The Fake Drums Tone Thread

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minerman said:
I agree, & for me, it's the same issue with the hi-hats as well...Looking at the kit I use 99% of the time, there are about 12 articulations, & a real hi-hat would have many more sound variations, depending on how/where it's hit, how much it's open/closed, so IMO, this is really a big limitation, but again, it's all I have so I do the best I can with 'em...
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I'm appalled sometimes by how many modern rock drummers don't work their hats at all. I blame metal. Many double-kicking drummers don't ever put their left foot on the hi-hat pedal. It just sits there, in a permanently loose-closed state, and they just bash away on it. Do you know how obnoxious it is to hear the same sloppy quarter notes lazily pounded on semi-open hats for every single song? Bush league. They can roll fills all over the place, but adding some texture and dynamics from verse to chorus with a simple opening and closing of the hats is like pulling teeth to these mongos.
 
Greg_L said:
I'm appalled sometimes by how many modern rock drummers don't work their hats at all. I blame metal. Many double-kicking drummers don't ever put their left foot on the hi-hat pedal. It just sits there, in a permanently loose-closed state, and they just bash away on it. Do you know how obnoxious it is to hear the same sloppy quarter notes lazily pounded on semi-open hats for every single song? Bush league. They can roll fills all over the place, but adding some texture and dynamics from verse to chorus with a simple opening and closing of the hats is like pulling teeth to these mongos.
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Yeah man, I mean, I'm not even a drummer, but I still recognize all the different sound variations like that make or break the drum section IMO...I can't get into the double-kick stuff at all myself, that just goes right along with the cookie-monster vocals IMO...:).

I try to make the hh's sound as they're building up to something with the open/closed-ness if that makes any sense. Like in a verse, they'll start out pretty closed, but progressively opening up as that part of the song progresses...Does that make sense???

Maybe someday the fake drums will catch up, or most likely, I'll get a real kit & not have to worry about this anymore...
 
minerman said:
I try to make the hh's sound as they're building up to something with the open/closed-ness if that makes any sense. Like in a verse, they'll start out pretty closed, but progressively opening up as that part of the song progresses...Does that make sense???
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Yes that makes sense. That's normal drumming 101.
 
BroKen_H said:
Cool. I'm using SSD4 and I bet what you're talking about is there, I just have never bothered to look for it. Pick sound, play and render to my DAW. I'll have to give that a look. I've got to get SSD back on line now that I've got 7 back up and running after the 10 fiasco.
Yeah. It's like trying to do 24 bit color with an 8 bit palette. You've got 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and wide open. You've got 8-16 different sets of hits and 128 velocity variations (of which less than half are usable. Maybe someday they'll program some real physics into the cymbal movement in real time. Maybe someday they'll allow for 0-127 from the bell to the edge on some future trigger. Maybe pigs will fly (without a catapult :))...
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I don't have SSD4, I do have 3.5, but it doesn't have the amount of control over the bleed like Superior has man. Every mic channel in SD has bleed levels for everything (IE: kick channel mic has: snare t, snare b, hh, tom 1, tom 2, seperate cymbals & so on), so it's pretty good at being able to be realistic as far as that goes...

Of course, it's a different story on the hi-hat articulations though, to me, that & the cymbals are the things that really give fake drums away....that & the way a lot of people program 'em....:).
 
minerman said:
I try to make the hh's sound as they're building up to something with the open/closed-ness if that makes any sense. Like in a verse, they'll start out pretty closed, but progressively opening up as that part of the song progresses...Does that make sense???
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That makes a lot of sense, especially for a guitar player. :D

But seriously, that's really perceptive of you. See, that's the kind of thing that's hard to articulate and isn't in any "Tutorial" on how to program fake drums. It's instinctive and you have to think with a drummer's brain to figure something like that out. I'm impressed that it took a non-drummer to articulate it, but it's something all (good) drummers do without thinking about. There are a lot of those types of things that separate a real drummer from someone who can't think like a drummer. But they're not "secrets". They're just things that most drummers will do and not even think about or remember they're doing it. When someone asks me how I know something was programmed, I sometimes have trouble answering because it's something like this that will be the reason. Not the sound, samples, etc.....It's the nuances.

I'm sure every instrument has those nuances that you can't "show" or "teach" someone how to do.
 
