Advice on Drumloops

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PaulKarate

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I'm using a BOSS Doctor Groove DR.202 Drum Machine

I was wondering if anyone has any links on how to program "real sounding" drumloops. By this I mean what can I do to make my loops sound more real and less robotic. I heard that using two different snares and bass drums helps and also programming a few different Hi Hats but how do I do this?

Should my main snare have more reverb than the second snare?
Should the second snare be lower in the mix or should i record it at a lower velocity?

I guess I need to find a starting point ad go from there.

Again if anyone can help or post some links it would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks,
PKarate
 
Oh man, this is deep... the whole subject could fill at least one book. I am not familiar with the Dr. Groove, but here are some generic guidelines:

1. Drummers can "only" play 4 hits at a time (foot hat, kick and anything else that you play with drumsticks), so anything more will be going into "sequenced/drum machine" territory... not necessarily a bad thing... it just depends whether you want it to sound musical/human-like or really fake a drummer (not easy by any means).

2. Quantization. In short... don't. If you're playing the part from the keyboard, play the basic parts (maybe the kick/snare/hats if possible) and see how it feels. This is my preferred method as you automatically give it a certain rhythmic feel. If your timing isn't that great then instead of using digid quantization use something like "iterative" or "percent" quantize. Most sequencers offer this, and it can tidy things up w/o overquantizing things. If you're programming the part then have the hits a bit off the grid. What you want to do is emulate the tendency of "pulling" or "pushing" that we humans have. We never play anything exactly on the grid. Instead, you want to create a groove.

3. Velocity. Obviously if everything is played at the same velocity it's not going to sound "human". Again, sequencing the part live from the keyboard gives better results, but if you're programming, then make sure you have rhythmic accents and such. Please note that some sequencers offer a randomize function for velocity. This is rarely useful for creating a certain feel. Instead take the time and create the rhythmic pattern. This is tedious work, but results are worth it.

4. Timbral control. This goes hand in hand with #3. How you do this depends on your source sounds. This can involve multisamples, you use different samples at different velocities. Many professionally sampled drumkits use this. Another way is controlling filter cutoff with velocity. If you want to get fancy, then throw envelope controll in there as well. Probably you'll want to use a combination of all three.

5. Forget all of the above, stop apologizing for using electronic/sampled/sequenced drums, and be blatant about it. Cool things you can do electronically that no human drummer can do: a) "machine gun effect", some dread this, but depending on the style of the music and if used sparingly is quite effective, b) complex grooves using too many notes. c) funky filter sweeps and other ways of torturing the drums (distortion, ring modulation, whatever... ok this can be done with real drumkits too, but you have more flexibility with the electronic stuff), d) have the tuning of the drums follow the keys of the music... I was listening to a Lords of Acid song (don't remember the title right now), but they used this effect when going to the chorus where the tuning of the kick drum goes up to the new key... it sounded very dramatic. e) by extention of "d)" play melodies with the drum sounds :D

For more specific ideas on dealing with sampled drumloops, ReCycling, ghost notes and such PM me.
 
Those are some good tips but I must disagree with your statement that no human drummer can do the "machine gun effect". Bill Bruford can and you can hear him do it on Bill Bruford's Earthworks on the song "Emotional Shirt".

Well maybe you are right after all on all points when you consider the fact that Bruford CAN sound like a machine ... maybe he is one!

DTB


69ShadesofRed said:
...Cool things you can do electronically that no human drummer can do: a) "machine gun effect", ...
 
All are good tips, but I like #5 the most. Todays artist are doing quite well with their blatant drum machine loops. Only old school styles like rock jazz and blues is there really a debate over real drummer vs machines. And in styles like rock, compression and other effects are used to smooth out the different nuances of a specific player anyway.
Instead of trying to make your patterns sound more "real", strive for more interesting. If you catch the listners attention, they couldn't care less if it were "real" or otherwise. Only another musician would even complain about it.
I mean there are a number of great loop libraries out there now, covering every imaginable style possible. Most of the new generation are actual recordings of real drummers, yet many musicians will say it sounds fake to use sample loops in your music. Even though it is a real drummer.
 
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