getting a slack feel in a programmed drum beat?

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Nola

Nola

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can someone tell me how to do this using programmed drums?

kind of like when the beat is slightly behind. do i have to take quantize off and manually move notes around so they're behind the beat? i wanted to record a cover of a Beck song and it's really slack feeling but the drum program is right on like a robot.

which drum gives the feeling of a slack beat is it the kick or the snare?

thanks
 
Leave the hat/ride on time and move the kick and snare behind until it feels right. If you move it all behind by the same amount, it will still be robotic, just late compared to the click (which no one will hear in the mix.
 
thanks fairview.
if you're doing this in a drum editor type thing, you'd have to turn off quantize first, right? then to adjust the kick and snare behind the beat to your taste? can you still do ghost notes, rolls, and any other embellishment type thing on the kick-snare even if they're behind the beat a little?

i was also curious how you'd program something syncopated like ragtime music. is it the same concept? is that type of music slack and behind the beat or is more that the accents just fall on weird, unexpected beats? i can look it up more on google but just think it's interesting if anyone knows.
 
Go ahead and quantize, then turn it off. Grab the kick and snare and just back them up a bit. Not one hit at a time, select all the kick and snare hits and back them up.

Ragtime leans more toward a swing. In your editor, there should be a swing function, that will move the appropriate hits the right direction. All the ones I've seen have an adjustment for how much you want it to swing. If the problem you are having is caused by you quantizing a swing feel into straight 1/8 notes, then you either need to quantize to triplets or use the swing function.

Syncopation is just accenting the beat that usually isn't accented.
 
Thanks Fairview I notice I play a lot of triplets or 6/8 for some reason and it sounds good with a little swing or syncopation. Thanks to your help I programmed them how I like now.

One thing I am still having problems with are programming fills. Since I'm not a drummer I don't know how they do fills and that's probably why they sound unnatural. Say you want a fill on the final beat to lead into a new section and you're in 4/4 with a triplet feel, would you start the fill on the 4 beat or earlier? Does the fill end on the 1 of the next measure? How does a drummer hit the toms, is it low to high, and which hit would get more volume? I know that's a lot of questions. If there's a manual to read about it I will I just can't find anything. I'm going to watch youtube videos and try to figure it out that's how I learned most about drumming but maybe Fairview or someone else can help with the tom fills.
 
Easiest things is to quantize the notes to the grid first, then slide them manually as Farview said. I do this in most every song. I tend to keep the kicks right on and let the snare lag.

There's a lot of hair pulling involved in making programmed drums sound natural. Once you get it set, you can use Humanize to introduce small timing and volume variations so it doesn't sound robotic.
 
Your best bet is to watch drummers playing and when you hear something you want to use, study it, count it and program it.

Yes, you can leave the kick and just move the snare. A groove is created by the subtle timing differences between the different percussion instruments. It is NOT caused by inconsistencies in timing. Good drummers are insanely consistent, but they just (by instinct) move the snare and/or kick ahead or behind the hat/ride. (Or whatever is counting time)
 
I've been able to get the feel i want a lot more lately by turning off "snap" when i need to. thanks to the guys around here that pointed it out to me.
 
Yes, you have to turn off 'snap', otherwise the note will just move itself back to the grid.
 
In 6/8 time, I think that it would be easier to set up the grid as triplets or dotted eighths instead of 16th or 8th notes, wouldn't it? If you're going to quantize, that is.

A question about the slack beat though: do drummers really just push or pull the kick/snare while keeping the hihat on the beat? For me (a completely untrained and crappy drummer), my kick and snare always want to follow what the hihat is doing. If I find myself rushing or lagging against the beat, the kick and snare and hihat all rush or lag together. Is that something that a good drummer tends to do, keeping the hihat steady even when pushing or pulling the beat?
 
Depending on your DAW or MIDI editor, You could select a group, say kick, quatnize 100%, select HH's, quantize 95% (or whatever works for you), depending on your playing, it could work the way you want it.

One thing to note, sometimes it is not when it is hit, but how (velocity) it is hit that will make as much a difference if not more how sequenced drums will sound. Take a 4/4 pattern, hit hard on 1 and 3, softer on 2 and 4. Changes the feel a lot.
 
