Drums: The Most Basic of All Questions

S

Spillenger

New member
Hi.

I do not play the drums. I do not have a drum kit. If I want drums on a song, I have to do them digitally, either with a loop or a software drum instrument. If I use a loop, it obviously sounds mechanical because it plays the same thing every bar. No fills, etc. If I use a MIDI keyboard/pad to control a software drum kit, it doesn't sound great because I am not a drummer (see above). I certainly can't get the beat "locked in" as it would be if a real drummer were playing (or if I used a loop).

I am basically a stringed instrument player -- guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass -- who plays some piano. What I need is a simple clear explanation (a book, a web site) of how to create a simple drum track using loops that is not robotic -- or of how to use the pads on my MIDI keyboard to create my own drum track from scratch -- along with the plusses and minuses of both methods. My DAW is Presonus Studio One. I have NI Komplete. I would prefer not to spend a lot of dough on new software if I don't have to.

Can anyone recommend a resource for someone who is a little stymied by this subject? It might be called "How to Build a Great Drum Track for Idiots."

Thanks.

Paul
 
There are lots of ways to skin this cat. Years ago, I invested in Propellerhead Reason to run as a re-wire application with Pro Tools for the very purpose of getting a good way of creating drum tracks. I don't like mechanical or "drum machine" sounding drums; I strive for a live feel.

I now use Logic, but I still prefer Reason for the drum tracks. It also has the advantage of other instruments such as synthesizers and samplers that will do more than I can say in a brief response. Rather than my trying to explain Reason, I would suggest that you look at the Propellerhead web site. There are multiple ways of creating drum tracks in Reason - including the drum machines that I'm not fond of.

Reason is very versatile software in my opinion and can add a lot of dimensions to your work besides drums. But it does drums pretty well. I'm certainly no expert; perhaps you'll get good advice from other members who are. I'll be interested to see what others offer.
 
EZD2 looks pretty darn good for that kind of thing.

Another option (what I've been doing lately) is to find yourself a hex pickup and guitar>MIDI converter. I use a Roland GK3A pickup and GI10 converter box, but there are a bunch of others out there. Stick it on your guitar, take a couple minutes to get it set up and get the feel for it, and play your drum parts (and any other MIDI instrument) from an instrument with which you are already comfortable.
 
You have two real choices, play the drums via MIDI and your keyboard and then correct the timing manually or by using quantisation or play the drums via a electronic kit. Your timing will be much better using a kit. The snag is that recording this as audio doesn't help your timing, recording it a data means you can fix the errors. Not much more you can do if you want real sounding drums.
 
rob aylestone said:
You have two real choices, play the drums via MIDI and your keyboard and then correct the timing manually or by using quantisation or play the drums via a electronic kit. Your timing will be much better using a kit. The snag is that recording this as audio doesn't help your timing, recording it a data means you can fix the errors. Not much more you can do if you want real sounding drums.
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Well, you could take my suggestion to turn your guitar into a MIDI controller...

Or you can put a microphone on anything and hit it and use any of a number of plugins to convert that to MIDI with which to trigger your drum VSTi. Heck, you could even beat box for that!

Or like mentioned above, harness the power of EZD2 which is pretty much exactly for this kind of thing.

Or find a better set of loops.

Or make friends with a drummer. (I know, worst possible option, I've spent over 20 years trying to avoid it myself!)
 
I love the EZDrummer stuff so I'm a little biased, but I will say, even they can get a little robotic sometimes. The trick is get your drum track laid out for the whole song using their canned grooves then go back and edit the parts to add more variation. EZD does a pretty good job with its humanize feature, but adding more via manual edits takes your drum track to a higher level. It's what you're looking for.

DAW software like Cubase makes editing midi tracks fairly painless. I actually love doing it.

---------- Update ----------

ashcat_lt said:
(I know, worst possible option, I've spent over 20 years trying to avoid it myself!)
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:laughings:
 
c7sus said:
Another vote for EZ Drummer2 or Superior Drummer.
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Yup...:thumbs up:...Superior Drummer is certainly the other great option from Toontrack, and what I prefer to use, but it might be a bit more involved for the novice/casual user...which is why I think they retooled EZD into EZD2, since it's now perfect for songwriters who just want some decent drum tracks, quickly and without too much decision making.

Those of use who get more into the whole tracking/mixing thing might find Superior Drummer the better way to go, since it has more options...and of course, more decisions to be made.

ashcat_lt said:
Or make friends with a drummer. (I know, worst possible option, I've spent over 20 years trying to avoid it myself!)
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:p

I've been lucky. I met this good drummer about 10 years ago at a band jam session....and he's been quite happy to lay down drum tracks for me, though he gets involved with a lot of different band gigs these days, so not always easy to bring into the studio on a regular basis....but I get 2-3 songs ready, and he comes over and bangs them out in an afternoon. The rest of the time I use Superior Drummer....which has also become great just for getting the songs ready for my drummer, as opposed to me using some basic loop or machine beats. With SD I can really demonstrate to him where I want accents/fills/etc.

Chili said:
The trick is get your drum track laid out for the whole song using their canned grooves then go back and edit the parts to add more variation.
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Yeah....you need to do some "personalizing" of the grooves to better fit the song. Getting the transitions/fills more song-specific goes a long way to adding greater "live drum" realism to the tracks... though some of their MIDI groove packs are actually killer. I mean, they used some top-notch players to lay down those grooves, so there's plenty of "live drum" feel....you just have to avoid the repetitions. No drummer, no matter how good, plays the same patterns/fills exactly the same way over and over. :D
 
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I don't play the drums either but I play my drum in using Maschine... 2 bars of kick & snare on one group and then 8 bars of hi-hats on a separate group adding rides & perc as appropriate...
Once I bounce down (export) to DAW I have choice of having either 'groups' or 'sounds' sent to daw...

