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Drum Programming Tips |
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A drummer only has two arms (with exceptions) and two legs. Think about what hand \ leg is doing. Be realistic. A drummer would not be able to do the following What makes a pattern 'human' like is the subtle differences in tempo, timing and dynamics. Three elements to a good rhythmn part. Three most important elements of the drum pattern are Note many drum patterns are written around various instruments. (e.g. a tom groove). These might not sound right if you change the instruments Don't program your groove in isolation. A brilliant sounding pattern in isolation, may sound wrong in context with the rest of the track. See previous item. Listen to similar tracks and steal (or at least attempt to emulate). Especially steal drum elements out of other MIDI files If possible, play the parts in realtime. Possibly along with a click track and preferably with a velocity sensitive keyboard \ drum pads Double the snare or bass drum parts, using different samples to fill the sound out (e.g. often in the studio the engineer will mic the top and the bottom of the snare and blend the result). Don't record two or four bar sequences and then loop throughout the track. Make several variations of each pattern. Then chain these together to form the song. (say 4 vairiations). You can even, use your patterns to start at various points in the bar for more variation, filling in the holes left at the start and end of the pattern. (humm... cut and paste) If the bass drum is fighting with the bass, slightly advance the part you want to emphasise. It will make it stand out. Having difficulty with getting a good tamborine sound. Buy a real one and record it live. (that goes for other percussion as well). Ghost \ grace notes. Usually played on ththe snare, or toms during fills. These are used to add to the groove but are played at significantly lower velocity than the previous hit. (try also on hi-hats). Flams - used to provide rhythmic variation. Two beats played very close together, the first note usually lower in volume. Rudiments - Research the drum rudiments. e.g. a drum roll may be played using left right left right hand movement, or possibly left left right right. Could open up the possibity of new fills. Why use standard drum sounds? Why not experiment with recording household objects being hit. (if only I could remember which track had someone playing the pencil case on). Splash cymbals are generally used on a snare drum hit. It is common, if playing hi-hats on the verse to switch to ride cymbal on the chorus and via versa. Use different drums for different sections of the song. Repetitive 8th or 16th beat hi-hats or ride can become boring, add accents to the various beats and some dymanic variation. Unless you want to be totally boring, break up the drum track with a few fills. Song endings - Ending on beat four will leave the song slightly hanging. Ending on the first beat of the next bar mkes it sound more complete. Tempo Tweaks Timing is everything. Don't just set the tempo to the desired beat for the whole song. Music don't work like that. Drummers won't play the same part twice with the same velocities. So when you copy a part to somewhere else. Edit it slightly, both with note postions, use of grace notes and note velocities Drummers, often make subtile timing adjustments. Speeding up or slowing down to change the feel of a track. Push or lagging certain beats to give a track more drive or a laid back groove. (set the resolution of your grid to 1/192) Playing ahead on the first & third beats of a 4 bar beat will add urgency to the rhythm. Insert subtle tempo changes over several bars to build anticipation. Especially, the last bar before a chorus, if it includes a drum roll. Insert tempo changes per song sections. Speed up for the chorus, slow down the bridge or middle 8. Moving percussion parts a little a head of the beat will make the track seem faster. Playing behind the beat will make the track slightly slower than it is. (just a few midi ticks can make a huge difference). Many sequencers will allow you to randomise midi parts to give a human feel. However, drummers add variations is an almost no random way. Avoid. On faster songs, the drummer has to eithe play like a madman, or leave bits out. e.g. play 1/4 notes instead of 1/8th notes. Changing the tempo slightly earlier than the first beat of a bar will create a smoother lead in. Experiment with differnt hi-hat \ ride patterns over the same kick and snare pattern, to see how the fell is affected. Straight 8ths or 16ths on the hi-hat can be boring after a while. Accent either the on or off beat. Miss the off hit, use shuffle features in your sequencer. Quantisation Overuse of the quantise function is the quickest way to suck the life out of a drum part. Use sparingly. Don't use snap to grid when entering drum patterns. You'll lose the feel. Velocity The force a drum is struck will not be consistant. Quick successive hits will be quieter. (i.e less time to raise the stick) Some sounds like cymbals are notably loud. (difficult to play quietly). others like bongos, rimshots, handclaps are relatively low in volume. Possibly, build up the drum velocities as you go into the chorus Sounds (timbre) On drums, higher velocity hits will be slightly higher pitched. Two consecutive drum hits will not sound the same. Use pitch bend to slightly alter the tuning of alternate hits. (or cheat and assign the same sound to another midi note and detune it by a small amount.) Hitting crash cymbals ahead of the beat makes them stand out. Remember certain sounds cannot be combined within the same pattern. e.g. going between brushes and sticks, or normal hi-hat and one with a tamborine clipped on top. Or... can't have rim shots if using brushes. Or can't have hi-hat & ride Try a short hi-hat not followed by a one with a velocity of 0, to close it quickly. Don't use quick successive hits on the same cymbal. Use different sounds. Get yourself some decent drum samples. General midi sounds are often poor and lack how real drums are played. e.g. GM only coemes with 3 different hi-hat sounds (open, closed and pedal). A common device for build ups is yo gradually open the hi-hat over a bar or two. This can't be re-produced with only open and closed Overly effected samples (gate-reverbed snares etc) don't work well in very fast tempos. Clutters up the mix. GM midi comes with three ride sounds. Two different ride and the bell. Use all three within a pattern. Use the bell to accent certain beats (especially to coincide with accented bass drum beats. Panning. Keep the snare and kick in the center of the spectrum, but move all other parts around it. (imagine youself sitting at a drum kit, to work out where you'd put things). Percussion (Assumes you have a microphone). Go to your local music shop and buy a selection of tamborines and shakers (maracas etc) or even a triangle. Record these live and mix in with your MIDI drums for a more real feel. Use percussion as an alternative to hi-hats Many drum tips apply to percussion also. e.g grace notes and double hits (with 2nd note at lower velocity). If your drums are over quantised add a grooved (shuffle quantised) percussion track to liven it up. (the ear will latch onto the sloppy playing) Add percussion only in selected places in the song. e.g. just the chorus or just the bridge. It can be tedious if played for the whole song. Use small amounts of pitchbend on congas, bongos, tabla type instruments to better simulate human playing Add a cowbell (or tamborine etc) playing 8ths or 16ths slightly before the beat (with heavy reverb) and mix barely audible, to add drive to a track Effects Reverb - use sparingly. Percussion generally benefits from a wee bit of reverb. The occasionaly reverse reverb on a snare is nice. Compression - See Compression & Limiting tips EQ - See EQ tips After that any really for effect. Pitch shifters and delays; may be useful as well as distortion, lo-fi stuff etc Use filters and other modulation type effects also. Use distortion to dirty up the drum parts. Be subtle. Use a gated reverb. In isolation it might sound weird though Snare usually has reverb applied. Bass drum rarely benefits from reverb. As well as using Pitchbend on drums, you can also use Filter (CC:74) and resonance (CC:71) to add variation effects to your MIDI drums. (Use sparingly) Drums not sounding like they were recorded live? Mike up your speakers and play your midi drums, recording them as audio. Gives a more natural reverb that using plugins. Whilst you've got it miked up, you can also use guitar pedals to affect the sound. Timed echo or delay can add rhythmic interest. Convert your MIDI drums to audio and down sample them. (you can also mega compress them first (-40DB threshold 20:1 compression, fast attack release) using filters \ eq to as desired and then use a compressor to bring it back up to volume.. Huge drums.
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