Tadpui said:
A question about the slack beat though: do drummers really just push or pull the kick/snare while keeping the hihat on the beat? For me (a completely untrained and crappy drummer), my kick and snare always want to follow what the hihat is doing. If I find myself rushing or lagging against the beat, the kick and snare and hihat all rush or lag together. Is that something that a good drummer tends to do, keeping the hihat steady even when pushing or pulling the beat?
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It's a good question. I'm sure a real drummer varies all these more or less, but trying to program those nuances is beyond my current skill level. For me, there are a lot of practical advantages to keeping at least the kick and hat on 1 lined up with the beginning of the measure. It makes it easier to edit the song. Generally I tend to keep the hats and kicks on the strong beats pretty tight, for example quarter notes. I might shift the 8th note hats and kicks, especially as I'm often working with some kind of shuffle.

For me, the thing that makes the biggest difference is the position of the snare: on top of the beat, right on the beat, behind the beat, waaay behind the beat--those are the differences I really hear.
 
Tadpui said:
In 6/8 time, I think that it would be easier to set up the grid as triplets or dotted eighths instead of 16th or 8th notes, wouldn't it? If you're going to quantize, that is.
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That can work sometimes, but it can get confusing because the count of the song and the count on the grid don't match. The swing function will work a little better with any sort of shuffle or swing feel, since you really only tripletize certain beats.

Tadpui said:
A question about the slack beat though: do drummers really just push or pull the kick/snare while keeping the hihat on the beat? For me (a completely untrained and crappy drummer), my kick and snare always want to follow what the hihat is doing. If I find myself rushing or lagging against the beat, the kick and snare and hihat all rush or lag together. Is that something that a good drummer tends to do, keeping the hihat steady even when pushing or pulling the beat?
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That's not really how it works in real life, that is just the easiest way to edit something. In real life, the feel of something is created by the timing difference between the different elements and the perceived time. In real life, the kick and snare could be 'right' and the hat be ahead of or behind...

Unless you are playing to a click, you rushing or lagging everything together is simply changing tempo. If you are playing to the click, being consistently behind or in front of the click doesn't accomplish anything, since no one hears the click. The groove is the interaction between the stuff you hear, not the metronome that you don't.
 
This is a cool thread. Some good ideas on how to get a slack feel. I'd be curious to hear thoughts on how to get a feel like Pavement's Range Life, which is very laid-back, California vibe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VVj1zqbWpU

To me is sounds like the snare hits are soft (brush maybe?) and maybe like a 1/32nd behind the beat. So it's the combo of slightly behind and softer both that are making it feel slack. I can't really hear definition in the kick--I hear more bass guitar than kick. The bass guitar sounds a little behind to me. Maybe that adds to the vibe? I want to program some stuff like this (maybe even cover this song, it's an all time favorite for vibe I like), so it would be cool to hear ideas.

I also love playing ukulele, which has a natural slack to it (fan strokes, etc), so for that stuff it would be interesting to know more about how to program this feel.
 
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I'm hearing the snare behind the beat for sure. It's super common for the bass player to lay behind the beat in some genres. When took up bass in a serious way after years of playing guitar, the first thing I discovered was that I had a tendency to play ahead of the beat. It took a long time to learn how lay behind the beat.
 
Robus said:
I'm hearing the snare behind the beat for sure. It's super common for the bass player to lay behind the beat in some genres. When took up bass in a serious way after years of playing guitar, the first thing I discovered was that I had a tendency to play ahead of the beat. It took a long time to learn how lay behind the beat.
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Yeah, I have that problem, too. It's like anxiety or some antsy-ness to get to the next note. Energy..but it's usually not good unless for maybe punk or an angsty/edgy style.

Farview said:
The kick is also a bit ahead of the ride.
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Which percussion would you say is the most stable and keeping the beat?

So we have kick ahead of ride.
Snare behind the ride?

Does that mean the ride is keeping the beat? The guitar accents fall mostly on the snare. Very odd feel...I like it.
 
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Farview said:
Normally, the hat/ride are what is keeping the beat.
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Yeah that's what I am noticing. I'm a non-drummer like many here, but I've been trying to teach myself [to program/think like a drummer] by watching guys on youtube and just listening to a lot of music more closely.

So what I notice is very slightly ahead of the beat (ride, in my case) with the kick and slightly behind it with the snare sounds surprisingly cool. The one problem is fills (I have a 16th note snare fill with ghost notes and the end of some bars). Strumming these on the guitar (as 16th note strums) becomes weird because they're played on the snare, but the snare is behind the beat and then the kick comes in early on the following beat, so it's almost like the kick on the bars that follow the snare roll is too early. Would it make sense to move that kick back, or is more appropriate to strum the guitar in 16th notes with the ride, even though the roll is played on the snare?
 
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