My programmed drum beat

  • Thread starter Thread starter ericlingus
  • Start date Start date
E

ericlingus

New member
Hey, what do you think of this drum sequence I did in beatcraft? How do the drums sounds? How human? How's the drum beat in general? I play black/doom metal. I was going for a cavernous setting.

 
Well...this isn't a very good beat to try and detect a "human" factor in, it's so sparse and simple. The lack of any cymbals for the first half seems odd to me. It might work in a full mix but it's hard to say here. However, it's clearly a drum machine just from the sound of the samples. The cymbals also have a pretty harsh sound to them. Are you cranking the high end with EQ or something?

Also the reverb sounds a little extreme, but you said you were going for a cavernous sound or something so this may be what you're after.
 
yeah. I am going to change it around a little bit. I think the drum sounds pretty good IMO whether or not it sounds realistic. But in the future I definately plan on buying DKFH superior or BFD. What would you recommend? I know BFD is 50 bucks more. Do they both come with good samples or am I gonna have to buy separate samples to get them to sound really good?
 
and yes i'm cranking the high end. How should I EQ the cymbals? Actually how should I EQ each drum sound? The bass drum I have the lows and highs boosted with the mids cut. Same with the toms. The snare is just the opposite. The cymbals I tried cuttin the frequencies they don't produce.
 
Well, it's a drum machine beat, alright. There's no human feel at all. A drummer would never play that beat. You could tell it was programmed by a non-drummer, that high hat pattern is not something a drummer would do.
As far as eq-ing, the worst thing you can do is start boosting frequencies without really knowing why . 95% of eq'ing is about cutting. not boosting.

The snare sounds great.
 
ericlingus said:
and yes i'm cranking the high end. How should I EQ the cymbals? Actually how should I EQ each drum sound? The bass drum I have the lows and highs boosted with the mids cut. Same with the toms. The snare is just the opposite. The cymbals I tried cuttin the frequencies they don't produce.

Often with a drum machine they don't need much in the way of EQ. What you have done to this sounds very extreme. Any boosting should be very subtle. You may not need any. Listen to what it's doing to the sound and compare it to something that you know sounds good. You need to really listen carefully to be able to EQ something with good results.

I don't use BFD, I use DFHS regularly. It comes with all the samples you need, although I'm sure BFD does as well.
 
okay here's another version. Is this one better? Also, what should I do when after the crash hits? I added that extra bass drum hit plus the ride. Does the ride sound alright in there? The part where the ride starts is where the vocals would stop and another keyboard melody would come in.


http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=2943
 
RAMI said:
Well, it's a drum machine beat, alright. There's no human feel at all. A drummer would never play that beat. You could tell it was programmed by a non-drummer, that high hat pattern is not something a drummer would do.
As far as eq-ing, the worst thing you can do is start boosting frequencies without really knowing why . 95% of eq'ing is about cutting. not boosting.

The snare sounds great.

LOL - that's EXACTLY what my drummer always tells me when I let Al Esis play drums......."No drummer would play that!"
 
NL5 said:
LOL - that's EXACTLY what my drummer always tells me when I let Al Esis play drums......."No drummer would play that!"

hehe...Well Al tends to be a little busy at times. :p
 
RAMI said:
hehe...Well Al tends to be a little busy at times. :p

That, and usually I will lay a scratch bass or guitar track down, and tap out a beat with Al - then it's REALLY bad.......... :D
 
ericlingus, find a song with a nice simple drum beat and then try to mimic it. to to listen for each piece of the kit and what's going on with each piece.
 
Back
Top