Composers - How do you normally do drums?

[Melodeath]

For tho seof you who make your own songs, how do you normally do the drums? I don't mean the sounds, but the actual beats. I know people use samples from AD, Slate, DKFHS, etc, but how do you guys actually make the beats? Do you program them by hand? Do you play them on the keyboard and record it as MIDI information?

When I was composing a few years ago, I used to make all my beats by hand. Playing the beats on the keyboard always wound up too sloppy.

Thanks

 

[Metaltastic]

I always just draw 'em in on the piano roll on a MIDI track (with the output set to my drum sampler) using the pencil tool, often grouping them into regions of 4 bars and copying and pasting like a madman

 

[SocialNumb]

Heh, I was about to ask you "Metaltastic" how you program drums. I used to pencil it all in years ago. I have to admit I got better results that way as far complicated patterns go. Now a try so hard to do it by hand/keyboard. Altho less complicated (the patterns) it feels better when I nail it down.(speaking of my original stuff)

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, I can imagine that, and you can always snap what you played by hand to the grid. I've just always used the pencil because I never had a keyboard until now; finally, my E-MU Xboard 49 is in the mail! What I really wanted it for was synths/keyboard parts, but I might give playing drums with it a try as well.

 

[Gaspard]

I do everything with my mouse, then i make random velocity settings and for really complicated drum rools i'll change the tempo to like 20 and put it back to normal again, with no pauses, it takes me 2 hours for a 4 minutes metal song.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, I never fuck around with trying to humanize my programming by varying the velocity and/or timing - it shows, I guess, but fuck, I've got better things to focus on, namely my guitar parts!

 

[Fragle]

i usually write the drums in guitar pro and replace the stock sounds with samples using addictive drums. to me that's much easier than writing a full drum map from scratch.

 

[Arjen W.]

i usually write the drums in guitar pro and replace the stock sounds with samples using addictive drums. to me that's much easier than writing a full drum map from scratch.

Yeah, I do this too, although I don't tab every song anymore nowadays. Guitar Pro is handy to make a basic drum track. I do the fills and details by just drawing them in the piano roll. During recording I'll check whether it sounds good and change parts that don't work.

 

[Proggm]

I record the midi output of my electronic drum set. You’d be amazed of the difference it makes. Well, of course, I’m a drummer – if you don’t play the instrument, I recommend just writing it.

 

[Gaspard]

Yeah, I never fuck around with trying to humanize my programming by varying the velocity and/or timing - it shows, I guess, but fuck, I've got better things to focus on, namely my guitar parts!

Just try doing random velocity on big tom rolls and snare rolls, don't do velocity on bass drum for metal, but try it, don't change timing, just have fun with velocity and it wil really sound more organic in your mix. like Hihatt with no velocity changes= poopy.

 

[SocialNumb]

I record the midi output of my electronic drum set. You’d be amazed of the difference it makes. Well, of course, I’m a drummer – if you don’t play the instrument, I recommend just writing it.

It would be really awesome if you could free style some drum patterns and share Midi's. Some nice hi hats/cym work would go a long way. Snare rolls, tom patterns. Wishful thinking. Anything that flows and isn't "on the grid".

 

[Torniojaws]

It would be really awesome if you could free style some drum patterns and share Midi's. Some nice hi hats/cym work would go a long way. Snare rolls, tom patterns. Wishful thinking. Anything that flows and isn't "on the grid".

Most drum programs already come with an assload of premade drum patterns by famous drummers.

 

[colonel kurtz]

i typically just pencil everything in on the grid, but i have a set of ddrum triggers sitting around that never get used, so pretty soon i'm going to make a shit-cheap little v-drum set for the kick/snare/toms, and be left to mousing in the hats and cymbals

 

[SocialNumb]

Most drum programs already come with an assload of premade drum patterns by famous drummers.

Which program would you say has MIDI drum patterns that are not "on the grid"?

 

[Torniojaws]

Which program would you say has MIDI drum patterns that are not "on the grid"?

Superior 2.0, Ezdrummer, Addictive Drums and BFD at least come with patterns made on an electronic drumkit. DFH Superior doesn't have any.

 

[MrLee]

for just messing around Ill use som groove monkee beats i DFHS, and use my fav samples on snare and kick.. for demos its real drums

 

[SocialNumb]

Superior 2.0, Ezdrummer, Addictive Drums and BFD at least come with patterns made on an electronic drumkit. DFH Superior doesn't have any.

Don't have Superior 2.0 yet. Don't want BFD.
I have the rest. Strange I look at the MIDI's and there locked into grid. Perfect. Some do have velocity work going on. I don't imagine most drummers play like a robot. I know my quantize is off, I keep it that way. So what am I missing here?

 

[Torniojaws]

Don't have Superior 2.0 yet. Don't want BFD.
I have the rest. Strange I look at the MIDI's and there locked into grid. Perfect. Some do have velocity work going on. I don't imagine most drummers play like a robot. I know my quantize is off, I keep it that way. So what am I missing here?

I think the makers must've quantized them then. I've never used the loops personally, so I can't tell. I could check how they look for me.

Edit:
The loops in Addictive Drums and Ezdrummer are not quantized. There's quite a bit of variation ahead and back compared to the grid and in velocity. I don't have Superior 2.0 and BFD, so I can't check them.

 

[SocialNumb]

Hmm, I'm doing something wrong then. I'm gonna check again in about an hour. Turn up the view/resolution, maybe I'll be able to see it then. I hardly have messed with them because the first time I looked at them they looked quantized.



Edit: Yup, your right. I see it now.

 

[TheDarkProject]

I tap out my patterns with a Korg PadKontrol, which is both faster and more expressive than drawing them in with the mouse. Typically I do it with Sonar and set it to quantize the input so my rather poor timing is kept reasonable. If I need variations, it's easy to click and drag the hi-hats to become rides or that sort of thing, or copy and paste in a few extra kicks and cymbals here and there. I save these as MIDI clips, naming them as 4/4 or 6/8 or whatever, and storing normal patterns separately from fills so it's easy to mix and match. Then I typically use EZPlayer Free to audition them when choosing which ones to add into the song.