Could use a Tutorial for MIDI Drums

[Sixstringmayhem]

So I used to just map out my drums with Acoustica Beatcraft back when I was working on a PC but since changing to a Mac I run kontakt 4 and use a midi keyboard. I pretty much just took my own approach to recording midi drums but im having this odd feeling its not the most efficient way. I might add im working in logic 9. so ive got 7 Virtual instruments loaded (kontakt 4) the first instrument in the line is my "full drum kit" 2nd instrument is snare, 3rd is bass drum, 4th is toms, 5th is cymbals etc. so when im writing a song ill make a beat with the "full kit", and make the appropriate guitar riff for it. Then to record it, metronome running, ill first record the snare hits, then bass drum hits, then cymbals all on separated tracks and quantize them after each take. so in the end i have all separate tracks for everything. is this logical? or am i pretty much doing it the hard way? i suppose its somewhat efficient but if there are other efficient ways of doing this please let me know! thanks!

 

[Plankis]

Program with the mouse. If you can't record the midi good enough without needing to quantize I don't see the point in doing it.

 

[Sixstringmayhem]

well i only quantize it to make it perfect, clicking in each hit in the piano roll in logic is a pain in the ass

 

[Sixstringmayhem]

btw the playin in the video is ridiculous!

 

[setyouranchor]

well i only quantize it to make it perfect, clicking in each hit in the piano roll in logic is a pain in the ass

Yep, thats midi for you! Can take up to 3 hours with a band programming drums for me

 

[Sixstringmayhem]

Yep, thats midi for you! Can take up to 3 hours with a band programming drums for me

haha well alright then! the only problem i have with just having a keyboard to play the drums rather than an actual set is making decent fills lol its hard to make one with nothing to bang.

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

Well I very much enjoy writing it with the mouse. Lately, for the heck of it I did some metal versions of pop and tv/movie theme songs, and the way I write the drums is;

First I use EWQL's drums, I write it all in one track... lets say I want the verse to be "tu-ta-tu-ta" with closed hi-hat and chorus "turuturuTA" (quick double bass drum) with open hi-hat, well I write 1 or 2 measures and copy paste. Then I listen to the song a couple of times and where I get bored of the drum part I write fills. Or what you could do is write the basic drum part, listen to it, write the fills with the mouse?

Then when I am happy with the track, so I copy paste the drum track AND I keep one "whole drum" track. So I get kick, snare, tom 01 tom 02 tom 03 tom 04, overheads and drum_whole. Export, mix like a regular drum almost except that the "whole drum" track is mixed like a super stereo room track that doesn't sound so "roomy". And it gives me the impression that there is bleed or something, which makes me feel a tiny bit better inside.

I'm not the most uber pro out there but if you want to hear a metal version of the Blade Runner theme :

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/666826/Spectre d'Iapetus - Blade Runner.mp3

Once you get the hang of it it shouldn't take very long to write the drum parts. And btw........

 

[Sixstringmayhem]

hahaha that blade runnner theme is so sick! so is what your saying you have a "whole kit" and then you have individual hits sitting on top of the "whole kit" for EQing and reverb and stuff like that?

 

[timislegend]

a little ot... i just watched the chip spanner "under one sky" video and i pooped myself!




skills, dude!

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

hahaha that blade runnner theme is so sick! so is what your saying you have a "whole kit" and then you have individual hits sitting on top of the "whole kit" for EQing and reverb and stuff like that?

Well thanks! And yeah the whole drum track I compress it a lot, but the EWQL patch comes with a roomy vibe to it, but it would be too "rock and roll" for metal if I added no samples.
Also, when I mic a regular drum, if the recording is well done in a good room and with a good drum/drummer, I like to leave some bleed, so that's the purpose of the whole_drum track.
And the individual tracks I add samples, eq, and stuff. The cymbals are not samples, they're the EWQL sound, all in one track. So the cymbals are played in whole_drum and overheads.
And I like to have individual tom tracks for panning and sampling.

And also, I hate how all the drum patches I found are all bass drum + snare with the left hand and the rest on the right. I would much prefer the opposite.

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

Laying down drums on a keyboard is cool as a "storyboard", "penciled in" version, but if you want to do stuff like rolls, flams, ruffs, ghostnotes, etc, get yourself a midi drum interface. If you want to go the cheap route, try......
Alesis I/O drum trigger - $150
Remo 6" pads - $15 each
Simmons drum triggers - $20 each
Midi or USB cable $8
Cheap cables - $6 each
Sticks - steal some from your drummer



With 4 or 5 pads, you can track midi drum parts with much more feeling than cold plastic keys.

 

[Ionei]

Once you get the nack of it you can do it in no time at all.
Depending on if the drummer can actually communicate or not I can smash out a song super fast, and if its my own stuff then it usually doesn't take more than 20 minutes at the maximum.
Drummers repeat shit a lot.