SuperiorDrums, how?

prometh

prometh

Power User
I don't have a recording for this post, sorry. But I do have a question.

Many of the recordings on here have very detailed drums, especially on the death metal ones. You all seem to mention using Superior Drums.

How are you guys putting together those loops and fills? Do you guys have a drummer with an e-kit or are you doing it all with a keyboard, or maybe pre-made MIDI sections?
 
I'm looking for some acoustic drums that are easy to use. I have drums on demand that use groove bits. They have groupings intro,ver1,ver2,bridge,ending. I'm not good at programming drums
 
I like to write out the first portion of a good idea in my keyboard roll, and then I take the major structures (like maybe the high hat, rides, or kick and snare), copy/paste to the next phrase(s) and alter them to make variations on the first idea. I have found this keeps me thinking of drums just like any other well-phrased instrument and allows me to save time from clicking and constantly adjusting velocities.

The really painful part comes down to editing things to give them more lively feel - minor adjustments and shifts in velocity to make it sound humanized.

Other guys will record one or two parts at a time by playing and then adjust. I'm just too anal retentive about how I want it to sound to trust my idiotic keyboard chops. Sad panda. :(
 
Superior drummer sounds great. Personally, I like to insert each note individually on the piano roll, adjusting the velocity as I go.
 
I usually write out my drum tracks in guitar pro and then fine tune them within the daw itself. Kind of a roundabout way of doing it, but for me it seems to be the quickest.
 
I use an E-Drumkit (Roland V-Drums) myself, doing all live with no post editing and tricks...I'm not that good on drums, but it's far enough for my needs....
 
I just click in a piano roll. It's actually pretty fast once you get used to the workflow. I can usually type out a rock song with various fills in about 20-30 mins if I have a plan on what I'm going to do.
 
Do you guys have any tips for someone who isn't a very good beat creator? I have Superior and Reaper but I know close to nothing about drums.
 
GregBroChill69 said:
Do you guys have any tips for someone who isn't a very good beat creator? I have Superior and Reaper but I know close to nothing about drums.
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Just start listening to drums and emulate what you hear. If you've got guitar pro you can download songs with drums tabbed out and use that to kind of see how beats are constructed.

Start simple. Either kick on 1 snare on 3, or kick on 1 & 3 and snare on 2 & 4. Add 8th hihat to either and you've got a good starting place. From there start adding ghost shots on the snare and kick. Usually it's safest to add them either just before or just after existing snare/kick shots.
 
You can do it all ways.
I use an e-kit (Roland v-drum) to get the groove I need ( which is easier then finding a loop that fits) and then write via Logic the sweetening of the drums. I use Steven Slate Drums 4 which I believe to be one of the best sounding. It's also a matter of taste.
 
Talus said:
Just start listening to drums and emulate what you hear. If you've got guitar pro you can download songs with drums tabbed out and use that to kind of see how beats are constructed.

Start simple. Either kick on 1 snare on 3, or kick on 1 & 3 and snare on 2 & 4. Add 8th hihat to either and you've got a good starting place. From there start adding ghost shots on the snare and kick. Usually it's safest to add them either just before or just after existing snare/kick shots.
Click to expand...

Good call on that, I actually do have Guitar Pro. Off to find some tabs!
 
i use a combination of the midi map in reaper where i just make it up from scratch and the midi packs you can buy from toontrack - i put general beats in and then ammend them to suit my songs.
 
Obviously not the first dude to reply with this... But I program all of my drums using the piano roll in Presonus Studio One 2- by clicking in the midi notes. I use Superior Drummer along with The Metal Foundry expansion. I you're not the most gifted maker of beats you can always use Superior Drummer's groove option which basically is an assortment of drum licks,fills, etc that you can drag and drop onto your drum track. Then of course you can alter them to your liking, change them up, or if nothing else just see what type of pattern ideas it offers. It always helps me to look at the grooves in piano roll format so I can see the individual velocities for each hit. I've discovered that helps me become more creative with ideas and makes my drum tracks sound better.
 
+1 to Jalon. I am still not good at making beats, so until I learn, I drag a groove from superior, and can manipulate it to fit my song. The piano roll is still there, and if you are not good at it like myself, it gives you a snapshot of how "they" did it.
 
I have Steven Slate Drums 3 and it sounds awesome, but it relies on Kontakt, which may or may not make things more difficult. With that, I use a MIDI keyboard to plug in the notes and it takes forever. I guess that I should find some pre-made grooves
 
drum programming is what has really held me back from recording original stuff.
I suck at it and have so little free time to actually play and record stuff these days that entering notes in the piano roll
frustrates me to the point of just saying f*ck it.
I'd have an entire CD of original stuff recorded by now if I was good at programming drums. :(
 
Drum programming is my least favourite part. What I do is buy midi grooves and then modify if needed, e.g., add in cymbal hits, etc.

Platinum Samples sells unquantized midi grooves by great drummers -- I have the Steve Ferrone pack which is great; it gives you beats organized into songs with verses, etc all with variations.

You can get audio loops done by real drummers too, but I prefer midi for being able to easily edit them if need be.
 
Just bought the Bobby Jarzombek groove library :) Will try to use it with SSD3, and will consider upgrading to SSD4
 
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