programmed drums > need some tips

FIXXXER

FIXXXER

¯\(°_o)/¯
Feb 18, 2008
4,478
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Germany
hey guys,

first of all i am not sure if "Production Tips" is the right place to post this,
so if i am wrong feel free to move the thread where i belongs! :)

i just finished drum programming for a new track i am working on.
i am not a drummer, so as expected i am having some problems programing drums that do not sound like an octopus played them ;)

prior to that i was listening to a lot of drumming videos
on youtube and tried to learn.

i also use to check my drum visually (superior2 interface FTW!)
and i try to "understand" what is actually played
my theory, if it looks like shit, it is shit :lol:

here's an mp3 of the complete drum track.

DRUM TRACK

maybe some of you guys could check it out, and leave a few tips.

thanks in advance! :)

cheers
S.
 
It doesn't sound too bad. The snare in particular is very mechanical, but as far as composition goes..

Hitting 2 choked cymbals as fast as you have (16ths) is pretty much impossible. Change the first one to just a cymbal crash, and then choke on the second hit.

There are a few times where you are hitting the snare pretty fast and rolling on the toms at the same time. And about 3/4 the way through you're hitting really fast on the ride and doin rolls on the toms at the same time, impossible.

Overall its not too bad. One thing that makes it sound really fake is that 'crash on beat 1 of every bar' that you've got going on. Firstly, don't crash both crashes at the same time unless its for impact, like at the start of a song or something. Secondly, don't crash on beat 1 of every bar ;p Maybe every 4 bars, maybe every 8. Maybe change it up so you do a little fill, or hit a few crashes instead of just one on beat 1.

And keep in mind that a good drummer would probably only be able to play 8ths on each hand. So if you're playing 16ths on the ride, that's using both hands. If you're doing 8ths on the ride, you've only got one hand to spare (ie. 8ths) for anything else.



If you need help with velocities, just make sure you take into account
1) right hand hits harder than left
2) power goes down as fills are longer

So if you've got 4 16ths in a row, to make them realistic, make them say.. 100, 85, 93, 80.
If you've got 8 16ths in a row, make them 100, 85, 93, 80, 97, 84, 91, 81. This means that not only is it going Hard Soft Medium Tiny, but its 'resetting' on every beat, ie. every 4 16ths. If that makes sense?

However sometimes this doesn't work. If you listen to Paramore's Riot which has a pretty realistic snare (and I'm pretty sure samples are really only used for the ring, and maybe a bit of reinforcement), you can sometimes hear for 16ths, instead of as above being powerful on hit 1 then going down in power, it starts fairly soft and builds up a tiny bit. So.. experiment :) Changing the velocities can DRAMATICALLY alter a drum fill.
 
wow, that was very informative and well explained.
thank you very much for this post! :kickass:

cheers
S.
 
wow that was really good info morgan c. I program drums also and i have learned alot since i started. I play drums a little bit but cant do much other than a typical blast beat and breakdown lol. One thing that helps alot is when you listen to an album of similar style, just listen to the drums and dont pay attention to anything else. Its amazing how different a mix can sound when you try to focus on one element. Also, watch youtube videos of people drumming. I have spent alot of time programming fills and saving them for later use from shannon lucas, derek roddy and george kolias videos. Which also makes me want to release a drum fill pack lol. And remember, just cause George Kolias can play 16th double bass at 250bpm doesnt mean everyone else can.

Sorry i cant listen to your sample right now, im at work but i will give feedback on it when i get home tonight
 
puh, i finally reworked the complete drumstrack.
haha, first time i like my programmed drums, thanks again morgan!!!

here's the result:

NEW TRUM TRACK

more opinions welcome!:)

cheers
S.
 
I would listen but I can't (cause I'm at work, if you had streamed it I would have) :(

From listening to real drummers though some things I notice are:

If he is doing quarters to 8ths on the high hats and they are closed, he tends to hit the downbeat a little more open the the others (not much, maybe the next step open on your drum software), he will sometimes do that as well on snare hits if they happen at the same time.

If you break into a blast, it's at least an 8th note length to get from the opening crash to the cymbol (be it ride, china, hats, etc...) he intends to blast on.

Morgan is dead on with everything else, that was all I could think of at the moment.

The only other thing is making sure the drummer doesn't ever have 3 arms :lol:.
 
No problem guys! Tbh I don't even bother with velocities for most things, just leave everything but a few things at 127 :/ Slate's AMG does the rest.

The important thing to get right on cymbals is when they're playing fast. If you're just playing 4ths I don't see why leaving them at 127 is a problem. But if you start playing 8ths then make every 2nd hit softer, if you start playing 16ths on the hats you really have to work on making it sound realistic, usually adding accents in that are 20-30velocities above the non-accents. Hats are the hardest part to get right. I've heard maybe 2 mp3's EVER that have nailed complex programmed hats.

Only other thing is sometimes don't put everything bang on the grid. I usually do cos I'm lazy, but if you listen to Ola's MIDIs, he programs his drums very well and while the kick/snare are usually dead on grid, everything else is slightly off. SLIGHTLY, barely noticeable. And when 2 toms get hit at once, again there's a SLIGHT flam. Have a look at his MIDIs for some more help. Of course this just gets annoying when its taken too far (Paramore's BNE isn't programmed but everything is edited together, so when kick/snare hit together there's this huge ugly flam that just pisses me off).
 
thanks again morgan, i will try that "slightly off" thing! :)

here's what i made out of your previous tips. i ust finished recording,
not mixed, sounds shit, but i think the drums sound not bad at all.

DOWNLOAD TRACK

cheers
S.
 
I find air drumming along (or at least trying to) helps give me a good idea of whether it's possible and also helps me figure out the note divisions and what not.
 
Morgan pretty much said it all, so I'll keep my answer brief.
I have an e-kit, so yeah, that makes life easier. But what is handy is if you looked into possibly getting just one e-pad and a cheap midi module. You could use this one pad to manually play certain parts eg. Hi-hats, ride etc. Helps capture the human element.
Also in Reaper, you can humanize midi pretty easily - a slider allows you to adjust the level of humanization. It works great and it reduces the amount of manual adjustments. Check your DAWs manual.
 
I've got a big essay due on Monday that I haven't started. So I decided to mock up a MIDI of how I'd program some drum beats. It's not perfect, took about half an hour in total. Unfortunately Slate doesn't sound like a real drummer, no matter what you do. I'd be interested in hearing the MIDI thru Sup2.0, but then you'd have to change the mapping around.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/MIDI Drums.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/MIDI Drums.mid

If anyone has any comments on how to improve my programming, have at it! Altho judge rather by the MIDI than by the mp3, because as I said you can't get realistic with Slate.
 
Morgan C said:
Tbh I don't even bother with velocities for most things, just leave everything but a few things at 127 :/ Slate's AMG does the rest.
Click to expand...

Actually, you'd be better off leaving everything at 120. Slate's AMG would then have an effect. But leaving it at 127 puts a cap on what the AMG can achieve. So velocities will only get adjusted downwards - and thus you're crippling the AMG functionality.
 
drew_drummer said:
Actually, you'd be better off leaving everything at 120. Slate's AMG would then have an effect. But leaving it at 127 puts a cap on what the AMG can achieve. So velocities will only get adjusted downwards - and thus you're crippling the AMG functionality.
Click to expand...

:OMG:
 
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