RAMI said:
That makes a lot of sense, especially for a guitar player. :D
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Ha!!!!! :D


RAMI said:
But seriously, that's really perceptive of you. See, that's the kind of thing that's hard to articulate and isn't in any "Tutorial" on how to program fake drums. It's instinctive and you have to think with a drummer's brain to figure something like that out. I'm impressed that it took a non-drummer to articulate it, but it's something all (good) drummers do without thinking about. There are a lot of those types of things that separate a real drummer from someone who can't think like a drummer. But they're not "secrets". They're just things that most drummers will do and not even think about or remember they're doing it. When someone asks me how I know something was programmed, I sometimes have trouble answering because it's something like this that will be the reason. Not the sound, samples, etc.....It's the nuances.

I'm sure every instrument has those nuances that you can't "show" or "teach" someone how to do.
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Right man, I've learned a lot about programming drums by listening, by asking questions, & by trial/error. I've learned in the past year or so, that it's more about the little things/nuances that make a programmed drum track sound natural. Along with some common sense, that goes a long way, but IMHO, you've gotta do your homework & put in the time it takes to really learn this shit. Where on the other end of the spectrum, someone like you or Greg wouldn't even have to think about anything like that at all, ever, because it just comes naturally because you guys are really good drummers....
 
Haha thanks, but Rami is a good drummer. He's a real drummer. I'm just a guy that can play the drums. There's a difference.
 
Greg_L said:
Haha thanks, but Rami is a good drummer. He's a real drummer. I'm just a guy that can play the drums. There's a difference.
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Don't sell yourself short dude, really. You're great at the style of music you play, period. And I'm sure you'd be able to pull off about anything you'd want, if you set your mind to it....

I'm gonna have to get both you guys to give me the low-down on what you use (Pearl, Tama, whatever), cymbals, hi-hats included....Although I will say the drum samples I use don't necessarily sound like what your do, but that's probably expected given there's all kinds of shit that add variables (tuning, mic choice/placement, etc) right out of the gate.

I've got a "Greg L Franken-Kit", & as of last week, I've got the "RAMI Franken-Kit"...:D.
 
I just mean like Rami is a drummer. He has drummer chops. He has style and techniques that I don't understand. Put a practice pad in front of Rami and he can do rudiments. Put a practice pad in front of me and I'll set my burrito on it.
 
thats good, I have a good friend that plays really technical, he is a really good drummer, ask what he is doing on a part and I get it's like this, RR,LL, RL , LR. ask me the same question? you get the deer in the head lights look, I have no idea.:facepalm:
 
Greg_L said:
I just mean like Rami is a drummer. He has drummer chops. He has style and techniques that I don't understand. Put a practice pad in front of Rami and he can do rudiments. Put a practice pad in front of me and I'll set my burrito on it.
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:laughings:
 
BroKen_H said:
Cool. I'm using SSD4 and I bet what you're talking about is there, I just have never bothered to look for it. Pick sound, play and render to my DAW. I'll have to give that a look.
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Dunno about SSD4, but I had a quick look at SSD3.5, & the amount of control over the bleed ain't there compared to Superior dude...SSD3.5 has a choice of 2 different rooms, so you can assign the kit pieces to each, & control the amount going to the room(s). It's similar, & would do the same thing for the room mics, but it's still not quite like the amount of control you have in Superior unless I'm overlooking it...

Here's a little pic of what I'm talking about:



These 2 drop-down menus are just the oh & amb tracks, for each track (kick, snare t, snare b, hh, etc), there's a drop-down menu, & you can adjust the amount of bleed for everything if you wanna....So for example, if you wanted hi-hat bleed going into a snare mic, you can adjust/control how much comes through that particular mic...

Using Greg & Rami's drum tracks they've sent me, I can get pretty close to the amount of bleed they have in their tracks this way. It takes some time & patience to get there, but once you have it how you want, you can just save the preset (I personally use track templates in Reaper because it loads up all my tracks, fx, envelopes, all in one shebang), & load it up with a mouse click or three...:).
 
miroslav said:
I dunno what drum apps/samples other people are using...but all the packs I have SOUND very real....because they are real, recorded drums. We're not talking some Roland drum machine or what have you...these are actual drums recorded in top studios with top gear.

If anyone is having trouble getting a good *sounding* kit with the current crop of sampled drum packs...you're doing something wrong then. ;)
I think people overthink this shit and feel compelled to take the provided drum samples/tones and completely redo them, rather than just lightly tweak them for their use....and that's whey they spend hours dialing in "THE" snare sound...never quite getting it. :D

IMO....with most of the provided kits/samples, the trick is to strip away some of the additional tracks/channels, because most of the sample pack manufacturers will try to make each kit/sample sound larger than life...like they give you 5 different ambiance/room options and 3 compressed options. Turn off half that shit, and see what you have, before you do any of your tweaking.

