Drum Programming tutorial (others are free to contribute too)

[ahjteam]

I have a band coming to record their promo ep with me on June and they had some questions about the drums because after their gig that I mixed they noticed that their more progressive aspect of their music didn't seem to hit their crowd, but the more straightforward stuff did, so they came overly unconfident how they should rehearse their drumstuff for the studio. The band plays this kind of a grungeish stuff, so I quickly made similiar kind of an example clip (~1.5mb and 0:54 length, midi-drums and 3 guitars. But please pardon my sloppy playing ) for them so they hear how just the hihat work alone affects the tone of the music, but I decided to share it with you guys also. This all can be applied to metal, also see this post for the more extreme metal drumbeats

Drum playing 101 is pretty much is that in the straightforward 4/4 music, that consists about 85% of the western popular music, the basic beat are on the counts of 1,2,3 and 4. Usually the kick is on the count of 1 and 3 and the snare is on the counts of 2 and 4. And then you add stuff around it and thats pretty much it.

On this clip there is first 8 bars of the drum beat with 8th note hihats, then 16th note hihats, then 4th note hihats. The parts are separated with a drumbreak and every 4 bars there are some ghost noted hihats so you see how they affect the sound.

First in the clip is only 8th note hits: You get this normal beat that you usually learn in the first drum lessons, which actually sounds kinda boring and is very unspiring drumming, but this is especially good stuff for places like verses when you don't want to attract the attention to the drums, but to guitars or vocals for example. Bon Jovi uses this beat on 95% of their songs, but why change it if it ain't broken?

    1   2    3   4            1   2    3   4
BD |x-------|x-------|    BD |x-------|x-x-----|
SN |----x---|----x---| or SN |----x---|----x---|
HH |x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-|    HH |x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-|

Then there are 16th note hits with lowered velocity on the added notes: This is really good when you want some extra groove for your music and it brings the attention more to the rhythm of the music. But do note that this shouldn't be used all the time, because otherwise it will lose it's effectiviness.

(x = normal hit, v = ghost hit)

    1   2    3   4
BD |x-------|x-------|
SN |----x---|----x---|
HH |xvxvxvxv|xvxvxvxv|

And finally there is 4th note hits on the hihat: This is super good when you want to give this really powerful emphasize on the punch of the basic beat and it's really good for stuff like breakdowns and stuff. Again, this shouldn't be used all the time because it becames very boring quite fast.

    1   2    3   4
BD |x-------|x-------|
SN |----x---|----x---|
HH |x---x---|x---x---|

And those who are interested, the drum break in this clip goes like this

    1   2    3   4
BD |x---x-x-|----x-x-|
SN |-vx-----|x-x-xvxv|
HH |x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-|

Hope this helps atleast some of you guys. Any questions or comments?

 

[Morgan C]

For velocities..

Inevitably, with a right-handed drummer, the left hand is weaker and will hit softer. So when you go to program fills, make every second note slightly softer (assuming its just straight 16ths, if its not you need to work out which note = what hand), along with the normal random velocities.

If you're doing doubles (two on each hand), for example rolls, or some fast hi-hat work, the 2nd hit of each hand is also going to be softer. So if you're doing 32nd rolls on the hihat, the velocities might be 90, 83, 87, 78, for example, for the first 4 notes. Then you randomise that further so that its just not a repeating pattern. You may need to go more or less extreme, it all depends on what you're working with.

edit: also, usually for a quite 'realistic' feel, you have to vary the velocities more than you think. Sometimes I do it up to 15 (for a fill, if I'm doing ghost notes maybe 20-25 even), because I'm only using a single velocity sample, or whatever. After compression and parallel compression evens it out it sounds a lot better.

 

[smy1]

An important thing about drumfills: always think of the hihat. Hihats usually pause or are played considerably less during tom/snare breaks. I used to always keep the hihat going (cause I didn't think about it) which actually took the punch away from the fill because it gets "polluted" with additional hats.

I also like slowing down the tempo by a few beats at the end of drumfills and then going above the original tempo by 2-4bpm on the first 2 beats of the next bar. This will give you a really cool Dave Grohl/Nirvana kind-of dynamic that I dig.

 

[Erkan]

For velocities..

Inevitably, with a right-handed drummer, the left hand is weaker and will hit softer. So when you go to program fills, make every second note slightly softer (assuming its just straight 16ths, if its not you need to work out which note = what hand), along with the normal random velocities.

Yea this is true for most drummers, but you can really tell when a GREAT drummer has entered your studio. When he plays with full control and power with both of his hands, you WILL notice Sounds better than any programmed drums (which most drums do anyway in terms of musicality).

An important thing about drumfills: always think of the hihat. Hihats usually pause or are played considerably less during tom/snare breaks. I used to always keep the hihat going (cause I didn't think about it) which actually took the punch away from the fill because it gets "polluted" with additional hats.

Yup... when programming drums, you've gotta consider the limb count of a drummer, which many people tend to forget. A drummer usually has 2 legs and 2 arms (haha, duuuh!), so program accordingly. But then there are drummers who can play stuff as if they had 8 fucking limbs, but that's another story...

 

[Teddyboy]

When you play basic beats,do you use any max velocities on snare,kick or whatever?
What velocities do you use on blasts? What about the cymbals (crashes,rides,chinas)?

 

[Morgan C]

Yea this is true for most drummers, but you can really tell when a GREAT drummer has entered your studio. When he plays with full control and power with both of his hands, you WILL notice Sounds better than any programmed drums (which most drums do anyway in terms of musicality).

