Programming drums

[75lespaul]

When you guys write something or do a cover of something where there are definite changes and fills, etc, what do you do? I tend to program the drums from scratch, sometimes taking days for one song. Honestly, I haven't recorded in years because I just don't feel like doing that tedious chore. It is the only part of recording that I seriously hate. I have the XTL drum VST which sounds great to me, but is there a way I could cut the drum programming down to maybe a day or a few hours?

 

[dominus]

Re: Programming drums

Alesis Control Pad + set of sticks:

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

I totally get where you're coming from. it's my 4th biggest problem with recording (after an unsupportive wife and two young wild children)
The methods I have used are: dragging dots onto a piano roll, a Korg Minipad, an Alesis DM8 and a Yamaha DD55. There's a couple auto drumming VSTs out there, as well as Groove Agent from Steinberg.

Due to the massive amount of recordings I have done, you can see how successful I am with them. /sarcasm

The Korg minipads were just too small to be functional for me. Remapping the pads was a pain too. Also didn't help that 2 of them broke with very little usage; one was warranty replaced but the replacement was taken out of the box, plugged in for first testing then put back into the box before I moved to a new house. It stayed in that box for 3 years and was not jostled much. When I pulled it back out it was dead.

The Alesis set is almost good. You need room for half a drum set though, and the rack SUCKS. Everything falls all over the place. I'd like to replace the rack with a set of hex or square tubing. Also...need to know how to play drums.

I think the DD55 will be the best chance for me. I can remap the drums and play by hand, and as it's about as a pedal board it's relatively portable. A few passes across the piano roll with different drums mapped to the pads, as well as some adjustment after the fact will probably speed things up a lot.

Another trick I've been doing is using the Guitar Pro program to output MIDI from GP tabs. This would strictly be for covers, but if there is a snippet of a song you like, it would hurt to pull a chunk out and paste it into the piano roll. I've also been just sending drum and bass files directly from Guitar Pro to MIDI output on the Alesis drum brain. The brain has some bass files for backup playing and the sounds are good enough for my purposes.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

Alesis Control Pad + set of sticks:

I probably should have just gotten that instead of the DM8, but I wanted the brain to be a separate thing I could just run MIDI through and play to monitors.

 

[dominus]

Re: Programming drums

I probably should have just gotten that instead of the DM8, but I wanted the brain to be a separate thing I could just run MIDI through and play to monitors.

That's just a controller, no built in sounds.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

That's just a controller, no built in sounds.

Oh...then I'm glad I didn't!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

[dominus]

Re: Programming drums

Oh...then I'm glad I didn't!

I had three of them on a rack so I could have a huge kit. (Also had a kick drum pad with a double bass pedal, as each unit had a pair of trigger inputs). Then they went into the computer and controlled a drum plugin. Nice and easy to set up, only thing I had to do was change the numbers on the pads to match up to the pieces I wanted to play.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Programming drums

I am in the multi day drum writing camp as well. I step write EVERYTHING, including fills and velocity changes. Pain, but I am too set in my ways to change now ...

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

I am in the multi day drum writing camp as well. I step write EVERYTHING, including fills and velocity changes. Pain, but I am too set in my ways to change now ...

last time I did that I had no clue how drumming worked. Consequently, my tracks were pretty horrible. The program I used was Drumz Wizard...I have no clue if it still exists...

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: Programming drums

I have several projects on hold because of the drreaded drum tracks. I have the most basic EZ Drummer VST and I can use it, but it is not fun.

I'll drag a four measure loop into an open midi track, and then tweak it on the piano roll to do what I want, and then stretch that out to cover a whole verse or whatever. Then I insert a parallel track and drop in preprogramed fills in the appropriate places and delete those segments from the basic tracks.

When it's finished it sounds like someone who doesn't play drums tried to program a drum track using a very elementary VST. I imagine it will take me 10 - 12 hours to build a drum track for a three and a half minute song, but I won't know for sure until I finish one.

I am seriously thinking of going back to playing drums on a Casio keyboard ... with just a bass and snare on one track and then adding additional tracks for toms and then cymbals.

 

[ginormous]

Re: Programming drums

There's some freeware MIDI drum grooves, just the files, floating around in cyberspace. A few Googles, some downloads into a file folder, and presto! Copy and paste, edit to taste.

Also, Drumcore Free has some MIDI files included. Other than that, I go through the same processes... keyboard programming and MIDI editing for days.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Programming drums

+1 for getting a pair of sticks.

When composing drum parts, it helps to remind yourself what it is physically possible to play. Four note polyphony. e.g. If the ride cymbals are getting fancy, the hi-hat will be fairly basic, pedal only. Think like a drummer. (Insert drummist joke here.)