So really....when it comes to actual "tones", most modern sample packs give you plenty of good stuff to work off of...it shouldn't be too hard tweaking it to suit your taste.
Now...AFA get the *grooves* to sound real...that's more about sequencing skills, and that's something a lot of people fall short on, and that's what makes their drums sound "fake"...but the actual drum tones are already there for you in spades.
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I use SSD4 and Addictive... maybe it's that I just don't like the samples. I know they're real drum samples - that's not the issue - I just seem to have to do an inordinate amount of fucking around to get them to sound real in context - in particular the snare - getting it to sound meaty without taking your head off, and god help me if I get it right and then decide it's a touch too loud, or soft, because the balance between the raw sample and the OH/room components is very hard to keep constant when you're playing around with overall volume.

As I said, I'm sure if I ever sat in an actual drum engineering session a whole bucketload of pennies would drop, but I don't know any drummers. I get there, but it's hard work.

Cymbals are my other beef. I'm pretty good with rides because I'll put multiple types in and feed a touch of bell or shaft into my basic ride sound on a random basis to give it some natural variation - nothing worse than the same ride sample being played over and over again in a row - but hats... man it's hard to get anything other than basic hattery down, probably because I don't really understand how a real drummer does it.
 
minerman said:
Yeah man, I'm in the same boat, I do fuck with the vsti's knobs/controls quite a bit at times, but one thing I've started doing is to turn off all fx (reverb, compression, everything), & just listen to the "raw" drum sounds...I've got a few clips from Greg & Rami that I use for reference, & I try to get the "raw" vsti to sound as close to those as possible...I know that's pretty vague, but it's honestly what I start out with 99% of the time...

I rarely use a vsti's room/ambience sounds either, I usually send all kit pieces to a couple 'verbs (with varying levels for each piece), trying to make the song as a whole sound as it was being played/recorded in the same space/room...

Most of the drum samples I use are recorded really well, & don't need a shit-ton of processing. I used to over-process all my fake drums, but the past little while, I've been consciously trying not to do that, as again, most of the vsti's I have are recorded pretty well, with good gear...

I mostly use Toontrack stuff, but I do have other drum vsti's too. The main reason I use TT is most of the kits are pretty much mapped all the same, & it's really easy to swap something out here/there for a different sound if I wanna...

A big gripe I have with all my fake drums is the hi-hat & cymbals. For me, they just never sound natural. IE: the hh I usually use has like 6-8 different articulations, which is cool, but, a real hh has probably 10 times the varying sounds going from closed to fully open, so, it's a limitation IMHO, but is something I just have to deal with because I don't have another option right now...
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I'm with ya on the hats... see above! Might pick your brains next time I'm doing a hat-heavy tune!
 
Armistice said:
and god help me if I get it right and then decide it's a touch too loud, or soft, because the balance between the raw sample and the OH/room components is very hard to keep constant when you're playing around with overall volume.
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What I do is this. Once I've got the sounds I'm looking for, I render all the drum parts to individual audio tracks, then fine tune the levels.
 
Robus said:
What I do is this. Once I've got the sounds I'm looking for, I render all the drum parts to individual audio tracks, then fine tune the levels.
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Ah, never thought of that. Thanks. Trouble is I never stop tinkering with the hits! I guess I'll have to.
 
Armistice said:
Ah, never thought of that. Thanks. Trouble is I never stop tinkering with the hits! I guess I'll have to.
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I do the same thing man, but only after I'm completely sure I won't do any more tweaking...

What daw do you use Armistice??? I've got a couple little tricks for Reaper that come in handy for programming drums from time to time I'd be happy to share with you, lemme know...
 
I'd like to hear a comparison of the big drum programs using the same song and the same finely written drum part. This could be done since it's MIDI, but you'd have to skip over any bouncing-and-mixing aspects. Just the raw MIDI sounds here. I'd bet you get "snare sounds best here but cymbals sound best there". Or that certain programs would sound better for some songs than others.

If anyone ever wants to test that out, I'd jump in. I have Superior Drummer 2. Send a mixed down .wav and MIDI file, and I'd insert them both into my DAW, no mixing.
 
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