Best way to program your drums in acid.

[JES Universual]

Hello i've been a user of Acid pro projects since version 3.0. I've made tons of music with the program and I think its awesome. However, i've never been good at programming my drums in acid. I used to just grab drum loops, chop it up, change tempo/pitch, etc and that was that. I used to just lay down my sample and hopefully find a drum loop that would fit with its tempo. My diversity on creating good drums has been very limited.

What are the best practices for creating good drums in acid. I have tons of drum loops, samples, one shots. I think I have plenty of drum sound resources to do alot of things. I just have a hard time getting started.

I was always told to start with your drums first then add in your samples, etc.

Is that the best practice? if so, should I start off with already pre-defined drum loops and chop it up or should I start off with one shots?

If I start off with one shots, what is the best to start with? Hi-hats first then add in kicks, snares, etc?

Or should I start off with my samples first then add in my drums?

What are the best measures to use when layering your drums?

Do you think a Midi controller would help me out?

Thanks for all the advice that you may give me.

J.E.S

 

[Somnium7]

This question is kind of all over the place but I'll give it a shot.

Acid 6 has a drum mapping utility which I find mysterious and probably less than useless. Give it a try though maybe it's good for something and I'm too dumb to realize.

Good practices for drums are pretty straightforward. Set your snap for 32nd or 16th notes. Drag your drum samples in where you want them. Then turn snap off and adjust timing where you hear things sounding too machine-like.

Instead of chopping up loops just use the volume envelope to *notch-out* hits for variations on the beat.

I find it best to start with kick and snare. Once you have them the way you want it's easy to drop in loops for the other percussion and use the envelopes to kill the kick and snare in the loops.

Measures I use the most are 3/4, 4/4 and 7/8. They are very easy to work with.

Sometimes I start with a bassline and add drums to work with or against it.

Check this out on my website - Aphasia Complex and Decomposition, two tracks where all the drums were pieced together in Acid from one-shot samples.
http://www.somnium7.com/

Might give you some ideas.

If you decide to try a Midi controller make sure you get one with trigger pads. Playing drums parts from the keyboard is lame.

 

[JES Universual]

Somnium7,

Thanks so much for your response. I will give some of those techniques a try.

What would be a good BPM when working with drums? I always tend to use the default of 120 BPM.

Also your suggestion as far as using the volumn envelope with one shots or samples. Is it best to do like a 4 bar loop of one shot kicks on one layer, and do a 4 bar one shot snare layer, and just use the volumn envelope to "Notch Out" the sounds where needed?

The problem I always have is the placement of my one shots or drum loop samples for that matter. They always sound so unorchestrated. I have a heard time determining where I should place my kicks, snares, hi-hats, etc.

As for a Midi Controller I was looking at getting an M-Audio Axiom 25.

Thanks again for all your help.

-J.E.S

 

[Somnium7]

Somnium7,

Thanks so much for your response. I will give some of those techniques a try.

What would be a good BPM when working with drums? I always tend to use the default of 120 BPM.

Also your suggestion as far as using the volumn envelope with one shots or samples. Is it best to do like a 4 bar loop of one shot kicks on one layer, and do a 4 bar one shot snare layer, and just use the volumn envelope to "Notch Out" the sounds where needed?

The problem I always have is the placement of my one shots or drum loop samples for that matter. They always sound so unorchestrated. I have a heard time determining where I should place my kicks, snares, hi-hats, etc.

As for a Midi Controller I was looking at getting an M-Audio Axiom 25.

Thanks again for all your help.

-J.E.S

The notching technique can be a little demanding and works best with loops. You might find it useful on one-shot beat, I don't know. Let me know if you do.
Try to set things up so you have kick, snare, open high hat and closed highhat on adjacent tracks. Now set your snap to 16th notes and you'll have a classic drum machine style layout. You may have to set your zoom in to get a proper view of the division lines at 16th resolution.
Working within one bar in loop mode (assuming 4/4) place your snare hits at beats 5 and 13. Now add some kick hits and drag them around till you get an even sounding beat going. Once you are happy here experiment with adding in the highhats in 8th and 16th note patterns. Once you are happy with this copy that bar including all tracks and paste it into the 2nd bar. Now start deleting stuff here and there and also adding extra hits with snare and bass to create variations on the basic pattern.

It will help to listen to the drum parts of songs you like to get ideas on how to change things up and create fills.

I usually work at 80-100 bpm to start. With one-shots you can change the tempo as much as you like later.

When things sound too static you can add envelopes for track EQ and experiment with dynamic timbre changes. This can help *humanize* things. Do the same with volume envelopes too.

I know this might sound counter-intuitive but you might consider picking up a cheap old drum machine for practicing on. I learned all my beat making on a Roland R8 that I bought new in the early 90s. Drum machines are great playpens for rhythm creation.

One thing you can't do in Acid like with a drum machine is tap in your drums hits in real-time. I feel this makes it much more difficult to make drum tracks with one-shots.

Also look into a hardware or software sampler. Being able to trigger drum samples with a pad controller might be more natural for you.

 

[JES Universual]

Somnium7,

Thanks for all your advice, its has been helpful.

I was talking to a buddy of mine, who uses acid. He tells me that he programs his drums using Battery, where he assigns his drums to his pads on his Axiom 25. Have you ever used Battery?

He also uses Recycle. He mentions this is great at pulling apart portions of samples and loops.

I was interested in purchasing an MPC 1000 and using that as my drum machine.

Thanks again my friend.

-JES

 

[Somnium7]

Somnium7,

Thanks for all your advice, its has been helpful.

I was talking to a buddy of mine, who uses acid. He tells me that he programs his drums using Battery, where he assigns his drums to his pads on his Axiom 25. Have you ever used Battery?

I have not. My setup has an Akai S6000 sampler which I trigger with a KorgKontrol49. I don't see anything wrong with using Battery and the Axiom. It's a good functional approach.

He also uses Recycle. He mentions this is great at pulling apart portions of samples and loops.

I've used this a little and it has some nice features. For what it costs I don't think it's that much of a value if you already have a grasp on slicing up loops manually.

I was interested in purchasing an MPC 1000 and using that as my drum machine.

Thanks again my friend.

-JES

The MPC is a nice machine. IMO you can't go wrong with any Akai sampling hardware. It's well built, fast to use once you have experience with it and performs reliably under the most intense circumstances. You can also use it in a live setup without worries.

Good luck!

 

[IloveJesus]

I've been trying for years to make drums fit my tunes, but now I'm going from the opposite approach. I love using acoustic loops to lay down a basic track for a song with grooves, fills, etc., and then I go in and get creative with either the guitar or bass. Then everything else falls into place.

I'm finding creativity is much more enjoyable and much easier now that I have a solid drum foundation, instead of trying to make a crappy drum track.

I have to face it: I'm no drummer. I've been playing guitar for over twenty years (and bass), and love to write songs, but my drumming and drum programming is total crap.

Now I don't even worry about it. I'm having a blast by starting with real drums (in loops, of course), and mixing, matching, splicing, etc.

I'm using Betamonkey (real cheap on Ebay), but I think for the money AND quality, you cannot beat Drums on demand (.com). They are the highest quality and the best price.