What do YOU use to make drum tracks?

[muckypup1]

^^^I don't know about PT8, but with Reaper, when your open up your midi pattern and right click, something like a kick or snare and select all, it will select all of the snare hits, or kicks, or hi-hats, you can then just click on humanize and select how much you want it to do I don't like it to humanize the timing, but for velocity hits its great.

 

[Torniojaws]

I write them from scratch by hand. For fills etc. I sometimes adjust them with grid off because they often sound too tight, and makes it difficult to separate between low toms and kicks

 

[departed]

^^^I don't know about PT8, but with Reaper, when your open up your midi pattern and right click, something like a kick or snare and select all, it will select all of the snare hits, or kicks, or hi-hats, you can then just click on humanize and select how much you want it to do I don't like it to humanize the timing, but for velocity hits its great.

to an extent.. but don't you think automatic humanizing is a total oxymoron?
it wont capture the natural dynamics of a drummer, but i know very few guys who can actually mirror that through programming anyway

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

On my own stuff it's just by hand.

For other bands though, it goes:

Record drumset (almost always without click)
Set tempo map to fallow what has been played
Program what he played EXACTLY how he played it
Smooth out the tempo map

Done.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

On my own stuff it's just by hand.

For other bands though, it goes:

Record drumset (almost always without click)
Set tempo map to fallow what has been played
Program what he played EXACTLY how he played it
Smooth out the tempo map

Done.

Can you explain why you do it that way? Wouldn't it be easier for you to just trigger the set instead then?

 

[DanLights]

I use Guitar Pro when it's something I wrote, it's been so much years I can make some really intricate drum tracks on GP. Velocities are edited in Reaper when I insert the Midi, I don't edit velocity in Gp.

I'm barely learning to do them by scratch on reaper itself

 

[DanLights]

Can you explain why you do it that way? Wouldn't it be easier for you to just trigger the set instead then?

If he recorded the drummer without a click then most likely editing the tempo-less recording would be more work than reprogramming from scratch I think.

I still don't get why he would do that instead of making the drummer record to a click

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

Agreed....hopefully hell chime in on that

 

[Russtopher]

If he recorded the drummer without a click then most likely editing the tempo-less recording would be more work than reprogramming from scratch I think.

I still don't get why he would do that instead of making the drummer record to a click

I've had to record drummers who simply could not play to a click, and the recording needed to be done quickly so there was no time to get them to "adjust". Thankfully, Reaper's tempo markers made editing *easier* but still not as good as if they played to a click.

If I had to go back and program everything to the live drums.... I think I'd literally go insane.

 

[crillemannen]

Real drummers, real drums, close miced, sample replace.

Everytime.

Oh yeah, thats the way to do it.

Go and do the DFH, AD whatever routine --> to get that unreal separation between cymbals and blablabbla

 

[skatmatt]

I map in EZ drummer by hand with "humanize" on, then i buss each instrument out to its own audio track and mix it like a recorded kit (EQ, reverb buss etc)

 

[darthjujuu]

chunks of toontrack MIDI (that comes with ezD and the MIDI packs they put out) make programming for yourself a delight. find a pattern thats close > edit it.

 

[SocialNumb]

Sometimes I beat the keyboard with my head. Get some good results sometimes.

 

[arv_foh]

On my own stuff it's just by hand.

For other bands though, it goes:

Record drumset (almost always without click)
Set tempo map to fallow what has been played
Program what he played EXACTLY how he played it
Smooth out the tempo map

Done.

I don't understand how this could work unless the drummer was solid as fuck

 

[darthjujuu]

I don't understand how this could work unless the drummer was solid as fuck

the drummer can be terrible, which is why alot of us resort to this method. you have a drummer play freehand and then drop a marker on the "one beat" of each bar. from there in most DAWs (i've done this in reaper and protools) you can warp each section to be a consistent tempo.

it sounds a little screwy since you're time stretching everything, but it's a convenient way to make a tempo map for a drummer that's too retarded to play to a click or for a band that's just generally musically retarded and doesn't know anything. the idea here is that after you've mapped everything out, you have the drummer re-play everything to either the new tempo map you've created, or he can try playing along to the old drum tracks once they're warped onto the grid. or, you can just program everything ontop of the grid you just made, which is pretty easy since all the hits are there for reference and your tempo map is already created. massey DTM/toontrack drumtracker works delicious in this context. i mentioned this is in another thread.

if the band is retarded enough, this often times becomes the fastest way to set up a grid. sadly for alot of us this is a common occurance.

