Roughing up a drum machine

[mcmac74]

Does anyone have any suggestions for techniques to make a subtle difference to drum machine beats so they sound a little more live and less programmed?...touch of distortion etc. I've been playing around myself so just looking for any tried and tested techniques to have a go with. I'm currently using the MT drummer vst.

Cheers
Mark

 

[RRuskin]

You could try recording the basic feel 1st and then overdub the fills by hand.

 

[heatmiser]

I used to face this a lot back when a Roland drum machine was my primary source of drum sounds.

I tried a ton of different things with varying degrees of success. The trial and error (mostly error) part was actually quite fun at times.

I have tried, and you might consider, the following:

* augmenting with hand percussion or manually add additional fills with the drum machine (as noted above).
* run the drum machine through an amp, and mic the cab much like you would a guitar.
* experiment with distortion...I've used guitar pedals and sims for this in the past.
* anything else you can think of.

All of my efforts resulted in somewhat lo-fi, arguably quirky drum tracks, but I found at least some to be pleasing.

At some point I did decide to just let it sound like a drum machine, and make my arrangements blend with that sound rather than trying to mask it.

 

[mcmac74]

I tried a ton of different things with varying degrees of success. The trial and error (mostly error) part was actually quite fun at times.

I have tried, and you might consider, the following:

* augmenting with hand percussion or manually add additional fills with the drum machine (as noted above).
* run the drum machine through an amp, and mic the cab much like you would a guitar.
* experiment with distortion...I've used guitar pedals and sims for this in the past.
* anything else you can think of.

All of my efforts resulted in somewhat lo-fi, arguably quirky drum tracks, but I found at least some to be pleasing.

At some point I did decide to just let it sound like a drum machine, and make my arrangements blend with that sound rather than trying to mask it.

I've tried a few of those things too Heatmiser... small set of 3 drums played with soft beater worked well on some of my folky stuff but not so much other styles. I'm gonna try out a few guitar plug ins to give it a more live feel.

Mark

 

[VomitHatSteve]

The simplest technique would be throw a midi humanizer plugin on there. Reaper comes with one stock if that's your DAW.

My strategy with MT is:
1. Sequence the drums live
2. Quantize them to 80% accuracy (because I did a bad job of step 1)
3. Fix remaining error
4. Do some manual velocity tweaking
5. Put a midi humanizer set to randomize the velocities another 10% or so.

 

[mcmac74]

The simplest technique would be throw a midi humanizer plugin on there. Reaper comes with one stock if that's your DAW.

My strategy with MT is:
1. Sequence the drums live
2. Quantize them to 80% accuracy (because I did a bad job of step 1)
3. Fix remaining error
4. Do some manual velocity tweaking
5. Put a midi humanizer set to randomize the velocities another 10% or so.

Awesome...I use reaper so will check it out ?

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Awesome...I use reaper so will check it out ��

Word. The one "gotcha" I've noticed with this specific chain (and reaper) is that the quantization menu in reaper's midi editor likes to periodically reset itself to 100% (which snaps exactly to the grid, losing any human element you'd had.)

 

[mcmac74]

Word. The one "gotcha" I've noticed with this specific chain (and reaper) is that the quantization menu in reaper's midi editor likes to periodically reset itself to 100% (which snaps exactly to the grid, losing any human element you'd had.)

What is the plug in called? ...I had a look in JS and Cocko files whilst doing something yesterday and couldn't see anything with a name that seemed like it would do the randomizing?

Mark

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Quantization is done in the built-in midi window (hit "q" to bring up the menu)
The humanization plugin is called "JS: MIDI Velocity and Timing Humanizer"

 

[mcmac74]

Quantization is done in the built-in midi window (hit "q" to bring up the menu)
The humanization plugin is called "JS: MIDI Velocity and Timing Humanizer"

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