Little offtopic: How do you manage drum programming?

ro-mix

ro-mix

Inspired
Guys how do you programm drums? What about electronic percussions and glitches i`m quite ok... but what about real drums simulation... ones of you who can do production completely, how do you programm the drum kit? What is the best way to nail it?
 
I use SSD Trigger and Drumagog to resample recorded drums that sound like ass. I use a mixture of Toontrack and Steven Slate and apTrigga to add samples from Lasse Lambert to thicken up the sound. Usually an 808 for the kick, believe it or not!
 
Thanks for the reply. I mean i`m not a drummer... how to nail drum part mechanics? Or just listen and try to replicate?
 
yes, you have to think like a real drummer, so don't program stuff that would be impossible to play!

it's really all about 'weight" (how hard each drum is hit)...if you can get that right, then it'll sound right. if it doesn't sound right, then change it until it does.

don't overdo the fills, either...there's nothing wrong with just sitting in the pocket and embellishing every once in a while

one trick you can try - once you've programmed the whole track, merge all the midi regions you've created into one. select all the snare hits and then move them back off the beat very slightly. instant "feel". you can also use a touch of randomisation to "humanise" the performance
 
I'm thinking about getting a e-kit, they're dirt cheap now days. There are lot of stuff I find very difficult to translate over desktop midi-instruments such as a pad or keyboard; paradiddling, ghost notes, hi-hat stuff, creative drum fills... I'm not a good drummer but there's always quantize. ;)
 
Swedish Chef said:
I'm thinking about getting a e-kit, they're dirt cheap now days. There are lot of stuff I find very difficult to translate over desktop midi-instruments such as a pad or keyboard; paradiddling, ghost notes, hi-hat stuff, creative drum fills... I'm not a good drummer but there's always quantize. ;)
Click to expand...

I just bought Roland Vdrums. TD15KV I think. They were about $3,000, but there are much cheaper available, as well as more expensive.

I have superior drums, battery, session drummer etc. Will likely use superior 95% of the time.

I can't play drums but can play most of the parts separately. I will likely play in kick and snare, then add hats on second pass, since I am too uncoordinated to play a full kit.
That should be enough for a rough drum track. Then I can bring in a real drummer to replace it.
 
ro-mix said:
Thanks for the reply. I mean i`m not a drummer... how to nail drum part mechanics? Or just listen and try to replicate?
Click to expand...

My preferences in order:

1.) Hire a session guy. At first that will seem expensive, but once you account for the time it takes to convincingly program realistic drums, you'll probably come out ahead this way, at least if you put any value on your time. You will also get a much better result, if the guy's any good. Honestly, I wish I'd figured this out years before. There are any number of real pros who will do session work for you over the internet.

2.) Use Jamstix. My god, this is a cool program. You can give it rough guidelines or be as detailed as you want, but the different styles and drummer "brains" that the system uses can take the most basic beat you put in and dress it up any way you want, complete with fills. It sounds very human, and paired with BFD2 or the like, it's really good. Having used Jamstix, I will never go back to plunking notes on a piano roll or digging through MIDI patterns again.

3.) V-drums. I suck at drumming, but like somebody else said, a little quantize can help that. I won't get great feel this way, but it's better than straight programming. And, even if you'd rather program, spending just a few months trying to actually play drums will teach you a huge amount about the mechanics and about how to think like a drummer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gpz
I use EZ Drummer with the Metal Machine expansion pack. Metal Machine is just an exceptionally good sounding pack that works well for just about all genres, not just metal. Very realistic sounding. Also cheaper and easier to use compared to Superior Drummer or SSD.

I use it in conjunction with Cubase. Sometimes I'll just drag and drop a midi groove from EZ Drummer and then modify it to taste in Cubase's drum editor. These midi grooves come with the EZ Drummer expansion packs or they have others that are available for purchase separately. Other times I'll program every single hit in the drum editor.

As far as knowing what to program...that just takes experience and practice. You just have to spend time listening to the drums in your favorite recordings and learn to "think like a drummer".
 
I only use programmed drums for songwriting and demos.

But I import midi grooves and midi drum parts into pro tools 10 and use SSD4 for the sounds.

Once you have a good midi part played by a pro drummer on an e-kit, you can use the midi editor in your DAW to change the parts to match your song. Usually the kick drum is the most changed to lock better with the bass line.
 
For straight forward rock songs I tend to just fire up EZDrummer and then use a mix of the built-in patterns, the piano roll or other imported midi percussion. Not recently, but sometime's I've then had a drummer replace this 'basic outline' with a live performance played on a midi kit. Even though EZdrummer is supposed to sound 'real' it's still not as real as a human performance. And if it's MIDI you can still tweak, double up the kick, swap samples, etc. Apparently Jamstix sound more like a performance but I'm on Mac.

For some more experimental electronic material that isn't conceived with 'real drums' in mind I'll use any number of techniques to make beats - chopped loops, Geist (a drum sampler plug-in), my own EXS24-hosted kits, or place sampled hits directly on Logic audio tracks.
 
I think it's very good to sit behind a drum set to get a feel for how the instrument works. Spend time at the music club and watch how the drummers go about.

As mentioned there are grooves/patterns in drum software to use. Just find the patterns that get you close and go from there. Often I use a two or four bar pattern for a section of a song - copy that - and make small changes here and there to make it feel alive.

About that a software isn't like a real drummer. Of course not, but even a long time ago with drum software and drum-machines not as sophisticated as nowadays, things like shortening note lengths (some ticks) or make them overlap could alter the sound and behaviour and get you closer to how a drummer would sound. I think of hi-hat, cymbals but also snare and toms. Experiment.
 