edit: for you reaper users since i'm sure you're about to ask:

tempo mapping in reaper
warping a song to grid

edit again: for protools users, just youtube "protools identify beat" and itt'l show you how it's done. once you've identified a grid, set all your tracks to ticks and just move/delete/adjust tempo markers and they'll warp to the grid.

edit once more: i must re-iterate that warping a song to grid time stretches everything, so you CANNOT track a drummer freehand, warp him, and then consider it done. itt'l sound awful. you must then have him re-do everything to the new grid, or program everything.

final edit: when you're deleting tempo markers to make a verse or chorus or whatever one consistent tempo, the DAW can come up with some screwy approximations thus drastically speeding up / slowing down some parts, so it is IMPERATIVE that you have the band sitting with you while doing this. adjusting speeds is very easy, you can warp a drum part faster or slower just by dragging the automation point on the tempo track and itt'l warp into place. just make ABSOLUTELY sure with the band that all the tempos are correct during this phase. i learned this the hard way.

 

[DolphinSplatter]

Real drummers, real drums, close miced, sample replace.

Everytime.

Make a tempo map and set shit up
I only ever replace the kick pretty much

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Huh, seems I'm a bit weird

Couldn't get the drummer to gel with a click.

First let me say that making the tempo conform to the drummer takes LITERALLY 15 mins to do a 4 min song (in cubase anyhow).

Once it's all done (the click track ticks right along with the drum tracks that were not done to a click).

Off to programing, programing is much easier when your DAWs meter fallows what the drummer played. It takes about an hour and a half to 2 hours to program the whole song. I haven't given drum tracker a go yet but have been thinking about doing that, EXCEPT I would need it to be able to import that programed to hell and back tempo map and export it that way.

In fact here is a picture of a tempo map for a song I'm doing right now, again this took me 15-20 mins to do, because in this case cubase is pure fucking win:

I find programing what he played a lot easier than editing what he played. Plus his kit sucked so sample replacement seemed to be more logical.

So basically I get the benefits of programed drums (good room, easy to change tempo etc...) with his performance.

 

[darthjujuu]

Huh, seems I'm a bit weird

Couldn't get the drummer to gel with a click.

First let me say that making the tempo conform to the drummer takes LITERALLY 15 mins to do a 4 min song (in cubase anyhow).

Once it's all done (the click track ticks right along with the drum tracks that were not done to a click).

Off to programing, programing is much easier when your DAWs meter fallows what the drummer played. It takes about an hour and a half to 2 hours to program the whole song. I haven't given drum tracker a go yet but have been thinking about doing that, EXCEPT I would need it to be able to import that programed to hell and back tempo map and export it that way.

In fact here is a picture of a tempo map for a song I'm doing right now, again this took me 15-20 mins to do, because in this case cubase is pure fucking win:

I find programing what he played a lot easier than editing what he played. Plus his kit sucked so sample replacement seemed to be more logical.

So basically I get the benefits of programed drums (good room, easy to change tempo etc...) with his performance.

dude...do you leave the tempo map like that?? or do you delete the points where the song didn't have an intentional tempo change?? by the looks of that screen shot there should only be a small handful of obvious tempo changes. i always want the end result tempo map to be how the song was intended, NOT how was it played, yanno? can cubase "warp" a song onto grid like that?

 

[AntonioPetrole]

edit them in piano roll on DAW, exporting guitar pro sucks cause it only has 2 crash cymbals and if your using DFH or superior you are gonna move everything around and edit the velocitys anyway

 

[AndrewPGlover]

Huh, seems I'm a bit weird

Couldn't get the drummer to gel with a click.

First let me say that making the tempo conform to the drummer takes LITERALLY 15 mins to do a 4 min song (in cubase anyhow).

Once it's all done (the click track ticks right along with the drum tracks that were not done to a click).

Off to programing, programing is much easier when your DAWs meter fallows what the drummer played. It takes about an hour and a half to 2 hours to program the whole song. I haven't given drum tracker a go yet but have been thinking about doing that, EXCEPT I would need it to be able to import that programed to hell and back tempo map and export it that way.

In fact here is a picture of a tempo map for a song I'm doing right now, again this took me 15-20 mins to do, because in this case cubase is pure fucking win:

I find programing what he played a lot easier than editing what he played. Plus his kit sucked so sample replacement seemed to be more logical.

So basically I get the benefits of programed drums (good room, easy to change tempo etc...) with his performance.

Does anyone know how to do this with logic. The only way I can imagine is tap-tempo and figure each bar. This would be really cool when a drummer is solid-ish but can't play to a click. That could be really cool for quantizing live drum performances to a makeshift grid.