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Programming drums

The more time you spend on something, the better it will be. Theoretically.

As you spend more time listening/tweaking/listening/tweaking, you get better at it. Theoretically.

Once you start to think more like a drummer than a drum programmer, your track creation time decreases. Theoretically.

And there, in a nutshell, is Drum Programming Theory. However, it's all theoretical.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: Programming drums

Piano roll drum tracks can be Ok, but it's very hard to get a natural feel by dragging notes around with a mouse. It's almost better to just use a drum groove library.

Learning to play drums will definitely help you to create more natural rhythms. And then you can lay down the entire track in just a take or three instead of weeks at the workstation.

The Trap Kat is about the most tolerable rubber pad kit that I've ever used. (Just a controller - you need a separate drum module for it.) It's a good compromise if you don't have a lot of space for a full kit.

But I prefer the feel of the nylon mesh heads of the Alesis/Yamaha/Roland kits for the way the sticks bounce back. My Alesis stands are awful, too. Very hard to get them to stay put, especially after moving the kit.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Programming drums

While the pads like that are nice, I'd rather have a kit where each piece is separate and can be spaced out like an acoustic kit, just because the movements are more natural/familiar (as far as watching a drummer play acoustic drums, or air drumming).

Floor space can be a pain, but there's always furniture or accessories that can be relocated for The Greater Good (of musicians, anyway).

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: Programming drums

Yes, I did say "most tolerable rubber pad kit", not "ideal solution."

One other tip - if you are trying to create drum tracks in a sequencer app, it is important to change up the Note Velocity of your drum notes to get a realistic feel. It's often OK to have perfectly time-quanitized notes, but it will sound robotic if you don't change up the velocities.

There is also a psychoacoustic effect where louder notes sound like they happen sooner than softer notes. Something to keep in mind when you're experimenting.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Programming drums

BFD2 has a nifty "humanize" feature which shifts note spacing and velocities anywhere between subtle and "are you drunk again, or still!?"

I like for everything to be in its perfectly-aligned place in my drum tracks, and then highlight one piece (hi-hat) and wiggle the humanize control just a touch.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

While the pads like that are nice, I'd rather have a kit where each piece is separate and can be spaced out like an acoustic kit, just because the movements are more natural/familiar (as far as watching a drummer play acoustic drums, or air drumming).

Floor space can be a pain, but there's always furniture or accessories that can be relocated for The Greater Good (of musicians, anyway).

I've gotten interested in making my own drum input and have found out that it can be incredibly easy for someone who's crafty enough. The device that does the actual velocity reading is nothing more than a simple piezo buzzer. They're a buck at Radio Shack (until RS decides to get rid oc components all together), and it's essentially a piezo with the leads lengthened and ran into the drum brain which reads the varying voltages generated by the piezo and converts it to MIDI numbers. If you get a slab of that soft shop flooring, you can cut it into sections, tape a piezo to the bottom with packing tape, butcher a few old guitar cables and solder proper color to color, plug it into a brain and you have a drum set. You can also make the sought-after mesh heads with some foam, a piezo, some screen door cloth and some way to stick them all together in a drum shape. Snap-form cake molds work great if you find them used at the thrift store.

You can also build a converter from arduinos or similar newfangled microprocessor toys...or just buy/trade for a brain with MIDI out.

No, I haven't done any of this. I have a DM8 that has drum with physical heads and stuff. I've wanted to though...sound like a fun way to make a nice, easily collapsible kit that could fit in a briefcase.

ooh, here's a vid of a guy who's just wired raw piezo buzzers into a drum brain. This is the same thing that DDrum sticks in those cast-steel clamps to convert drums to triggers, and the same thing that a $600 Roland snare has in the head. Cashing in on the mysticism of MIDI.

 

[Icarusfire]

Re: Programming drums

Maybe iPad helps?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztLEiNpE5PQ

if you need output as midi, you can open Garageband project in LogicPro and export the midi from there(if you use apple)

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

Maybe iPad helps?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztLEiNpE5PQ

no reason not to, but I don't think iPad has velocity sensitivity, AKA hitting the drum as hard as possible. I think if you went into garageband and programmed the drums, you could also alter the velocities. I think. I dunno.

Building a drum pattern on tablet would be pretty easy I bet. I'm sure that garageband will export a MIDI file too...maybe it'd speed the process up slightly, especially when you have portability and direct visual input.

I found a program for Android named Caustic. It's techno-centered like Reason is, but I bet it could be used to rough out drum patterns on the go, then export MIDI and send to a computer for tooling up. iPhones probably have garageband now, don't they?