Suggestions when programming technical drum parts.

[mstone564]

My band's going to be recording our album soon and I'm programming all the drums with Superior cymbals/hats and SSD for kick, snare, and toms.
There's lots of blasting (with hi hat and ride), groups of 16th notes in a row fills, double bass, and the such that most deathcore drummers write.
Take The Faceless' album 'Akeldama' as an example for what the technical parts of our songs sound like.

What I'm mainly wanting to know is what do you all usually set velocities to for these different types of sections (the things I listed above)?

I've tried searching for threads about programming modern tech metal drums, but no luck.

 

[mstone564]

Anyone?

 

[Plankis]

Rent edrums for a day, and get your drummer to record some of the songs and take notes what happens when he does them.

If you're going for programming do it measure by measure. Listen and edit then re-listen and edit until it sounds correct to you. It's impossible for us to tell anything besides they wont be as loud as a regular hit, especially when your going stir things up even more with samplereplacement.

 

[mstone564]

Rent edrums for a day, and get your drummer to record some of the songs and take notes what happens when he does them.

If you're going for programming do it measure by measure. Listen and edit then re-listen and edit until it sounds correct to you. It's impossible for us to tell anything besides they wont be as loud as a regular hit, especially when your going stir things up even more with samplereplacement.

Our drummer (like many) isn't the best and doesn't really hit hard at all...so yeah, that's a reason why I'm asking this.

All I wanted to know is what velocities people using Superior and replacing with SSD might use. I've read threads where people make the velocities for blasting/fills in the 60's which doesn't have any punch. I guess I'll just figure it out for myself if someone who's good at programming metal drums can't give me a ballpark figure of what they do with velocities.

 

[Zombietakeover]

Buy this https://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=65

In my music when ever i get to a blast part or what have you....i go into that blast midi pack and just slip in a pattern....all those midi patterns are played by a real human ...so there are as natural as it's gonna get.....plus you will be able to see the velocity he uses and there all knocked off the grid appropriately

 

[mstone564]

Buy this https://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=65

In my music when ever i get to a blast part or what have you....i go into that blast midi pack and just slip in a pattern....all those midi patterns are played by a real human ...so there are as natural as it's gonna get.....plus you will be able to see the velocity he uses and there all knocked off the grid appropriately

I knew Toontrack had MIDI packs, but not for blasts and fills! XD

Thanks, man!

 

[zirkonflex]

Its pretty good, especially the fills.
You should change em up though, on a real album you don't wanna have drumtracks that are already on 10 records.

The only thing usefull I have to say is buy a Nanopad by Korg.
THe thing itself is kinda plasticy and mine ceased working once (had to send it back) to be honest, but you can get really good results tapping in beats in multiple stages (first kick and snare, then toms, than cymbals and so on).
It even works for most blastbeats (for me as a relatively good guitarist iam able to tap my left fingers quite fast).
Another thing would be to just activate the virtual midi keyboard to get the rythm in nicely.
You can then clean it up via piano roll or slipedit.
I personally think that piano roll only will probably lead to boring drum parts if you don't kick your ass enough ...


As for the velocities, in most cases they don't really change much on a modern production.
Kickdrums stay the same right away (sometimes only one Sample), and the snare just alternates thru its usual multisamples.
This is usually enogh the prevent the drums form sounding like a machinegun, and it also lets em sound very tight and well played.
In some cases (gravity blasts or blasts over 250 bpm) i'd say you just take the snare and hat/ride velocity a tad bit down, it will sound more natual.
You can also (in Reaper) select all notes and then alter the velocity on the bottom part of the roll where the red stripes represent the hit.
Just waving your mouse a LITTLE bit up and down (up on the acutal hit (every 4th or 8th note and down in between a little bit down (to 120-123))

I always thought that blastbeats/skankbeats where the easiest to programm because they are so simple.
Long as breakdowns and complicated Decapitated like rythms are a shit to do with the roll.

I hope this kinda helped you

 

[Fragle]

i usually go for around 120 for a hard hitting snare, 110-120 for thrash beats, blasts around 100-ish, gravitys even lower.

i think blasts and especially gravity blasts are a BITCH to get right. the thing is, the technique a real drummer uses to perform these in contrast to regular snare hits is much different and sounds much different, so it's really hard to make good sounding blasts with samples recorded as single hits.

as for cymbals, it really depends on the drum sampler. 100-120 is once again a good starting point. i wouldn't go any lower than that.

edit: kick = 127, unless you're deliberately going for a natural sounding kick.

 

[mstone564]

I really appreciate he info, guys! This will help immensely.