Drum Programming Thread!

[coldbrightsunlight]

The pain is that I can never produce results I'm truly happy with!! Doing basic stuff for demos I find very painless and easy, it's when I start to try making it sound less boring and robotic I get frustrated

[Circuithead]

I bought a used superior drummer 2 license last year on Ebay when SD3 came out and transfered it to my toontrack account. It was easy and painless.

So far I love it. I do not use the humanize function on it though, it doesn't seem to make that big of a difference.

I've searched around and found out that some people use a script that randomizes note placement and velocity within a certain range.

I draw all my beats by hand and align them to the grid, so I guess then I could just run a script to humanize them. You can search around for scripts that people came up with. I use Reaper

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&sxsrf ... CAc&uact=5


In the end, whether you choose to automate with scripts or built-in functions or go 100% by hand, the secret to realistic sounding beats is velocity and not being aligned to the grid. Think like a drummer, accents, ghost notes, etc. For kick drums you can totally get away with grid alignment but fills, rolls, embellishment, go ahead and dirty up your MIDI notes a bit.

I do have a MIDI controller but haven't got around to setting it up, otherwise I would just play the parts with it...

[coldbrightsunlight]

Draw my beats by hand in midi as well, mostly. I do use the Reaper humanise function a bit. But most commonly when I want to really record something I think sounds decent I give up and reach for a drum machine I have bad wrists and struggle using a computer for long periods of time so that doesn't help with the midi input.

I wish I had space for a drumkit because while I'm not great at playing drums I'd rather have badly played drums than robot drums.

The midi controller is a good point though. Maybe the digitakt as a midi input is worth a try since at least it's doing some physical drumming which helps me think in the right way and get less quantised parts.

[Circuithead]

The midi controller is a good point though. Maybe the digitakt as a midi input is worth a try since at least it's doing some physical drumming which helps me think in the right way and get less quantised parts.

For people who try to humanize their beats but don't want to spend hours clicking around (I get it) but have limited budget/space for drums, a midi controller (pads or keyboards is fine) is the best way to do it in my very humble opinion, hence why I got a used Axiom 49 on Kijiji. But hey it's been sitting in the closet for a year while I still figure out SD2 so I'm not gonna pretend I know what I'm talking about. Maybe I'll hate it but the idea that any knob/fader/pad in any DAW/VST can be mapped to a physical button is probably the end of mouse drumming for me. Guess I'll find out soon.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Wooooo sounds like fun

[Olin]

I usually program drums for demo's of my songs before sending them to THE DRUMMER, I've found a good and quick way of doing it is to write the drums in guitar pro, import them into Reaper (or whatever your preferred DAW is) and then humanise them from there, it's about 20x quicker than drawing by hand I find. Reapers humanise functions are also not bad I find, I'll do something mild like 5% timing, 10% velocity and a slight swing to lean towards slower rather than faster, then listen and manually raise/lower things that need raising and lowering. I think this might help you out Kate, it makes experimenting with new ideas very quick and less fiddly to change than drawing it all out by hand in a MIDI editor.

Superior Drummer 3 is pretty wonderful too, SD1 and 2 were also very well done but 3 feels a lot more complete and easier to use. Having different drumstick choices for most bits of the kit is nice and the built in effects rack is a lot of fun to use. I've actually filled in some real drum parts with SD3 kits I've put together and it makes me feel like that youtuber who touches up old paintings.

[Circuithead]

I usually program drums for demo's of my songs before sending them to THE DRUMMER, I've found a good and quick way of doing it is to write the drums in guitar pro, import them into Reaper (or whatever your preferred DAW is) and then humanise them from there, it's about 20x quicker than drawing by hand I find. Reapers humanise functions are also not bad I find, I'll do something mild like 5% timing, 10% velocity and a slight swing to lean towards slower rather than faster, then listen and manually raise/lower things that need raising and lowering. I think this might help you out Kate, it makes experimenting with new ideas very quick and less fiddly to change than drawing it all out by hand in a MIDI editor.

Superior Drummer 3 is pretty wonderful too, SD1 and 2 were also very well done but 3 feels a lot more complete and easier to use. Having different drumstick choices for most bits of the kit is nice and the built in effects rack is a lot of fun to use. I've actually filled in some real drum parts with SD3 kits I've put together and it makes me feel like that youtuber who touches up old paintings.

I imagine the MIDI mappings from GP work in SD without any sort of tweaking? Or did you configure mappings yourself?

[Olin]

Pretty seamless, sometimes have to move things around a tiny bit but it's very easy to do and not time consuming at all.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Interesting except I'd need to get guitar Pro and then learn drum notation. but it does sound quicker. Goroth does this technique and it works well

[Circuithead]

This thread got me all worked up so I broke out the Axiom, dusted it off, plugged it in USB, told reaper which MIDI input/output to use and it worked instantly with exactly zero hassle.

The 6 pads were mapped to basic drum pieces (kick/snare/OHH/CHH/Ride/Crash) in superior drummer 2 and the keys are mapped to the rest of the SD2 shebang.

I can finally do AMAZING drum rolls that just go on and on and vary in velocity smoothly, and choke them up with brutal flams I mean, I'm really happy and I kick myself in the ass for thinking it would be complicated, it is not.

I hit record and layed down a strip of hi hats and the velocities and placement were of course all random because I'm a human.

I recommend MIDI controllers with zero hesitation.

[coldbrightsunlight]

woooo

Is that the m audio? Maybe if I got that it could also do keyboardy things for me because of the magic of softsynths existing Noted.

[Circuithead]

Yeah it's the mAudio Axiom 49, I got one on Kijiji for a hundred bucks or so last year. The record must be armed on the track and monitor on to hear yourself jam, but it's night and day in terms of laying down ideas quickly. It's USB but it's also got MIDI ports if you want to plug it in the sound card and also has expr and sustain jacks. I have no idea what those last two are. It's a hefty thing and it'll take some space.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Hmm I like the sound of that a lot. The expression and sustain jacks are for foot pedals for playing the piano keys

Yeah it really looks like a good solution to me, could sell my microkorg quite happily for this and get a lot more functionality

[qersty]

Can I necro this and ask how you guys play and write with drum machines. I dig the vibe of drum machines but I cant play togeth with them for shit. Writing for them is even worse cause ive been spoiled when it comes to drummers and im pretty lazy

[coldbrightsunlight]

Do you mean writing/playing other instruments alongside them? IDK I guess I'm used to it? I use them for repetitive psychy music and it kinda fits great underneathy jammy guitar playing haha. Or synth choons