drums of a song on midi

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EleosFever

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which is the faster and best way to write the drums of a song on midi?

i'm using reaper..
 
Well that really depends on YOU and what works best for you.

Some of us can just open a midi piano roll and draw in the hits.
Other people will use BFD or Fruityloops as an add-on.
Others will use an external drumset (Yamaha DD-55, Roland SPD-S, etc) and bang 'em in.

You gotta experiment and find out what works best for YOU....
 
I think that better for me is to use the piano roll..

How long usually takes to write a midi drum track for a song?
Is it easy to learn?

Is there any secrets or tips?
 
Mostly depends on the amount of detail you want to go. To get a great sounding midi drum file, you've got to think like a drummer, humanize it, and make it exciting. Think about how a drummer would play the part. What would he do?? How hard?? Don't program in more arms and legs than a he has.

Not every drum hit is the same. Timing and velocity are always going to change intra-measure and inter-measure. Be sure to add lots of subtle variations, especially through choruses. Use the whole palette of your virtual drum sets. I don't mean just the different drums or cymbals, but different ways to hit them. Rimshots, sidestick, flams... or whatever they're called.

I use ezdrummer and mostly start with the canned groove files then spend a long time editing to make changes. I can spend hours upon hours doing one song. But I really enjoy editing the drum parts.
 
The easiest way would be to buy a drum sequencer like EZdrummer or Addictive Drums (which is what I use) and just have fun with all of the built in midi beats and fills. not to mention you'd have killer drum sounds to go with it.

The only other way I'd probably do it is to paint it in the drum roll. However I start off just pounding the drums out on my midi keyboard, then go back and tweak it all in by hand.
 
If you're "clicking" in the drum hits ... create a bar, then Copy & Paste the bar to extend the song ... when verse one is done, copy and paste it, to make verse two ... create a Chorus. The more you do this, you'll develop your technique to do this

here is a free program that does a lot of shortcuts for you called DrumTrack
http://www.supercoldmilk.com/drumtrack/
You can Import MIDI to create your song, or click to build a pattern.
You can Export as MIDI to be used in your DAW or Export as WAV
I find this program extremely EZ to use, and wish I had more time to fiddle are with.
 
What does this mean? intra/inter measure?

Of course, I make up words as I go along.

Intra-measure - Within a measure. Like the snare on beat 2 might be slightly louder than on beat 4 and not hit at the exactl same time in reference to the beat.

Inter-measure - From one measure to the next. Even though you have the same drum pattern in diffferent measures, a drummer is going to change it up to add variation. When I copy a drum groove from one measure to the next, i will usually go in and edit to add small changes.
 
I know in FL Studio, there is a randomization tool that can take your midi "hits" and randomize either their velocity, pan, etc. which I find quite useful.

Is there a similar tool in reaper that could possibly randomize where the "hit" sits on the beat, either slightly ahead or behind the beat? or something of that effect? I just find it hard to make my drums sound less computerized and more human.

What are some techniques that you guys use to humanize midi drums?
 
I use FPC in FL... I do metal music and use a lot of double-kick, so I definately have to alternate samples for realism. I've just stuck with two similar but slightly different samples on two seperate pads. I've been digging deeper into it though and it may be just as easy to just use one sample on one pad, but take advantage of the layers. When you add a new layer to the pad, you can adjust the tone and volume slightly and give it a velocity zone so that if you are hitting in various velocities, you'll get the alternating samples, even if you started with just one sample.

All this stuff is really for the most patient(nerdiest?) of us that want to sit for hours and find out what gives us the best results, but it's very worth it.
 
I know in FL Studio, there is a randomization tool that can take your midi "hits" and randomize either their velocity, pan, etc. which I find quite useful.

Is there a similar tool in reaper that could possibly randomize where the "hit" sits on the beat, either slightly ahead or behind the beat? or something of that effect? I just find it hard to make my drums sound less computerized and more human.

What are some techniques that you guys use to humanize midi drums?

To me what's real important is getting a nice ratio between the volumes of the snare, kick and hihat. That's the key to making them not sound computerized. For years people have been saying the problem is that the computer is too exactly on the beat but I've found that many great drummers play exactly on the beat and sound fine. It's not that, it's the proportions that are off. The most common problem I find is that the hihat is too loud.

Maybe find a 1 bar beat that works for a song and use that and add fills and crashes on top. That's an easy way.
 
I use vdrums, a keyboard, AND piano roll for drum tracks, each way has its own strengths and weaknesses - A piano roll is good to draw simple straight kick/snare stuff, but I can't draw drum fills or cyms to save my life... vdrums are good for tom rolls and fills when I can't visualize exactly what beat a hit should be on. I use a midi kybd for hi hats cuz I can tap out good hat tracks. My life would be so much easier if I could just PLAY the damn drums :mad: :D

ezdrummer includes a 'humanizer' which a HUGE reason why I use it. (The other reason being really really really good samples) It introduces small variations on hit position, velocity, and even timing to a small degree. It messes up a little on purpose. Just not as much as I do behind a real kit :D If it wasn't for that, I'd have super-robotic drums going on too..

