Penciling in MIDI drums

[Andrew07]

Alright Ive heard some of your guys mixes on here, and I know this can be done well!

Can anyone share some tips on how to pencil/draw in MIDI drums that sound realistic? I understand that you should vary velocity and timing.... but im not real sure how to do it properly

I'm using Cubase and when I draw in stuff it just sounds like a drum machine

thanks guys!!

 

[smy1]

Hey Andrew! Check the search engine. This has been covered quite a number of times (I have personally written 2-3 posts about it since I mainly use programmed drums) ...

Good luck!

 

[Torniojaws]

The easiest way is to use a MIDI keyboard to play the drum tracks. You get that human variation automagically if your keyboard has velocity detection.

 

[Sloan]

I completely hate editing drums in any fashion - audio or midi.
But yeah, just kinda randomize velocity etc and do a lot of listening to make sure it FEELS real. Listen back and if there's something going on where you would need an extra arm to play in real life, ditch it.

 

[Metaltastic]

Cycling samples helps too, either by having your sampler do it or just loading in a bunch of similar sounding but different samples and penciling in a repeating staircase-looking thing

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Cubase has some pretty sweet midi editing tools IMO. Iterative quantize for instance is good (just set the swing semi high like 12% and the magnetise function to 25% or so) for getting a more loose human feel.

Then as far as velocity goes, there is a line tool. I like to set it to sine and drag a small curve over anthing that is fixed velocity (tried this recently worked great) so that it varies somwhat randomly from a difference of 10-15 in strenght.

Good luck

 

[JBroll]

I did that by hand and just randomly threw things a little bit back and a little bit forward, and then set velocities the same way (they default to something around 100 or 110, and I get them higher or lower until they sound realistic)... actually, one thing I've been working on got comments like 'Drums are cool but the drummer needs to tighten up a bit'...

Jeff

 

[kev]

get a good drum sound from the off, fiddle with velocities, move hits out a tad, multi sample - thats what ive learnt thus far.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

On parts with a lot of groove, set up the drums perfectly quantized, then play with it a bit. Move some of the kicks and snare either to the left or right a little and see how that changes the feel. Also you can play the riff with your guitar and look at the DI next to the grid. You may be surprised to see that a lot of your notes come before or after the gridline. You can match your midi hits there, too.

I've tried using the random generator, and it helps a little, but it's not the same as actually playing it or employing more thoughtful tactics. At any rate, there's no easy way to do it.

 

[Andrew07]

some great tips here, thanks everyone

One last question though-- can anyone recommend a source to get drum tabs, or maybe a book to some modern metal/rock beats? i used to get tabs from mxtabs but they're still down, and I HATE all the damn popups i get from other tab sites. THanks again!!!