Recreating a song

[booyah14]

So I've been so busy lately I haven't gotten a chance to mess around with recording anything. Yesterday I finally had some time so I decided I would try to recreate a song for the fun of it. I happened to be listening to Killswitch so I figured why not. After completing all the drums I realized a few things.

1. How do you find the correct tempo to a song? I know you can try beat detective but I just have never had this work correctly when it comes to rock/metal songs.

2. Once I had all the midi done I tried to record all of them to audio tracks. The problem was this though, once I tried to record it, nothing was registering. It wasn't overdubbing the previous midi notes, it just wasn't working. Now I was hearing the sounds the whole time so anyone know whats going on with that?

3. Programming drums is fun for the first 2 minutes, then it's not ever again.

4. Programming drums is much harder than actually playing drums.



But if anyone could help me out with these questions I would appreciate it because this is one thing I have tried a bunch and just can't seem to grasp how to do correctly.

 

[kev]

So I've been so busy lately I haven't gotten a chance to mess around with recording anything. Yesterday I finally had some time so I decided I would try to recreate a song for the fun of it. I happened to be listening to Killswitch so I figured why not. After completing all the drums I realized a few things.

1. How do you find the correct tempo to a song? I know you can try beat detective but I just have never had this work correctly when it comes to rock/metal songs.

2. Programming drums is fun for the first 2 minutes, then it's not ever again.

3. Programming drums is much harder than actually playing drums.



But if anyone could help me out with this question I would appreciate it because this is one thing I have tried a bunch and just can't seem to grasp how to do correctly.

1. I dont know any other way then programming a click to each part, which what i did with enter sandman and its all over the shop.

2. hold ctrl + A , hold alt and move the mouse :Smug:

3. I dont agree! Unless you wanna play bon jovi or sumut

 

[Static]

1. How do you find the correct tempo to a song? I know you can try beat detective but I just have never had this work correctly when it comes to rock/metal songs.

2. Once I had all the midi done I tried to record all of them to audio tracks. The problem was this though, once I tried to record it, nothing was registering. It wasn't overdubbing the previous midi notes, it just wasn't working. Now I was hearing the sounds the whole time so anyone know whats going on with that?

3. Programming drums is fun for the first 2 minutes, then it's not ever again.

4. Programming drums is much harder than actually playing drums.

1. I usually play it by ear, but this also involves playing the song in winamp and then programming a beat to match it. I play the song and the beat together and tweak until I have something that is 'good enough'.

3. I disagree. Programming drums is probably my favourite aspect of programming and also, imo, what I am best at in programming.

4. No, that sounds iffy. Playing drums has lots of tricky bits to it, such as physics and gravity. Bloody reality.

 

[booyah14]

Kev thanks for the click trick. I honestly don't know why I didn't think of that beforehand. But after doing that it really did make programming the drums a lot more enjoyable. Anything else you guys do?

 

[SteelRat]

I found it easiest to import the CD track in, program the drums, and then tweak parts and tempos to fit the way I want my version.

Unless you want your drum parts completely different, then import the CD track, play your guitar along with it, and then program the drums to just your parts to fit your new style for the song.

But to recreate, I'll program along with the original CD track so I can A/B the parts quickly to make sure I've got all the details as close as I can get.

 

[Torniojaws]

Why limit yourself to the original song? Make your own version of it from ground up. Do the drums as you see fit, at the tempo you see fit. Also don't strap yourself to use the exact same arrangement, do your own

Drum programming is fun. What I do is put one riff on repeat and air-drum along it, to get some ideas and then program them like that.

 

[booyah14]

Well the problem i noticed is that it's a lot harder to get it perfectly matched because the time measures are wrong. i would think if you knew the tempo you could see the drums more grid like and they would sync up easier.

 

[guitarguru777]

Program the tempo of the song in before you import it into your DAW...

I do this all the time. I make alot of metal karaoke tracks, and bacing tracks for various websites and such. I always tempo map the song before i import the MP3. Just incase the tempo changes during the song. Tempo maps are a GOD SEND when it comes to doing covers or backing tracks.

 

[SteelRat]

It is difficult on older songs to recreate it, as the tempos fluctuate more...but the more recent the songs, the more click tracks were used and the tempos get more stable...IMHO

Recreating drums isn't too hard...it just takes time and patience to check every hit and tweak every tempo change until it's as close to the original as you can get...coming up with your own drums for a track is quicker.

 

[booyah14]

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Guitarguru- You say to set the tempo map before you import the actual song. How exactly do you know the tempo before you import it? Do you just load the song, run a click track to see when it matches up, then import the tempos to a new session?

Yea I'm sure with time I'll get a lot quicker and be able to do this more efficiently. And the reason I'm not just creating my own drums is because I figured this would be good practice and it gets me motivated to mess around.

 

[guitarguru777]

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Guitarguru- You say to set the tempo map before you import the actual song. How exactly do you know the tempo before you import it? Do you just load the song, run a click track to see when it matches up, then import the tempos to a new session?

Yea I'm sure with time I'll get a lot quicker and be able to do this more efficiently. And the reason I'm not just creating my own drums is because I figured this would be good practice and it gets me motivated to mess around.

Exactly