Yeah Chili, I WISH I could finish a drum track in 'hours'. After 'hours' of trying , I get pissed and give up for a week! :D
 
To me what's real important is getting a nice ratio between the volumes of the snare, kick and hihat. That's the key to making them not sound computerized. For years people have been saying the problem is that the computer is too exactly on the beat but I've found that many great drummers play exactly on the beat and sound fine. It's not that, it's the proportions that are off. The most common problem I find is that the hihat is too loud.

I agree with this 100%. People spend too much time worrying about making hits not right on the beat. As far as I'm concerned, you can have every hit quantized and still sound real.

The more important thing is the levels. Not only the levels between each part of the kit, but also the varying velocities within the same instrument. For example, you can have a hi-hat playing straight 8th notes. But a drummer would never ride that with every hit being the same volume. You've got to vary the volumes of the hits. That's WAY more important than moving them before or after the beat slightly. A drummer never plays 1&2&3&4& all at the same volume. usually the "1,2,3,4" are going to be louder than the "&"s. Same thing applies to fills, but if you're not a drummer, you'll never get that right. It's all about the accents, and it would be almost impossible to explain. It's all about feel.
 
...

I was a real-life drummer (a long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...LMAO) before I started composing.

most people, with NO musical experience (other than listening...) can "bust" an electronic drummer better than you'd think. the trick is to get it "good enough" that they dont notice or care, in my honest opinion.

someone said to make sure that "your electronic drummer only uses two hands", and thats great advice. If you have one hand on the ride cymbal, and one hand on the snare... which third hand just hit a tom or a cymbal? As a real drummer, I realize this and pick it out, non drummers or people with no musical experience "sense" this even if they cant say exactly "why" they dont like it.

velocity adjustments after th basic beat is working was good advice.

another thing most dont think of unless they "geek out" on it, is subtle pan cues.

if you stand in front of a live drummer, and close your eyes, you notice that the various instruments (drums and cymbals, etc) are panned out R to L in real life. With headphones on, you clearly hear a "tom run" going subtly from right to left across your sound stage in your headphones.

in the same way, rapid fire snare hits develop a "machine gun" electric snapping sound, as do fast tom-tom rolls. velocity adjustments alone will not fix this. If your software has multiple sounds that alternate for each drum sound in your "kit", thats great. If it does not, you make each snare hit a HAIR left and a HAIR right (panning...) from ewach other, but only slightly.

This helps give the illusion the right and left hand are alternating.

same thing goes for any double bass work... the right foot and left foot have to be slightly panned apart.


If you start with a "fairly basic" 4/4 or 8/4 drum beat... and copy it into different identical parts, you add a snare hit in one, add a double bass hit in another, etc etc... then mix them up, it helps a lot.

some mixers advise snare a hair off center, some like it dead center, flip a coin.

its pretty hard to "fool" even casual listeners, without high end samples, and specialized software, and there is a steep learning curve at any rate. Just dive right in, make a basic, mechanical 4/4 beat, and go from there, slowly adding stuff as you learn.

PS - not every song needs a "live sounding" drummer. Some tracks get by with just a bass and snare. listen to Old ozzy like bark at the moon... that live drummer isnt exactly eating an apple and sh!tting a fruit salad throughout most of the track... the emphasis is on Rhandy Rhoads playing guitar and ozzy singing. I feel like they could have just used an electronic drummer, and no one would have noticed until they went on tour, LMAO.


Myself, I have the biggest problem with ride cymbals and hi hats. My software isnt up to snuff, and by the time you can HEAR the ride cymbal and hi hats, it sounds "fake". *shrugs* I often leave it just bass and snare, and no one notices it. (but I am not a paid professional, either)
 
I spend 50% of the entire time I'm making a tune working on the MIDI drums. I use Battery.

Dead right about the electronic drummer only having two hands. I start by creating the neccessary beats, then I do a reality check, deleting any 'third arms' that might occur.

I don't humanize my drums. I personally haven't found it to be too neccessary. But I do spend a hell of a lot of time on the velocities, especially on hats and cymbals that repeat as they can sound robotic as hell otherwise. In fact that's what I spend most of the time doing, beat by beat, trying to make it sound as un-robotic as possible.
 
I used V-drums now but used to just use the drum editor in Cubase with the snap off and zoomed out a bit so it didn't sound like a machine
 
I like he point SEDstar makes about making it good enough so that it s not noticable.

Anyone use EZDrummer, I love that program, but I found that learning to play like you would a performance makes it more human, instead of inserting drum sounds.
 
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