realistic sequenced drums - how?

[The Grim Clown]

Hello Andy Sneap, James and regulars. I've been lurking the forums of UM for quite a while now and decided to register and post here a question that has been bugging me for sometime now... I've difficulty finding a drummer capable to play the stuff I sequence in midi or do something that really amazes me and since we are in the process of recording a promo, we want it to sound all professional. I don't do unrealistic beats - like stuff only a machine or the very elaborated prog drummer would be able to play, but it's a mix of technicity, randomness and speed. I already got decent kicks and a few cymbals are sounding nice too, but toms and snare...especially during snare/tom rolls...sound like shit.. so, I was thinking if anyone had some good tips on this. I think it will be useful/helpful to many of us, considering that a lot of people in here does drum sequencing. The best example of this that pops to mind is Necrophagist - Epitaph. I had to re-listen to after I was told it was a drum machine - such a great job, not only for drums but production in general.

Thanks!

 

[~BURNY~]

The key is multisampled (layered) sounds and velocity control.
It is the best way to avoid the "machine gun effect".
Here's a quick example:
http://s51.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0M6DJ008XD15B0TUATKFGGVACZ
See how the no velocity file sucks...

 

[Impy]

You should check out the different Drumkit From Hell packages, they've got great samples and features, the newest package called Superior has a random sample function for example, which means that the same sample will never be used twice in a row... It eats RAM but it is a very helpful tool if you're stuck without a drummer.

 

[The Grim Clown]

Burny: Nice...Thanks for the example. What sequencer? are those samples from DKFH? I didn't like the snare sounds a lot, they sounded way too "plastic" and how is that velocities and layering thing in practice?

Impy: It's costy. I am planing to make my samples and use a limited number of others. I am using kick sample a friend of mine sent to me with some eq tweaks.

Thank you

 

[~BURNY~]

Yes it's drumkit from hell superior. But this is a quick example with quick made settings.I use nuendo but you can control velocity parameter in any normal sequencer. If you can't afford this kind of library there's a lot of free or cheap ones in soundfont format but you'll need a soft sampler to use it (or a crappy soundcard from emu or creative with a native soundfont compatibility). Check sonic implants or wizoo products:
http://www.wizoosounds.com/cgi-bin/.../53/wo/P77NnD9oQdjH2QielRr9dBjTUuO/0.0.21.0.3
http://www.sonicimplants.com/
NSkit is a popular free multisampled soundfont:
http://www.naturalstudio.co.uk/
Kingston Drums (in various format):
http://kingstondrums.bombsquad.org/
Another one for battery/LM4/Akai:
http://www.tchackpoum.net/

 

[The Grim Clown]

Man could you explain me how to work with the velocities? I am using battery 2 inside cubase sx 2, I went into one of the sites you mentioned and downloaded the snare pack. Then I loaded my generic death metal kit and added all samples into the snare's cell and I didn't noticed much difference in snare rolls and the sound was pretty loud. Not as clean changes as that on your mp3 (actually, I'm not even sure if there occured any sample swapping). Is there a way I can make different samples for different velocities out of the one I was using previously (the one bundled with lm7) if so how? I read the helpfile in the velocity topic but I didn't understand it. Sorry for the lame questions folks.

 

[Impy]

In the midi editing window just choose a hit (note) and you'll see a velocity corresponding with that note in the top of the window, from 0-127, this is the value you need to change to fully use multisampled kits. Just play around with the values, that's the easiest way to learn, for example, a four-hit snare roll might have this velociy:
first hit:78
second hit:92
third hit:100
fourth hit:112
or something like that, use your ears, you'll hear when it sounds good.

 

[Ermz]

Also there is an expandable window near the bottom of the midi-pianoroll that can function as a graphical velocity chart. You just grab the pen tool and 'draw' the velocities in. What I normally do is just sweep my hand accross, and the natural inconsistencies of the motion create the drummer's natural variations

 

[Impy]

I'd also suggest buying a midi keyboard which is velocity sensitive, you can play fairly convincing rolls on it, i always use a midi keyboard when programming drums.

 

[The Grim Clown]

So, all I've to do for velocities is on cubase, I've nothing to change on battery, right? (except for adding all the samples to the correct note-cell, right?)

Thank you guys! If I get my kit to sound half-decent like the one on Necrophagist, I will be very happy!

 

[Andy Sneap]

actually, in battery you need to layer the cell, and then allocate the different snares for velocities. You can also make the cell velocity sensitive (say if you just have one sample that you want to change in volume) with the modulation slider (I think thats what its labelled as), by setting velocity on the left and have it effect the volume. You can adjust the slider by %. The new Biomechanical was all Battery on the kit, played in on a midi kit in Johns front room!

 

[Impy]

Well if you're setting up your own kit in battery you'll have to manually set which sample is supposed to correlate with a certain velocity, for example:

You add 6 samples to a cell.
First sample (lightest hit) correlates to velocities: 0-70
Second sample correlates to velocities: 71-85
Third sample correlates to velocities: 86-98
etc etc...

Make sure there is no overlap of samples cause then two or more samples will be played on a certain velocity.

How you set this up is you select the cell where you've added the samples, choose a sample and set the velocity, high and low, the velocities between these two will be the velocities that trigger this sample. Do this for all samples so that you cover the whole velocity spectrum, 0 to 127

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

You should check out the different Drumkit From Hell packages, they've got great samples and features, the newest package called Superior has a random sample function for example, which means that the same sample will never be used twice in a row... It eats RAM but it is a very helpful tool if you're stuck without a drummer.

Indeed, i really don't recommend it with less than a GB of RAM, but if you have that it's tasty \m/

 

[The Grim Clown]

Sneap, Impy thank you very much! I am not yet done with questions, but I think I have a lot of work to experiment.

I wonder, do any of you make velocities change in here? I remember to have once read here that Sneap didn't do velocities for kicks because he wanted to maintain the bottom end wall stable enough for the mixing...so, what do you (guys) do to make it more "alive"?

Cheers!

 

[Impy]

I do velocity on all drums, sometimes i skip velocity on fast doublekick parts just to stay away from weird dips where the kick disappears but other than that i do velocity on all drums.

 

[~BURNY~]

Sneap, Impy thank you very much! I am not yet done with questions, but I think I have a lot of work to experiment.

I wonder, do any of you make velocities change in here? I remember to have once read here that Sneap didn't do velocities for kicks because he wanted to maintain the bottom end wall stable enough for the mixing...so, what do you (guys) do to make it more "alive"?

Cheers!

Metalheads loves machine gun double kick drums.... That's the point of triggering it.
The same is not true for the snare drum or toms or you'll end up with a totally fake sounding drums especially with rolls, but constant level on Kick drums fits well in modern metal productions.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Automation of the kick track in various ways can help a lot, like making it hit harder on single hits so they stand out, but then the faster parts aren't too loud either. And so on and so forth...

 

[prowlergrig]

Make sure there is no overlap of samples cause then two or more samples will be played on a certain velocity.

what if i _want_ the 2 samples to be played at the same velocity? won't battery choose one of them at random? i don't think it plays both..

 

[Impy]

It plays both, you can try this out by adding 10 layers to a single cell without altering the correlating velocities, it'll play em all at the same time. At least the original Battery did this, i don't know about Battery 2. So if you want two samples to be played by the same velocities just have the same settings on em.

 

[Andy Sneap]

yeah you cant randomly trigger in battery, its all to do with the velocity. thats why drumagog is killer, it will do this. You should check it out, it'll take a midi input also