Heresy: How to make a realistic VSTi drum part
- Thread starter Serendipity Records
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snow lizard
Dedicated Slacker
If you're looking for a drum kit there's good deals that come up used now and then. Something like a Yamaha Stage Custom Birch kit with the hardware pack could be a good deal. Yamaha hardware kicks butt. The shells are easy to tune and sound great. If the sticker price is less than what a 4000 series hardware pack costs on its own, there you go. Mine has the matching 5 1/2 x 14 birch snare, which is actually okay if you put it in a tuning range that it likes. Getting a better snare is a pretty common upgrade to any kit. Or even just a different snare. You can add to a kit as the money becomes available.
Before going all out on a shell pack or 12 different snare drums, consider that cymbals cost possibly more than the rest of the kit and you can't really go too cheap on cymbals or you'll have to replace them. I've gotten some good deals at major sales events at the local big box music store. They do lessons and rentals, so every now and then they try to renew that stuff and sell the old cymbals on Boxing Day or whatever for a fraction of what it costs new, and they won't sell anything that's cracked or keyholed. Something like an 18 inch Zildjian K crash for 100 bucks is not a bad deal. Chip away at it as you can afford it and boom! There's your kit.
And honestly, what shells you have almost doesn't matter. The right heads and good tuning can get you something decent out of just about anything that isn't broken. The bearing edges are important.
Before going all out on a shell pack or 12 different snare drums, consider that cymbals cost possibly more than the rest of the kit and you can't really go too cheap on cymbals or you'll have to replace them. I've gotten some good deals at major sales events at the local big box music store. They do lessons and rentals, so every now and then they try to renew that stuff and sell the old cymbals on Boxing Day or whatever for a fraction of what it costs new, and they won't sell anything that's cracked or keyholed. Something like an 18 inch Zildjian K crash for 100 bucks is not a bad deal. Chip away at it as you can afford it and boom! There's your kit.
And honestly, what shells you have almost doesn't matter. The right heads and good tuning can get you something decent out of just about anything that isn't broken. The bearing edges are important.
rob aylestone
Moderator
I'm not a drummer. I can drum, but over the years since music technology really started it's clear there are two opposing forces. The quest for more realistic sounds and the quest for more realistic playing.
The sounds are easy. I now have so many kits available all tuneable and tweakable, that's simple - spend money and get new and hopefully better sounds.
However since getting the first electronic kit the playing side is magic. If you put notes in with a mouse, or use grids or loops, to make these work the killer for drums is quantisation and tempo. Real drummers don't do it, and while many will play to a click, the good players do their stuff around a click, not to it!
The best drummer in the world sounds like electronic drums if they play absolutely in time. Easy to prove the first time you are recording an electronic kit or a real kit with sensors. Just take two bars of music and expand it. The snare might be on the beat sometimes - landing on the grid lines, but most times it's late, or early - plus with MIDI having 127 levels, it's rare for any two consecutive notes to be the same velocity either. How can you create that without a dum kit? Truth is, you can't. Well, you could but you'd be old doing it. Look at the flow too, the tempo goes up and down, often in places you don't expect.
Nowadays, we copy the verse or the chorus from most instruments and it works, but it's rare for real drums to be the same in this way. EDM and pretend drums is the key feature of that kind of music so drum grids, loops and patterns work fine - but want ballads or rock and roll, let alone metal, and you are really stuck.
Best case, a set of cheap pads or a kit and decent external sounds is as close as I can do. Even that has problems - my Yamaha rubber pad kit triggers all my drum sounds once I map them, but the velocities mess it up. tickling through to bashing a snare work great on it's internal sounds, but not on the VSTi sounds, so I have to edit those. Worst case is when you need a snare roll or similar on cymbals? Just horrible. You develop cheats - like duplicating the track and doing alternate hits on each track, so the next hit doesn't cut the other dead. Drum modules seem to sort this, but MIDI on and off messages do it badly. Take a finger off the key or pad and it sends an off message. It needs to do that of course, but that's not how real drums work. Hence why sample packages have all the flams, rolls and fast stuff as little short patterns. Drums are evil to use on anything played on keys, drum pads or a mouse. If you want to do realistic drums, then you really need an electronic kit. Don;t even get me started on hi-hat pedals and trying to recreate these with a mouse - time is too precious.
Beginners also do things drummers spot straight away - as in having 5 limbs. Real drummers have to stop playing one thing to play another - so the hat pattern has to have holes in it. recording kick, snare, hats and toms separately means 5 or even 6 limbs are needed.
The sounds are easy. I now have so many kits available all tuneable and tweakable, that's simple - spend money and get new and hopefully better sounds.
However since getting the first electronic kit the playing side is magic. If you put notes in with a mouse, or use grids or loops, to make these work the killer for drums is quantisation and tempo. Real drummers don't do it, and while many will play to a click, the good players do their stuff around a click, not to it!
The best drummer in the world sounds like electronic drums if they play absolutely in time. Easy to prove the first time you are recording an electronic kit or a real kit with sensors. Just take two bars of music and expand it. The snare might be on the beat sometimes - landing on the grid lines, but most times it's late, or early - plus with MIDI having 127 levels, it's rare for any two consecutive notes to be the same velocity either. How can you create that without a dum kit? Truth is, you can't. Well, you could but you'd be old doing it. Look at the flow too, the tempo goes up and down, often in places you don't expect.
Nowadays, we copy the verse or the chorus from most instruments and it works, but it's rare for real drums to be the same in this way. EDM and pretend drums is the key feature of that kind of music so drum grids, loops and patterns work fine - but want ballads or rock and roll, let alone metal, and you are really stuck.
Best case, a set of cheap pads or a kit and decent external sounds is as close as I can do. Even that has problems - my Yamaha rubber pad kit triggers all my drum sounds once I map them, but the velocities mess it up. tickling through to bashing a snare work great on it's internal sounds, but not on the VSTi sounds, so I have to edit those. Worst case is when you need a snare roll or similar on cymbals? Just horrible. You develop cheats - like duplicating the track and doing alternate hits on each track, so the next hit doesn't cut the other dead. Drum modules seem to sort this, but MIDI on and off messages do it badly. Take a finger off the key or pad and it sends an off message. It needs to do that of course, but that's not how real drums work. Hence why sample packages have all the flams, rolls and fast stuff as little short patterns. Drums are evil to use on anything played on keys, drum pads or a mouse. If you want to do realistic drums, then you really need an electronic kit. Don;t even get me started on hi-hat pedals and trying to recreate these with a mouse - time is too precious.
Beginners also do things drummers spot straight away - as in having 5 limbs. Real drummers have to stop playing one thing to play another - so the hat pattern has to have holes in it. recording kick, snare, hats and toms separately means 5 or even 6 limbs are needed.
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grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I'm not a drummer either, but I think that I've always thought 'drums'. And now that I have to, my thinking has to translate itself into the actual mechanics of playing.
The most important thing that I realized when I first started using VSTis, and it took me a while to learn this once I had gotten over the excitement of having every instrument at my disposal, was to play whichever instrument I was using the way the player of that instrument would. I'll admit, I was partly seduced by the idea initially of technology enabling me to blow a viola or bow a flute......but when I actually got the various VSTis, that never appealed to me because I discovered that I love the violin, for example, and I wanted the violin sound, not some 'clever' technological Frankenstein creation. Even if it was a completely new and unique sound, truth is, that it still would sound like something a synthesizer would sound like !
So the idea was to not play the violin like a keyboard player, not play a mandolin like a guitarist etc.
Now, I don't use a drum VSTi, I use an actual kit but I'm no drummer, I'm too long in the tooth to start learning one now and frankly, I couldn't be bothered. But I can layer the parts piece by piece {or in some cases, pieces} and while I used to think that it didn't matter if it didn't sound realistic, I soon lost that notion. It does. And I find myself paying very careful attention to drummers in every song I hear in which there are drums, regardless of genre. In fact, I consider it a blessing to be a lover of so many different genres because that really informs how the drums may sound when I'm 'playing' them.
A month ago, I had my son's friend over to do a session for me on drums, and it was quite funny watching him as he played. It made me realize just how many universes there were between his authentic playing and some of my single-celled layering. He did everything naturally and spontaneously, without really thinking about it. Whereas I have to think well in advance and I have to be really careful if I improvise because that's going to alter so much that it wouldn't if I actually played the kit as a whole. Nevertheless, playing various percussion instruments over the years has helped, and I think like a drummer and when one does, after a while, it becomes second nature to not do things that only a double-jointed octopus would !
spantini
COO of me, inc.
This one got me. When I first started programming drums, I really got carried away. I think I made it up to at least 6 limbs. Once I realized what I was doing, I started going at it like a real drummer, and watching videos of live performances helps quite a bit when I can't seem to get something just right.,
VomitHatSteve
Hat STYLE. Not contents.
So my bit of e-drum heresy is: who cares if your "drummer" has 6 limbs? Does it sound good and match the song?
Just pretend that your one pretend drummer is 2 or 3 pretend percussionists
Just pretend that your one pretend drummer is 2 or 3 pretend percussionists
Ujn Hunter
Active member
If it works for King Gizzard...
Supercreep
Lizard People
Step 1: Make it as simple as possible
Step 2: Make it even more simple. What is the minimum effective beat? What is the thing about the beat that makes it work in the composition?
Fills and successive high-velocity notes are where things get iffy. If your VST includes loops of drummers drumming, that's probably a good place to start because the timing and hit velocities are those of the human that played them. Refer to step 1.
Step 2: Make it even more simple. What is the minimum effective beat? What is the thing about the beat that makes it work in the composition?
Fills and successive high-velocity notes are where things get iffy. If your VST includes loops of drummers drumming, that's probably a good place to start because the timing and hit velocities are those of the human that played them. Refer to step 1.
Supercreep
Lizard People
Remember that the beat pack you're using is somebody playing a beat to a song that isn't your song. It is often easier to start with the beats and write your parts around them so that you're all playing the same song with the same accents and intensity.
Serendipity Records
Well-known member
If you're using loops, then yeah. But I only program my own drums.
Papanate
Well-known member
Yes - first thing is you have to think like a drummer when programing your parts - this will get you 85% of the way there - then you have to dig deep into the minutia of drum parts and change velocity, attack and other parts in way that reflects a real drummer playing a part - then you have to blend the whole mix to sound cohesive - all of which it a ton of work - the other thing to do is get an Internet Drummer to play your parts - then you can play with them to get the sound you want - get them to do a real track and a Midi track - that way you can alter the drums.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Exactamundo !
I am often quite healthily surprised, when listening to songs I've loved for decades and approached in a certain way, by how simple the drums are on them. Reggae, for example, sounds so exotic and it is so recognizable. But the drum parts are often so simple. Even in what appear to be busy jazz-fusion or progressive rock songs, sometimes, the drums are actually simple. In so much of each genre, it's what's going on around and the way they all integrate, that gives a song its flavour and seeming complexity. Of course, there are many great complex drum parts too. But a staggeringly large percentage sound simple.
Serendipity Records
Well-known member
Apparently, you can make it sound like the drummer does have an extra limb or two...
Papanate
Well-known member
Well - Peter Gabriel and the Police don't have simple drums parts.
Serendipity Records
Well-known member
Or Toto. Man - I better go over to the "Music I like" subforum
Supercreep
Lizard People
Stuart Copeland has many difficult fills, but the beats themselves are mostly simple one-drops, steppers, and backbeats. To Grim's point, it was his implementation of those beats that helped those compositions sound so great.
markmann
Active member
Drums are not my primary instrument but I play drums and my brother is a drummer. When I record i like to play the drum parts because it's fun and because I have a style that would be hard for me to program. I have access to acoustic and electric but I use e-drums for convenience. To make the Roland sounds more realistic, my presets are highly tweaked and I send everything to separate tracks. When I mix I use EQ, limiting, compression, reverb, etc at the track level which makes a huge difference.