Agreed, but trying to imitate this with programmed drums doesn't seem to work out well. Perhaps when a real drummer goes for a fill, the right hand hits a bit to the right and the left a bit to the left, but backbeats (and samples) its right in the centre? I dunno, I haven't really noticed this when I'm playing.

@Above

Use whatever velocities sound best, but don't make ALL your things at 127. If 127 sounds good, make the 'average' at about 123, capping at 127 and going down to about 118 or so. But I would try to go lower than this, otherwise you can't do accents. I work with my own samples, via Drumagog, so I only have about 4 different velocities to work with unlike AD or DFHS or whatever so my methods may differ a bit.

 

[Erkan]

Yeah, that is kind of the problem with sampled and programmed drums... even if there are loads of samples per drum, it will never get as real as real drums. As you say, each hit doesn't land on the same spot when a real drummer plays.

I'd say programming drums is like using impulses... you can capture the good majority of the sound, but never the whole thing.

 

[Plankis]

Anyone own a e-kit? If so upload some midis with some standard drumbeats and fills, like the ones ahjteam wrote. I'm curious how the velocities looks like when a real drummer has played it. Especially doublekick-stuff and ghostnotes would be interesting.

 

[beyond dead]

how do you make hi hats sound real? lol I`m just fucking around with drum programming for the first time in years (always had a place to record drums) I`m good with programming the beats, but the hihat sounds so fucking robotic. I`m guessing multi samples are the answer. but so far I havent been able to make the programmed drums sound real enough to use them.

 

[mr.L.]

Great thread, really looking forward to future contributions. One of the things that has helped me a lot is importing some tracks in which I like the drumming and try to program the same thing. This really gives you some feel of the style of drumming you like and will in the long run allow you to develop similar patterns. It does take quite some work, but I've really found it very rewarding.

 

[sash poask]

wicked video man, deffinately an eye opener, and lots of ideas

thanks for sharing

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I need help programing paradidle snare rolls . I have a part that goes for 16 measures of this with kicks happening on beat 1 with paradidle snare rolls happening the whole time.

The closest I have come so far (SSD 3 platnum) is 1 and 3 are regular hits while 2 and 4 are snare flams or short rolls if you will, the velocities are what have been getting me, still sounds mechanic. I will post a midi sample at some point. I'm thinking of just going over to my friends house and doing some rolls on his e-kit to get an idea of how this has to be done in order to sound realistic.

Actually re reading that, duh we are talking 16th notes so that was not a good example, okay apply what I said above, only make that note numbers and not beat numbers (so that pattern repeats throughout the entire 16th note measure over and over again 16 times, in intervals of 4).

 

[Morgan C]

@GuitarGodgt

If I'm understanding you right..

A paradiddle is like this:
R L R R L R L L
repeated, at any speed. Each hit is the same length (an 8th, or a 16th or whatever).

So if you wanted do do paradiddle rolls..
I'd go
R L rrr L R lll... (R and L are the same length, say 8ths, and the 'rrr's and 'lll's start on the 8th and just continue for a 4th with however many notes.
Experiment with 3 or 4 softer ones. And remember cos it'll probly be one 'hit' with a few bounces, the initial hit will be hardest, then each consecutive bounce will be softer.

 

[ahjteam]

single paradiddle velocity example of a right handed drummer:

     1     2     3     4
SN |-R--L--r--r--L--R--l--l--|
SN |-90-84-73-72-87-92-70-68-|

double paradiddle is RL RL rr LR LR ll
triple paradiddle is RL RL RL rr LR LR LR ll

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Little r and little l are softer?

Like I said I will get to posting an example of my fail once I get home at 9 (it's 5am).

 

[ahjteam]

not nessecarily, but I like it like that (accented), gives it a bit of a groove instead of a machine gun.

edit: you can change it to something like this too:

     1     2     3     4
SN |-R--L--r--r--L--R--l--l--|
SN |-90-84-85-82-87-92-80-81-|

 

[LeSedna]

but with only 10 of velocity between the most and the least powerful, that means you have a lot of samples between 80 and 90 ?

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Okay this is what I need to sound more realistic if you will, I'm guessing some randomizing of quantization is in order to try to get a more human feel as far as the rythem goes, but am I even remotely on track here? If you have SSD 3 this is done with keyboard mapping.

https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/453334/Snare rolls.mid

Or if your on cubase this map will get you understanding what the notes are doing:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/453334/SSD 3.drm

 

[Morgan C]

Ok I downloaded that and had a listen.

First of all, every hit needs to be randomised, not just the fills.

I don't like altering the timing, it usually sounds dodgy. Perhaps more 'human', but it seems silly to go and make the timing bad, when 'pro' producers working with real drums spend all that time making the timing perfect. That, and if I can HEAR the imperfections, then thats bad. Its too obvious. They have to be very subtle.

I couldn't find any paradiddles in there, except for the bit in the middle which was a bit weird. Here's a clip that has some paradiddles at the start, dunno if its what you're after. The first bar has 3 hits in between, more of a roll (which sounds better imo), the second bar has 2 hits, which is more true to the rudiment. After that is some of your midi which I changed up a bit, and altered the fills to make it sound better.

The sound quality is terrible, I just used the AD demo with an awful sounding snare and awful sounding kick, and I had no toms.. so ignore that ;p
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Midi fills.mp3
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Midi fills.mid

To me this sounds pretty real. If I had better samples, and added some parallel compression you probably wouldn't notice that its programmed.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Actually I thought I just isolated the part I was talking about, turns out I exported the entire midi file .

That part in the middle is what I am talking about, those rolls sound funky the way they are. I also need it to start soft and get louder as it goes along. It's kind of weird I know.