Fake drum workflow

[aortizjr]

I write mine in the piano roll of the DAW after I place my kicks and snares using a keyboard.

You can take the LAZY MAN route and get Easy Player from ToonTrack which has hundreds of pre programmed beats in MIDI and then tweak to taste.

Yep I am lazy... sometimes I end up spending more time on the drums than the rest of the damn song... EZPlayer is cool. I bought a few MIDI packs and use EZPlayer to manage them.

I also made a lot of my own and use EZPlayer to manage them.

But realistically they still come out pretty generic sounding, even though more humanized. So they save me time for something quick or maybe for some cool fills or something.

For anything I actually show to anyone else besides my band... you have to roll your own. Each song is unique and the drums should be too.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

http://www.groove3.com/str/programming-rock-drums-in-pro-tools.html
Watching this right now.

 

[Russtopher]

Program kick and snare, then add in hats or ride for a verse beat, then the same for chorus and bridge. Copy each measure once, then paste so I have 2 measures. Add something/change something in the second measure, slightly change velocities on the hats/ride so every other hit is slightly softer to humanize the feel, then copy/paste both measures however many times I need to, to create the section. Create whole song. Then go in and add fills, cymbal accents, etc.

Then get pissed and hate it, drive to rehearsal space, set up mics on kit and record the whole thing live

 

[Sloan]

I thought I was doing shit the hard way, but there's no way but the hard way.

 

[JeffTD]

Cubase drum maps are the easiest thing in the world and make everything I've ever done from a MIDI drum standpoint (programming, augmentation, or replacement) super easy and straightforward. Piano rolls are for fags!

 

[hogan666]

+1
Drum Maps in Cubase are one of the things that will never make me think about using another DAW.

 

[colton]

I did the GP thing for years. A few of months ago I finally switched to the drum map in Cubase. Sooo much easier and less time consuming.

 

[TheDarkProject]

+1
Drum Maps in Cubase are one of the things that will never make me think about using another DAW.

Sonar has drum maps too. No idea if they lack features that Cubase has, but the screenshots certainly seem similar.

 

[drew_drummer]

Play them in live on an e-kit. Edit from there.

 

[Tamarocker88]

I tend to tab out entire scores for songs using GP so the drums have already been completed, including dynamics etc... In those cases I export the MIDI and then dump it into SD 2.0. Otherwise, I have a Korg NanoPAD that I can just play everything into. Fun little device!

 

[jimwilbourne]

3 deferent method here.
Guitar is great for me. Because I end up doing lots of midi on the go via laptop.

The pianoroll or drum map editor on Digital Performer are the other 2 methods.
Easy interface and great articulation control for midi.

 

[DanLights]

I tend to tab out entire scores for songs using GP so the drums have already been completed, including dynamics etc... In those cases I export the MIDI and then dump it into SD 2.0. Otherwise, I have a Korg NanoPAD that I can just play everything into. Fun little device!

How do you include dynamics in Guitar Pro? Been using it for years but never saw that except for the pathetic ghost notes. Perhaps you're talking GP6 which I've never used

 

[Fama]

There's a toolbar called "Dynamic" (check under view -> Menus and Toolbars if you don't see it) that has 8 different levels from ppp to fff. It's only got those 8 levels, but it's better than nothing.

 

[LeSedna]

3rd row, on the far right. from ppp to fff. Additionally, you can set up GP to deal with note transparency related to that dynamics. ppp is almost transparent, and fff is 100% black. So that you can see dynamics from the tab. A last thing is that GP always remembers the last dynamic you have selected when you are writing new notes, so if you don't have this transparency setting used, you may write notes without noticing it's in another level of dynamics than the other ones, and discover it later. Just so you know

http://www.iblog.co.za/wp-content/blogs.dir/17521/uploads//gp5.JPG

From there, in your daw, you randomize by like 5% velocities, and you're almost done about overall dynamics editing, and you can fine-tune fills etc.

I would crave for an equivalent of GP drum tabs inside my DAW. It makes writing, copypasting, and editing so much easier than anything else, and I've tried many things. Drum maps don't do it for me cause I can't stand the way a DAW is set to behave with copypasting and selecting when it comes to drum maps, it just makes it so more complicated than in GP. I mostly use them when i wanna edit.

 

[Tamarocker88]

How do you include dynamics in Guitar Pro? Been using it for years but never saw that except for the pathetic ghost notes. Perhaps you're talking GP6 which I've never used

Yes, I use GP6, but you can also control dynamics in older versions. Like the others already said, you can change the dynamics from ppp to fff and everywhere inbetween. You can also accentuate notes.

 

[mburton21]

Due to the fact that I make Guitar Pro files for all our band's songs I just copy the drum MIDI into Pro Tools, separate the tracks (kick, snare, etc.), pop them onto an Instrument track with Xpand2 running (choosing slap bass under instruments since for some reason it seems to almost humanize the MIDI drums and never misses a beat even with shitty Drumagog), then finally into Drumagog with whatever samples I feel like using.

I think it works incredibly well since most of the time I have real overhead tracks to use; however, it still works with cymbals though. When I am forced to do everything "in the box," I just put the cymbals/dry drum mix on my monitors and record it to give it some breathing room.

I think it sounds infinitely better than EZ drummer and such.