drum track - anyone done this .....

axisus

For a lot of my music that I record, I just whack out a drum track on my electronic kit. I am no drummer but it is in keeping with the rest of my playing on other instruments!

Anyway, I'm trying to learn this old prog instrumental, and the drumming is more dynamic than I could ever hope to achieve. I'm not saying that it is brilliant, just something I'm not going to be able to reproduce with a couple of sticks.

I was wondering about painstakingly trying to recreate it via a keyboard, tapping individual notes into a sequencer. Does anyone around here do that sort of thing? I have heard great results in the past but as a newbie I can imagine it sounding terrible.

joeyowen

A lot of programmed sound shit because they are always exactly on beat at the same velocity.

Velocity plays a biiiiig part and you will naturally do it with a keyboard generally.

It's doable, but it won't be fun

digitalscream

It strikes me that you'd be better off getting a rough version together by playing in what you can on the electronic kit, and then editing to add in everything you missed.

stratman3142

I do most of my drum programming by entering the beats with my mouse into a midi grid (which in my case is in Reaper, but all DAWS have that option).  I fiddle with the velocities a lot to make it sound as human as possible. Most good drum VSTis have multi layer velocities.

I generally use Addictive Drums or Steven Slate Drums, but MT Power Drum Kit 2 is a good free drum VSTi.
http://www.powerdrumkit.com/

I usually start with 2 bar sequences. Once I've got the basic grooves, I copy and paste them. Then I go through adding subtle variations and fills.

When composing, I'll often start with midi loops from Groove Monkey or the grooves in Addictive Drums, then edit them to suit.

I spend hours on programming drums, sometimes more time than I spend on guitar parts, but I enjoy doing it.

octatonic

Before taking anyone's advice on this matter ask to hear evidence of their work first.

I've heard some truly terrible programmed drums in my life, by people who believe they have done a good to great job.

Alternating velocities is a good idea but that can also sound unnatural if it isn't done in the way a drummer would do it.

There are some phrases (which I think of as words) that get repeated and altered slightly to build up as musical sentences.

Sentences get linked together to form paragraphs.

When non-drummers or people who haven't studied how to think like a drummer attempt it things can go a little weird.

"As they though the create sentence trying are create to sense making not"... geddit?

I'm not discouraging you from having a go- but I would first have a look and, most importantly, a listen to how drummers approach things.

For instance, this is a very useful musical word- it is the first half of the 'amen break' and loads of other music phrases on the drums.

It is the kick and hi-hat on 1, snare on 1&, hi-hat on 2, kick on 2& and snare and hi-hat on 3.

You can do a hell of a lot with this musical phrase- you can start phrases with it, end with it, displace it so that it starts on the off beat, displace the hi-hat, play it backwards, play doubles on the kick, play the kick and snare half time- keeping the hi-hat on 8ths- the variations are endless.

Learning drums is the process of learning those variations and getting a lot out of what are fairly simply phrases.

Good luck.

PolarityMan

Your basically trancribing, I would program it, it will be much faster than playing it in on a keyboard and probably faster than learning it and palying it to a decen enough standard on an electric kit even if you're a decent drummer.

TimmyO

axisus;69167" said:

For a lot of my music that I record, I just whack out a drum track on my electronic kit. I am no drummer but it is in keeping with the rest of my playing on other instruments!

Anyway, I'm trying to learn this old prog instrumental, and the drumming is more dynamic than I could ever hope to achieve. I'm not saying that it is brilliant, just something I'm not going to be able to reproduce with a couple of sticks.

I was wondering about painstakingly trying to recreate it via a keyboard, tapping individual notes into a sequencer. Does anyone around here do that sort of thing? I have heard great results in the past but as a newbie I can imagine it sounding terrible.

People do this.

They are not people I'd enjoy a pint with I suspect.

axisus

PolarityMan said:

Your basically trancribing, I would program it, it will be much faster than playing it in on a keyboard and probably faster than learning it and palying it to a decen enough standard on an electric kit even if you're a decent drummer.

So what exactly do you mean by 'program it'?

thermionic

stratman3142 said:

I do most of my drum programming by entering the beats with my mouse into a midi grid (which in my case is in Reaper, but all DAWS have that option).  I fiddle with the velocities a lot to make it sound as human as possible. Most good drum VSTis have multi layer velocities.

I usually start with 2 bar sequences. Once I've got the basic grooves, I copy and paste them. Then I go through adding subtle variations and fills.

This is exactly what I do. It's much easier than when I had a Portastudio and a drum machine with a one-line LCD display!

I'm no drummer (unless you count air drumming) but I've always been interested in listening to what drummers do in a song, and I try and learn from that.

PolarityMan

axisus said:

PolarityMan said:

Your basically trancribing, I would program it, it will be much faster than playing it in on a keyboard and probably faster than learning it and palying it to a decen enough standard on an electric kit even if you're a decent drummer.

So what exactly do you mean by 'program it'?

Draw it in using the drum editor in the DAW, using of course judicious use of copy/paste where appropriate.

longi

PolarityMan;983561" said:

axisus said:



PolarityMan said:

Your basically trancribing, I would program it, it will be much faster than playing it in on a keyboard and probably faster than learning it and palying it to a decen enough standard on an electric kit even if you're a decent drummer.





So what exactly do you mean by 'program it'?





Draw it in using the drum editor in the DAW, using of course judicious use of copy/paste where appropriate.

This is exactly what I do. I can't get on with drum loops mainly because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to work out how to use drum loops. It works for me, I get some pretty good results doing it like that. Once you get used to it it doesn't take long to get acceptable results.

Danny1969

I play the drum part on a Roland TD3 but just record the midi. Then I tighten up the part by quantizing it where necessary. I've recorded drum parts for songs in less time then it would take someone to program an intro but the drums for my songs tend to be very simple .... if the parts were more complicated this process wouldn't work as well.  

Drew_TNBD

I do a bit of everything - mouse programming, pre-made grooves, drumming on an e-kit, drumming on a real kit.. whatever I can get my hands on at the time to be honest. I don't have a permanent e-kit setup at my house, but we do at the office, so sometimes I'll take projects into work and spend a few hours in the evening whacking out some beats.

Sporky

I mostly step-programme, but some stuff comes out unexpectedly well when I use a TriggerFinger. So sometimes I do.

Fretwired

I have an NI Maschine which I use to bang in the basic track - the pads are velocity sensitive and you can adjust the timing, swing and everything. It's easy to build up a complex drum track bit by bit.

By using a keyboard do you mean PC keyboard? That would be harder. Maybe search the net for some prog rock midid drum grooves to give you a starting point you can edit or bash out a basic track on your drums and add the complexity.

Corvus

Thanks for the heads up @stratman3142, got the MT PowerDumKit plugin going, just what I needed

siraxeman

Is that NI MASCHINE a drum machine or just a trigger pad for software drums....or both and more?