please advice on redrum - drum machine programming

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viva_zapata74

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hi all, just a quick question on how to go on about drum programming:

I am setup with Logic and reason in rewire and my plan is to have Redrum to behave as close as possible to the drummer I don't have. I was wondering what's the best practice to go on about drum programming: I have good drum samples given to me by a friend who's a pro producer and they're really well done. I can see every piece of drum is L and R so I assume I have to assign one each

what I've done so far is I have one Redrum drum machine exclusively for each part of my imaginary drumkit: one redrum for a few kickdrums, one redrum for few snares, one for the crashes, one for the splashes and so on, plus one mixer for each of the redrums. Basically I setup quite a big rack. Am I going the right direction?

Thanks in advance for any piece of advice!

coolaboola

Emi
 
rewire each redrum to its own channel in logic, pan them as you would a real drum kit, and use the redrum automation switches (a1, a2, a3, b6, b2 etc) how you want the song to be layed out, open the reason sequencer window, and tell it to display the automation screen, and make it as big as possible, draw your automation using the drop down menu in the automation window how ever you want your "drummer" to play each part of the song, include fills etc to make it sound more realistic.

Hope this helps alittle, any more questions let me know, Ill try and be more specific (im assuming you have a basic understanding of reason automation with this post)

-C$
 
makes sense to have a channel for each drum component

hi, thanks for the tip!

yeah, I did not think of channelling the redrums to individual channels instead of just having the mix L /R going to rewire, it actually makes more sense altogether

in this way I can have, say, the kicks on one channel in logic, the snares on another with their relative panning and effects and so on, and I can also EQ them separately. That's a great deal of control

I am kind of familiar with the automation concepts, but I am kind of weary of having only an automated sequence of pattern changes, because I don't think I would have a good control over the velocity and therefore the dynamics of my "drummer"; I would try to have a track which has a good mix of automated pattern changes and "copy pattern to track", real notes on the sequencer track; if I have a sequencer track for the redrums as opposed to automated pattern changes, I think I can have a greater deal of control over the velocity by modifying it later in the sequencer, right?

thanks again, man

E
 
Yes, you could modify the velocity inthe sequencer, but this can be just a tedious as modifying it within the redrum automation buttons. Where you click the little "lights" to indicate a drum hit, there is a swtitch for velocity, there is also a knob on each redrum channel that adjusts velocity, but the switch will change individual drum hits, from soft medium and hard, I use this method alot when a drum hit sounds too mechanical or machine gun like.

But as you say, you will have better control over the velocity in thge sequencer because you arent set on what redrum gives you, it just takes alot more work. I was pretty weary of just using the automation at first, and I still dont use it aot, but it is a useful tool for laying out drum tracks.

What kind of music will you be doing this in?
for me its industrial so sometimes I want the programmed sound, But I have programmed rock drums in redrum and had pretty good success by playing with the velocity switch in redrum.

-C$
 
if you havn't yet commited fully to the redrum module, i would suggest using the NN-XT insted. PERSONALLY i found using the sampler module much easier when creating drum tracks from various samples. I found that the NN-XT gives you more control and creativity than the redrum. I think it is faster to get things done with the NN-XT as well. that's just my opinoin though.
 
rock - psychedelic mainly

I have psychedelic rock ideas, sometimes poppy, but never leaning too much on the electronic side of things; I'd like my "drummer" to sound as human as humanly possible, if that's at all achieavable. I don't know at all this NN-XT; I'll look it up, never heard
 
nn-xt

aaall right, it's part of reason 2.0

I'm using reason 1 :-)

by the way, I can see that it is a close relative of the NN-19 sampler, if the concepts of use are the same, that's viable too. I'll have to try and see...
 
oh my bad.
i think the NN-19 would work the same way. I don't know if it has separate channel outs like the NN-XT does but still, the way it works feels more productive to me.
 
no separate channel outs

nope, the nn-19 only has the usual L and R outs, but I see what you mean: it'd be faster to get things done that way

anyhow, by assigning each single "piece" of the redrums two channels on the Reason hardware interface (one for the L and one for the R samples I have) I eliminated the need for a mixer for each redrum module: now I have it all on the one mixer in Logic and the rack in Reason is half the size. Seems manageable. I'll see how that works. Thanks again, lads
 
not too bad...

I ended up with:

1 redrum for kicks and snares, one for the hi hats, one for crashes splashes and rides and one last one for the toms, leaving the rewire mix L and R spare for any eventuality I used all the 32 channels (each drum/cymbal/kick/hat has a left and a right sample) allowed by logic audio (2002!) for such use; I end up having 4 sequencer tracks in Reason, which is fairly manageable and quite easily viewable... say for example: on a slowish rock tune 60 bpm I imagine a leading ride beat for my "drummer"'s right hand: I adjusted the velocity of the ride hits to emulate strong-weak-half strong-weak accents, and the values are never the same. It's not as painstaking as it sounds. The hard part will be, as you guys say, to make fast snare rolls sound different to a machine gun burst... thanks for your help guys.
 
cool! woud you mind posting an mp3 sample when you get something done? i'm curious to hear how it sounds. All of my drum tracks sound like ass with redrum.
 
viva_zapata74 said:
I ended up with:

1 redrum for kicks and snares, one for the hi hats, one for crashes splashes and rides and one last one for the toms, leaving the rewire mix L and R spare for any eventuality I used all the 32 channels (each drum/cymbal/kick/hat has a left and a right sample) allowed by logic audio (2002!) for such use; I end up having 4 sequencer tracks in Reason, which is fairly manageable and quite easily viewable... say for example: on a slowish rock tune 60 bpm I imagine a leading ride beat for my "drummer"'s right hand: I adjusted the velocity of the ride hits to emulate strong-weak-half strong-weak accents, and the values are never the same. It's not as painstaking as it sounds. The hard part will be, as you guys say, to make fast snare rolls sound different to a machine gun burst... thanks for your help guys.
Click to expand...

Nice, sounds like your gettign the idea for a good setup :)

Glad we could help, I'd love to hear some samples of what your doing with it

-C$
 
it'll be a couple of weeks, but sure yes

Sure I'll do, it'll take couple of weeks though: I know absolutely nothing about how to best enhance the sound of every single drum piece (or any other instrument for that matter!) by the means of EQing, compressing and the likes; I am a real rookie but I'm doing my reading.

talk you soon
 
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