evanhouseman
New member
Permit an old timer to add to the good advice already offered. I started out as a drummer; getting a good drum sound is a labor of love.
I keep all drums on separate tracks. Instead of having one bar of hi hat eights repeated seven times, I'll create multiple one bar patterns with “slight variations” (time, velocity, open the hat a little, etc.) Place them all past the end of the file where you can go copy/paste. label the one bar patterns A, B, C or whatever your like. It doesn't take that much time. Now mix and match: 2 bars A, one bar C, two bars B. Do the same with snare, and bass drum. With only three variation of each, you have a total of 27 combinations per bar. Start with 5 variations of each - now you have 125 possible variations. And that's before the schwa humanizer (I use reaper) As your working the song, you can tweak the same way a chef adds salt to the stew.
Another good feature to use in reaper is tempo change. If the song is at 110, when you get to the fill, bring it down to 108 or whatever works. Or speed up the final verse to 112.
Use every trick you see and invent your own.
I keep all drums on separate tracks. Instead of having one bar of hi hat eights repeated seven times, I'll create multiple one bar patterns with “slight variations” (time, velocity, open the hat a little, etc.) Place them all past the end of the file where you can go copy/paste. label the one bar patterns A, B, C or whatever your like. It doesn't take that much time. Now mix and match: 2 bars A, one bar C, two bars B. Do the same with snare, and bass drum. With only three variation of each, you have a total of 27 combinations per bar. Start with 5 variations of each - now you have 125 possible variations. And that's before the schwa humanizer (I use reaper) As your working the song, you can tweak the same way a chef adds salt to the stew.
Another good feature to use in reaper is tempo change. If the song is at 110, when you get to the fill, bring it down to 108 or whatever works. Or speed up the final verse to 112.
Use every trick you see and invent your own.