How Do You go about Programming Drums?

philsick

New member
Personally for me I'd love to have Vinnie Colaiuta, Dennis Chambers, Dave Weckl (to name a few) on my tracks but taking into consideration this is a Home Recording forum/ plus lack of finances to accommodate such a fantasy= that aint happening!
At the moment I'm using superior drummer & addictive drums & just basically play along with the track & quantize, edit from there

although technically most stuff can be edited, I do find playing along live with regards to high hat & ride is the best way for me to get feeling into it.. I just love programming drums- crap at it but love it...

Peace Guys.

DC.
 
There are a number of methods I use.

The simplest is to create a generic loop that runs through the whole track, then edit in fills and variations afterwards.

Sometimes I record the drums live, i.e. using fingers on keyboard as the song goes along. If it's complicated I will do it in two passes: firstly doing kick and hi-hat (i.e. the feet), then snare, cymbals and toms (i.e. the hands).
 
There are a number of methods I use.

The simplest is to create a generic loop that runs through the whole track, then edit in fills and variations afterwards...

Same here. I like starting with a supplied "groove" - acts as my metronome. The grooves also help not having to spend a lot of time messing with note velocities later as they're usually right on.
 
yep span & gecko- same for me as well... i've no idea how deep you are into it but are any of you lovely people using drum software i mentioned in the OP?

addictive drums ride samples tend to have different sounds on the velocities- very annoying= have any of you experienced this? just out of interest
 
I'm using MTPower Drum Kit 2, and it's cymbals are also lacking. Each piece has it's own compression in the kit's mixer section which helps with the different sounds on the velocities.. to some degree. I'm beginning to substitute cymbals with samples I've gathered around the internet. It's hit or miss at this point. However, I am budgeting for Superior Drummer 3 by year's end.
 
I use EZDrummer and mostly stick to the canned grooves they provide. I'll go in to edit a few hits here or there, but for me, the canned grooves are good. They didn't used to be that way. When EZDrummer first came out, I basically edited the entire drum track to get something useful. It was kinda fun to figure out how I would play something on a kit and make it work with Midi notes. But with the latest versions of EZD, I dont' feel the need to do that anymore. Which is good because I just don't have the gumption like I used to.
 
Using SD or EZ Drummer, I will often use the grooves provided, But I do have a MIDI drum pads Yamaha DD65 that I will use sometimes when I need a special drumming. I cannot draw/sequence a drum pattern worth anything.
 
So far, using MT PowerDrumKit has been the easiest way for me to program drums. The single drum kit is my only issue, and I'm sure if I took the time, I could use other drum kits, just need to properly map the midi track.

I tried feeding the midi track to my Alesis SR18 but there are more voices in MT than in the Alesis, so I would have to do SERIOUS remapping or limit what I use in the tracks.
 
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You can get mapping for other kits to MT. I haven't tried any, so I don't know how much my head would hurt trying :drunk:

-----------------------Presets
 
I started by making short loops on a Korg M1 sequencer, then daisy chaining the loops baack in da day. I have Superior and several others that i rarely use now that i can record live drums but what i have done is take a How to Play drums book and used the charts therein to create about 100 mid loops in Pro Tools that cover a wide range of basic beats and fills. I have them all in one session so if i just need something for a demo or an idea i can scroll through and find something pretty quickly, export it and start a new session or add to an existing.
 
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