everyone loves Neil’s solos.

It would do some good to watch some drum instructional videos as they’ll break down how they’re playing fills so you can copy some of the information into Logic. I’d start off small at first, your fills all don’t need to be a whole measure long, like I said above, sometimes a 1/4 measure is perfect, sometimes 1/2 measure but very few hits is perfect. Try to set up the next section to have the most impact the best you can, whether that’s bringing the energy up, maintaining the energy or bringing the energy down, fills are a great way to control the flow.

 

[Yours To Behold]

Thanks man
Your fills are hand written? That’s why they sound real.... ok so it takes a lot of tweaking almost measure per measure?

 

[RevDrucifer]

Thanks man
Your fills are hand written? That’s why they sound real.... ok so it takes a lot of tweaking almost measure per measure?

It’s more than measure to measure, it’s every single MIDI hit! Hahahaha....it’s tedious!

I didn’t want to scare you away with velocities yet, but might as well give you the rundown now.

The velocity of the MIDI note is how hard the drum is being hit, you’ve got 0-127, with 0 being the lightest hit and 127 being the hardest. It’s VERY easy to put everything at 127 and say, “That’s metal!”, but that’s not how real drummers hit the drums. No two hits are exactly the same and a lot of complaints about drum samples in professional albums is that it sounds like a machine because it’s so unrealistic.

Snares are the only thing I’ll peg at 127 and I’ll only do that during choruses or a section where I want the snare cracking really hard. Everything else, especially the kicks, need to get adjusted. Thankfully, you’re using Logic and they make it SUPER easy. “Burying the beater” is what drummers do when they put their foot down on the kick pedal, smash the beater into the head as hard as they can and leave it resting against the head. That mutes the resonance of the kick drum and doesn’t let it ring out, that’s the sound you get when you leave the kicks at 127. You want all that oomph and balls a kick delivers, keeping them between 119-124 will allow for that, while varying the velocities enough to make it sound more human.

I’ve found kicks and toms sound best between 119-123. Fills I’ll program by hand, but what I’ll do for the kicks is open the piano roll, highlight the entire row of kick drums and then in the Edit window (press E) you’ll see on the top left Function, click that and you’ll see a drop down menu, go to the bottom and click MIDI Transform, then you get another drop down menu, click Random Velocities. The box that pops up allows you to type in the range of velocities, so you just type in 119 and 124, then since the kicks are already highlighted, just click Operate Only and it’ll adjusted all of the kicks at once.

I do the same thing for all the cymbals/hi-hats. Toms, on the other hand, I dial in one at a time. If you listen to drum fills, they usually crescendo or decrescendo (get louder towards the end or get quieter towards the end). This is exactly what gives fills all their life/human character. So I click each MIDI block in the fill and adjust the velocities individually, if it’s a crescendo, I’ll start the first one around 75 and work my way up to 124. Start watching some of those drum instructional videos and listen to how it sounds when they’re playing fills, you’ll hear the volume go up and down depending on the fill. Just do your best to program that in there.

My general guide line for metal-
Kicks: 119-124
Snare-127 (the only thing that’s ok to hit 127 on repeatedly...if it’s a calmer part, I might drop it down to 125 or 126, but usually I just keep them at 127 unless it’s used in a really dynamic fill)
Toms- 119-124
Cymbals- 121-127 (On downbeats or the start of a new section, I’ll almost always put them at 127 to accent a change)
Hi-hats- these are tricky because it’ll depend on what your VST is doing, sometimes they can get really overpowering, because they’re being picked up in the overheads as well, for verses I might stay around 80-100, but if it’s just a crazy heavy section, they might sound better around 100-115. The sound of them doesn’t change too much with different velocities, that’s more a volume thing. Toms/kick/snare all change tonally when hit harder or softer, cymbals not so much.

So when I start writing these out, I’ll write out, say 2-4 measures of a verse, then do all the MIDI Transform stuff with just those measures, then I’ll copy and paste them after to fill out the rest of the verse. If you’ve got some variation in the first couple measures, you’ll be fine copy and pasting them, no one is going to say, “Oh man, the velocity on the 2nd hi hat hit was the same in the first measure as it was the 3rd measure” Between copy/pasting and the MIDI Transform/Random Velocity function, you can haul some ass on these and speed the process up. It took me over a year to find that MIDI Transform function.....so I used to type these in hit by hit!

Start working on a drum MIDI, my email is RevDrucifer@gmail.com, you can send them to me there or upload them right in here, I’ll load it up at home and go over it then send you back a revised version if it ”needs” any revision. I’ll post one of mine up for you later, so you can drop it into Logic and look at it in the piano roll and see what it looks like as far as velocities go. It’s certainly tedious, but man, when you really work at it, the results are more than worth it.