The way I am attempting to work is to write the song in Notion 4. This allows me to work out and audition all the parts and make changes. This includes using Superior Drummer 2. When I am ready to record I can build out a template in Reaper and then export the drum MIDI file from Notion and import it into Reaper. Then record all the other parts. Until recently I haven't been able to play my drums but now that my music room is coming together the idea is to use real drums but we'll see how that goes.

In Notion 4 I program what I would play. I try to have dynamics in what I am programming. I don't put the velocity curve all the way to 127. Depending on the song and where there are peaks I'll keep the velocity a bit lower (not much) so that it gives me some room to go up. I take the time to vary the velocity for different parts of the kit - say hi-hat or ride - so that it isn't the same each time. Superior Drummer does a good job with the round-robin and I never feel like I get a machine gun effect like when I used the Alesis SR-16. I would do this if I was in the piano roll in Reaper or in Notion 4.

I also put the fills in that I would play. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out how exactly to notate them but I eventually get there. It takes a lot of time this way but I am happier with the result because it just isn't a couple MIDI loops playing over and over.
 
For myself, I watched a bunch of drum instruction videos so I could get an idea of how drummers think and how the fills are put together. A few hours just messing around behind a real kit does wonders too. Beyond that, +1 to what Simeon said. Velocities are key. I usually play in the basic beat on a midi keyboard so there will be some kind of dynamics. Then tinker with the velocities to make sure that there are accents in natural places, and not every hit is the same. I try to make fills that could actually be played (remember: only four limbs), and if I am writing a complicated fill or something straight in the piano roll I'll go in after and bump a few notes just a little off the grid. Perfectly "in time" fills often sound like ass.
 
> remember: only four limbs

HAH! Four limbs good, eight limbs better!

Can you tell I grew up listening to a lot of Allman Brothers?

TT
 
I start with either MIDI patterns I have found on the net, in my Superior Drums 2.0 s/w, or program them from scratch using my Boss DR-880 drum machine (handy!). Then, I will dump them in to my sequencer (Apple Logic in my case), and do any final tweaking that is necessary there. I usually route the actual beats to SD 2.0 for the sounds.

I'm very intrigued by the JamStix idea, but I fear (will need to check it out) that it may be for PC only. There was also a program for the PC years ago (still?) called Jammer 2.0 - I suspect that either may run on a Virtual Windows machine in the Mac, but of course that adds complexity.

Lastly - what Simeon says is true - and not. Yes - if you want to sound like a real 1 x drummer, then by all means restrict yourself to what's humanly possible. If you, like the Allman Brothers analogue, want to simulate multiple rhythmatists, then do it. In fact today synths, sequencers, samplers, computers, vocal processors allow us to process music in ways that are all 'impossible' - why should drums be exempt? If it works for you/your tune, lay it on.
 
Jang said:
Apparently Jamstix sound more like a performance but I'm on Mac.
Click to expand...

I did some checking. A Mac version is on the way. . . .

rayzoon technologies :: View topic - Anyone interested in Jamstix under OS X? Leave a message!

Here is where we are: the non-visual aspects of Jamstix OSX are working quite well in the internal Betas. The visual interface is having serious issues, including unacceptable CPU usage. These problems are in a 3rd party framework that we are using. We have spent enormous time trying to solve those issues and waiting for the vendor to fix/improve them as well. Since we can't wait any longer, we are now rebuilding the visual interface with a different framework from another vendor, which appears to be much faster and efficient. I cannot estimate time for this task properly as it depends on any migration issues that the new framework might throw at us.

The good news is that A.I., audio engine, data management, song structures etc. are all working on OSX by now so things are progressing. We just have to get the interface done and then we can go Beta with you guys.​

Terry.
 
I use Superior Drummer with Metal Foundry. The sound quality is fantastic, the DW kit in particular is monstrous. I'm no drummer, so I'll bang out rough ideas on the keyboard and then clean them up with the piano roll in my DAW.
 
I'm a little new to drum programming myself, but I've made a little progress. I use Superior Drummer 2.0 with the piano roll in Reaper (at least until Pro Tools 11 comes on Wednesday!) and have had some minor success in programming. The hardest part for me was the fact that I'm not a drummer, so I had to start listening to drum passages and understand the usage of the various pieces, mainly the kick and snare. I bought a book called "Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer" after a fellow forum member recommended it and that really helped me get started.
 
I would record so many more original songs if the drum programming wasn't so tedious. Here's what I've tried over the years and notes on each method:

* One note at a time in midi piano roll editor, entering notes and durations with the mouse. Very time consuming and harder to make it sound natural, but if you have the time you can get it perfect.

* Audio loop assembly. Sounds, beats fills are limited by your loop library, but it can work.

* MIDI loop assembly. I've used EZ Drummer midi patterns and tried EZPlayer to help the process even more. You are still kind of limited by the patterns and fills you have on hand, but you can edit your own intros, fills and endings piano-roll style. Still tedious, but you can get great results better and faster than programming a whole song from scratch.

* Playing drums live with midi keyboard or pad controller. I've done loads of this, most recently with a Korg PadKONTROL. Considering it's just finger taps, I built up a pretty decent technique of playing finger drums. I've even jammed live with other musicians :) I use the first two fingers of each hand so it resembles four limbs. I lay out a complete kit and get familiar with which pads are which drums, hats or cymbals, hit record and just play. It's hard for me to get perfect timing or do any complex stuff, but for laying down a quick demo this is the fastest way by far. You can record drums for a whole song start to finish, then go back and edit midi here and there or quantize.

* JamStix 3. I bought it late last year and it's really cool software! The concept is awesome, but I haven't used it as much as I hoped. I still find it hard to get it to play exactly what you want played, but when it works it really works well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom