forget props, i got tha doldrums

Chrono

polyphonically beyond me
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 5
i know this topic has been threaded all up an'in over wit.. but seriously. I make dull drums.

speaking on that. have you noticed pharelle drums are extremely uniform. The beats sound like a basketball bouncing off a racketball couts wall... left right, boom ba boom. That snoop dog song [sa_noooooooooop, and the mouth clacks, yeah you know the one] and that semi-lame new gwen stephanie song he produced, And a lot others. Maybe you know what i'm speaking of.

Well the point is..-> i want to create solid beats and am humble enough to read an study the various drums patterns of hiphop and r'n'b. Question: Are there any drum pattern tutorials within these two styles?


--desperately seeking the sediment
 

Greg Savage

Ehh Fuck you
ill o.g.
All you gotta do is Listen to the song and redo the drums a few times until you get it down.. As with anything in life Copy copy copy copy until you understand it enough to do it on your own your own way

you can also through the beat/ sound in a Wav editor and Read the Wav form , See and hear where the sounds fall if there is Swing, if some elements are are in odd time Sigs etc
 

MGTheFuture

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
music doesnt come with a tutorial.

its comes from the heart.

anything else is uncivilized and short lived.


practice or make dull drums popular.

1
 
ill o.g.
Practice makes perfect. If you search the Internet you'll find books on drum patterns. Most of all just experiment. If you want to make your drum patterns stand out, try effects (Delay, reverb, Flange, Phase) or EQ them. Listen to rock music. They used fills alot, and tempo changes. Like Nnxt said" copy, copy, copy". You can make the same drum patterns, sound different. if you change up your drum kits. Play around with the swing. Make variations of your drum patterns. Give your hi hats room to breathe. Yes music does come from the heart, but it can also be taught. At least the basics.
 

hobgoblin

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
I've tried to find the magic answer to dull drums by posting before and guess what? Theres no secret formula to it -

Heres a few do's and dont's


DONT sample MP3 drum loops - they sound shit, if anything use them as a template to lay your own individual hits on

DONT sample MP3 drum loops and chop them and use the hits either - after resampling them shits will be weaker than baby piss

DO a search on drums - type in 'GRIME' if you want grimy drums 'Big' if you want big drums etc etc

heres some shyt...

Improve Your Drum Programming



For non-drummers, coming up with realistic sounding drum parts can be an intimidating prospect. After all, drummers study and practice for years to be able to play solid time, mark phrases and interact with other musicians. But even if you can't keep very good time or play the lick to "Wipeout", you can still capture the essence of what drummers do by using your most important instrument--your ears.

By doing some simple transcribing and concentrating on one drum at a time, you can create some convincing parts. First, let's talk about some very basic drum recording guidelines:

1) Make sure the kick and snare are panned near the center. (I like to pan the bass and kick drum slightly off-center to opposite sides, so they don't get in each other's way.) If your recording gets knocked down to mono, or is played back on a mono device, the kick and snare will be completely lost unless they are near the center.

2) I prefer to have the hi-hat a hair off-center to the left. (I mix drums from the drummer's perspective. Some folks like to hear it from the audience's perspective--if that's you, your hi-hat would be slightly to the right.)

3) Everything else is a matter of preference. I like to pan the other cymbals a little further to each side. Sometimes it's cool to have the toms spread out across the stereo spectrum ala Neil Peart. If I'm using percussion, I will pan those instruments hard left and right, so that each sound has it's own little space in the mix. On certain types of music, it may be more appropriate to not stray too far from the center position, sounding almost mono. Remember, when you are standing in front of a drum kit, you hear everything coming from a single source--very close to mono.

Now let's do some transcribing. Find a song with a simple beat. Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" would be a good place to start. Transcribing requires very careful listening and breaking down parts into their basic elements. Let's just concentrate on the kick and snare for now. Sing it: boom bap, ba-boom boom bap. Boom bap, ba-boom boom bap. Hey, you're transcribing!

Now let's listen to the straight eighth note hi-hat part. Sing it to yourself--don't forget the open hat that occurs on beat one of every bar. By breaking the beat down into two basic elements, we're now able to record it one piece at a time.

I've found that the most realistic parts are created using some type of pad setup. This way you can whack away like a real drummer using sticks. If drum pads are not available to you, a keyboard or those little tiny pads on a drum machine will do.
Record the kick and snare on one pass, and then go back and record the hi-hat separately. If you can help it, don't quantize every part you record. Quantization makes everything a little too perfect, making your parts sound machine-like. Use it sparingly. If you want to make sure the snare hits squarely on beats two and four, go ahead and quantize it. However, you will have a more realistic sound if you can leave the hi-hat un-quantized. This will let the hi-hat part breathe a little bit.

Don't forget--a drummer pushes and pulls the time from section to section. For instance, it's not uncommon to push the tempo a little when making the transition from verse to chorus. Don't be afraid to push the tempo going into the chorus, and leave it at the quicker tempo. All musicians play behind, on top of, and ahead of the beat when it's called for. Experiment with that concept in your drum parts--you add human feel that way.

Learning to break drum parts down in this way gives you a great advantage. If you start with simple beats and work your way up to more complex ones, you will have the playing of every great drummer at your disposal.

Are you writing a tune that needs a funky kind of groove to really make it work? Get a copy of "James Brown's 25 Greatest Hits" and go shopping for drum grooves. Once you find one that would work well with your song, break it down into it's kick-snare and hi-hat elements, and you're on your way.

Are you working on a rap/metal kind of thing? Grab a Limp Bizkit CD and do a little transcribing.

Now some of you may be thinking that working this way is cheating. If you are under the age of twenty-six, you probably don't know why anyone would object to this approach--you came up in the age of sampling, so borrowing tracks and turning them around for your own use isn't such a foreign idea to you. In fact, there are tons of programs out there that allow you to sample and create drum loops very easily. I'm not advocating the thievery of other's work by any means. All we're doing here is taking a basic foundation and applying it to different music. Your song is going to sound like you no matter what drum beats are on it, and you'll find the need to modify the original beats to fit the music you're writing anyway.

In order to learn any new skill, we must first copy from others. With experience comes the ability to find your own unique voice. After awhile, you won't need to listen to CDs to come up with beats--they'll come out of you naturally. Until that day comes, however, you will need to copy. Don't feel bad about it--everyone does it. It's just that nobody wants to admit to it.

Happy transcribing everyone!


Introduction
This is really an aid for me for things to do when I program midi drums. I thought it might be useful for others.

This is general programming tips, aimed at no particular style of music. It is mainly aimed at trying to create a more live feel.

Most of this is from stuff I scribbled off the net or various help things in magazines

Also check out the General Midi drum map. Print it out and stick it on your wall.

If you can think of any other tips that may help, please Contact me.

General Drum Programming Tips

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

play that complicated hi hat pattern whilst playing a fill

contiue playing that 16th note hi-hat pattern and hit a crash without missing some of the hi hat notes (the time it takes to go from one instrument to the other).

What makes a pattern 'human' like is the subtle differences in tempo, timing and dynamics.

Three elements to a good rhythmn part.
1) the pattern itself (obviously).
2)The speed at which the rhythmn is played. Playing a pattern at the wrong speed can sound wrong.
3)The sounds themselves. (with Sample CDs it's normally the sounds not the pattern that impress).

Three most important elements of the drum pattern are
1) Bass drum (kick)
2) Snare Drum
3) Hi-hats
get these right them embellish with other sounds when \ if required.

Note many drum patterns are written around various instruments. (e.g. a tom groove). These might not sound right if you change the instruments

Keep it simple.

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.

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. Cheat. Buy a real one and record it live. (that goes for other percussion as well). At the end of the day, you'll probably mix the midi down to audio anyway.

Ghost \ grace notes. Usually played on the 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. (I'll put a link in my links section) (see below). 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 tarck 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.
The hi hats or ride cymbal are the dominant time keeping instrument)

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.
(I read somewhere to use 100% for kick and between 50 and 80% for all else, to retain the feel but make rhythmically correct?)

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.
(alternatively, make your own shakers from household objects). Live percussion sounds much better than midi programmed percussion.

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 lots of 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) uisng filters \ eq to as desired and then use a compressor to bring it back up to volume.. Huge drums)).

Hairthieves lazy man's guide to pitch changes and timbres.
Record your midi track several times, adjusting the pitch or using a different sound sources.

Now chop up you many audio files and mix and match the sounds.

Repeat as necessary. Easier than programming by hand. The beauty of audio..
 

Shonsteez

Gurpologist
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 33
Holy crap that was a huge post!......

Yo basically i would never suggest tryin to learn drums from finding patterns somewhere on google or whatever....thats like sampling premos drums. Do yer own homework and figure out what it takes....Most of what u need is ear training....and im not even tryin to come off like a dick but its true. You have to be a good analyst first before u can make a good rhythm. Listen to your favorite music and take elements from what youve heard and apply it to yer own, even if what it takes is tryin to copy someones elses beat, afterwards u should see what they did better to create it and then u can use those fundamentals to make a completely new beat without copying. Thats how musics been made for centuries. For some good listens tho as far as hot rhythms, i suggest goin to the store and buying some HardBop of some kind as well as some funk. After that maybe cop some cuban stuff and latin ish....Thats what i do, and it helps tremendously. I mean, thats where all these syncopated rhythms yer hearing are coming from anways these days! - Its all around us from a multiculteral melting pot.
 

Chrono

polyphonically beyond me
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 5
whew, damn hob! hey duece [and others] i see what your sayin. i've got beats in my head and new at redrum and can't get'em out. i started this thread cause it was pissin me off. I've started listen to eric b and rakim's let the rythem hitem cause the drums are solid and pretty much simple and am going to copy these beats to get my feel. i do not want to copy other artists, but will untill i know how to flip whats in my head. shit i'm almost late for work...... out'
 

Greg Savage

Ehh Fuck you
ill o.g.
Chrono said:
whew, damn hob! hey duece [and others] i see what your sayin. i've got beats in my head and new at redrum and can't get'em out. i started this thread cause it was pissin me off. I've started listen to eric b and rakim's let the rythem hitem cause the drums are solid and pretty much simple and am going to copy these beats to get my feel. i do not want to copy other artists, but will untill i know how to flip whats in my head. shit i'm almost late for work...... out'


get at me sometime will show you some shit u can do on the Redrum
 

Cold Truth

IllMuzik Moderator
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 25
oh........ check this out, the hobgoblin post was cool and all but i am about to shoot some of it down....

i have read that same list before, and it is helpful..... but is a bit sterile imho.

first off, do away with rules like "you cant have a rim shot if you have a brush kit" or "you cant have a ride cymbal and a hi hat going on at the same time" because, well for one, says who? he is talking about making "realistic" drum lines... but then what abuot all the bands that play with two drum kits?

second... so what? realistic isnt even being realistic. these rules are made to be broken! i have beats with both rides and hi hats, AND open hats! the point of programming is to be CREATIVE, because it ISNT live drumming. at least thats how i see it.
 

Cold Truth

IllMuzik Moderator
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 25
ah but a lot can be accomplished by gettin tech with it class!!!

some people arent naturals so they need some guidance.

anyhow im going to do a tutotial soon.
 

MarkN

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 55
i agree with class it should be more natural you shouldnt be forcing drums by making them by some kind of rule set, every track is different theres not a ten step list to great drums for every track ! i think sometimes people forget about what sounds your using if your using crap samples the drums will sound crap woteva you do you wouldnt have a big rock band have their drummer play on a £50 set of kiddys drums at a concert and expert it to sound professional !
 

hobgoblin

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
In Terms of creating patterns, I've found from first hand experience that clicking drums with a mouse = 'Robotic beats or 'over quantized beats' - which is fine if thats what your after. It all depends on the kind of track your making. If you want looser 'more natural' drums you need to cop an MPC or Sp1200 or whatever or play your drums live on a keyboard (or play actual drums!)

@ Cold & Class - I'm not saying you have to follow that tutorial to the tea to make drum patterns - its just there IS some usefull tips I thought peeps might benefit from eg panning/velocity etc.

Your right, rules are there to be broken - Madlib makes drum patterns with clean punchy 808 kicks and then combines it with crispy, grimy snares/claps which some people say you shouldn't do - its sounds soooooo heavy tho...

Personally my tracks sounded well shite until I started visiting forums like this and trying out differant the techniques posted. That said, info on the internet can only take you so far, the real magic happens when you ACTUALLY put them in to practice and get creative.
 

dj360_iNfInItE1

UNDeRGROUND STaTE of MiND
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 16
Drums are the one most important element in hip-hop. Drums define and drive a hip-hop beat, for the most part. Why do people always say, "That's a phat beat you made.", when apparently there is more instruments present than just the beat?

That being said, I agree with Classic on this to a point. I used to make the beat first and then compose around the beat, now I compose and then make the drum beat to fit. And if you have an ear for it, after doing this for a while, you will be hearing what percussive instrument would sound good and where it should go before no time. It is a feeling you get and you have to go with it to bring out the emotion you are going for.

But, I appreciate hob's infinite post, (hehe), because some newbies haven't developed their "ear" yet and having structure in the beginning will only benefit. It's like anything else. When you start to learn to play any instrument, you first learn basic structure and so on. You don't learn to play with just your feeling. You have to learn the basics first before you can go out and be creative with it. And just because you, (Chrono) are lost now, doesn't mean that one day we won't be hearing your beats and saying, "Damn, that was phat!"

So, all of this input is valuable in it's own way but, some content may not be practical for someone just starting out.
 
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