I'll usually send 'sounds' for drums and 'groups' for my sample chops and/or instruments.
 
Are you having a hard time putting the drum parts in your head down, or are you having a hard time writing appropriate drum parts, since you aren't a drummer? Those are two different problems.
 
This is very interesting to me, and I think I'll have a new look at the info for Reason, because I go out of Reason to do my drums in SSD4. Guess it depends on the genre.
Also, I saw earlier that someone said you can't edit if you record in audio instead of midi? Of course you can. Reason is awesome at that!

Anyway, the point is, SD or ED or SSD are all available, and quite nice depending on the genre of music you wish to play.
 
I realise that drum loops and sequences are de rigour for many genres, but the kind of music I do just exposes these as 'fake'.

The annoying thing is that I know how to play real drums, but my coordination is rubbish - so starting any fourth limb means one of the others simply stops. I can play, pretty well, with three limbs, but attempt a fill and it falls apart. I can put parts down in two layers, but they never lock together properly, so I end up tweaking and tweaking. Far easier to bring in a proper drummer every time! My preference is for them to play my MIDI kit not the real one in the studio, because I can then still edit what they did - but drums either artificial or real are a constant problem.
 
Farview said:
Are you having a hard time putting the drum parts in your head down, or are you having a hard time writing appropriate drum parts, since you aren't a drummer? Those are two different problems.
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Interesting question. The sad truth is that I'm not even at either of those two points yet. I'm more at the "I'll know it when I hear it" stage. So, for example, if I'm doing a basic shuffle blues, I'd like to have a simple drum part in there, of course, so I imagine throwing in a loop that seems suitable and then doing two extremely basic things: adding fills at the end of verses and choruses, and changing up the part between verses, between verses and choruses, and between sung verses and instrumental solo verses. I don't imagine I'd "hear the drum parts in my head" before I started throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what stuck. Likewise, I know I wouldn't "write the appropriate drum parts," because, again, for me at this primitive stage, the process would be more trial and error. I might hear something I sort of like, but think it has too much ride cymbal in it or it's too busy. I know this might sound insulting to actual drummers (I don't mean it to be), but at this point I'd be happy with a drum part that fit nicely with the arrangement and other instrumentation. So for now, I'm playing around with (the admittedly limited) drummer function in GarageBand, just to get my feet wet.

The other issue is that my MIDI keyboard is an M-Audio AxiomPro 49, which has 8 drum pads, as well as the keys which can trigger drum sounds. I'm just not proficient enough with the various drums to play them through the entire song and stay in time. And the tiny pads don't make it easy to play a full kit all at once.

Anyway, thanks for the question. It's spurred me to think more clearly about what it is I'm trying to accomplish.

Paul
 
miroslav said:
Toontrack made EZ Drummer 2 ...for guys like you! :)

EZdrummer 2 | Toontrack

You can get it for $150 here: Toontrack EZdrummer | AudioDeluxe
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As it happens, I have an old version of EZDrummer that I haven't really played with. I've looked at the Toontracks web site and they sell an upgrade from my version to 2 for $99. I've gone through the descriptions of the new version, but in your opinion is it really a vast improvement over 1? And if so, what are the chief improvements you think would make a practical difference for "guys like me"?

Thanks.

Paul
 
I want to thank everyone for their patient and helpful replies to my question. I didn't get one "you are an idiot" comment, which I'm sure I richly deserved. I appreciate it.

Paul
 
Spillenger said:
As it happens, I have an old version of EZDrummer that I haven't really played with. I've looked at the Toontracks web site and they sell an upgrade from my version to 2 for $99. I've gone through the descriptions of the new version, but in your opinion is it really a vast improvement over 1? And if so, what are the chief improvements you think would make a practical difference for "guys like me"?

Thanks.

Paul
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They vastly improved the ability for you to find the right MIDI loops/patterns for your needs. The "tap to find" feature is great, and the MIDI patterns are laid out in a way that makes it pretty easy to find what you're looking for. And if you do the upgrade from EZD1 to EZD2, you get to keep the Pop/Rock kit. You can now mix and match pieces from any kit, and you can now build your entire drum track within EZD itself (or you can drag/drop the MIDI into your MIDI track in your DAW).

I think that EZD is going to be exactly what you need at this point. Even version 1 is going to go a long ways to helping you with the problems that you've described. Version 2 just makes it easier.
 
The biggest difference in the upgrade to EZD2 is the part/song creation and editing functions. Since I only ever use their "grooves" for noise, I didn't bother upgrading. Since you actually seem to want to use those functions, I think it will do you a lot of good. Not only is finding the groove you want easier, but so is customizing those grooves. It really is aimed almost exactly at you.
 
Spillenger said:
I've gone through the descriptions of the new version, but in your opinion is it really a vast improvement over 1? And if so, what are the chief improvements you think would make a practical difference for "guys like me"?
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Most of us non-drummers are guys like you. There are quite a few threads discussing EZD and EZD2. I think THIS ONE has some good conversation in it. There are others in the Drum section and a few threads in the VST section of this site.

Good luck and have fun,
 
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