Help With FL

[DJ Hardbounzer]

Hi there, anyone that produce trance/hardtrance - music in fl5.0. If you do, i just wondering how you get the "speed" into you tracks without change the bpm. For example with hihat and snares, it would be nice if anyone could show me how to build an uplifting pattern of hihats etc.

Have A Nice Day // bjorklund

[RDR]

There are a few ways you can achieve this, or rather elements that you must think about when writing Hihat patterns. Also what do you mean by "uplifting" ?

1. Hat patterns by themselves are difficult to make interesting in pattern based domains. There are only so many places you can stick a HH

2. Have a listen to some real drummers to discover what is meant by "swing" I recommend www.drummerworld.com take a look at the videos...

3. Swing is highly important to the groove. Use slight velocity variations to create human feel.

4. remember that open hats cut off closed hats and vica versa.

5. thin hats sound slightly faster (to my ears) than fatter hats.

6. Also hats sounds very rarely exist in a vacuum, they are designed to go with other elements of the drum kit, particularly the snare and snare ghost notes

hope this helps.

By the way - you've put a hard question. have a listen to your fav tunes and try to emulate.

[nova]

what is snare ghosts dude?

[RDR]

Ghosting in terms of drum hits are hits created when the snare rebounds after striking the skin. they are very quiet sounds.

go look at this Bernard "Pretty" Purdie

http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/Bernard_Purdie2.html

bernard is the worlds most recorded drummer.

you'll need quicktime.

[nova]

yeah man just watched that. a realy low velocity snare then after the harder hit. how inportants that then when programing drums?

cheers man

[nova]

and if i got realy close snare hits how would i put ghosts in. would you put a realy quite delay on the snare. or use a different sound for the ghost. open the steps up from 16 to 24 or 32 to fit the ghosts in? or another snare with attack on it or somthing. or over laped snares with a low velocity. i dont realy understand the ghosts. just looked like he hit it twice boucned the stick for the ghost kind of thing.

[loopdon]

some stuff from the 'dogs on acid' subforum 'the grid':



If you listen to a dnb tune nice and load you can judge the rough difference in volume between the main snares and ghost snares, then its just trial and error til you get it right. If you're doing it by velocity, then about 60-70% at a guess, but depending how loud the hits are to start with can make that rather meaningless.

--------

Ghost notes are just notes that are played very quietly. They don't have to be on the snare, but are most common on snare and hi hats.

The key to understanding ghost notes is to learn to hear them when you listen to any style of music. Ghost notes aren't really there to be heard in some respects, they are more there to be felt. But as a musician you have to be able to hear them at will. Ghosts can subtley (and grossly, although that should almost always be avoided) change the feel of the groove.

As for the volume, that depends on the particualr groove, but to stay on the safe side lean towards quieter if your in doubt. Also all ghost notes shouldn't be the same volume. This is a skill that only drummers and people who have studied drummers are going to have, so it might be time to study some DVD's/Videos of drummers playing and watch the stick hights.

Take this common DnB groove BU DA BU da BU da BU DA. Take the BU's as Bass drums, the DA's as loud snare hits, and the da's as Ghost snares. The second da is going to be quieter, and when you imagine the drummers technique this makes sense, the energy from the DA is going to be less after the first Ghost note, so the second will be quieter still. This is desirable as it makes the Groove groove more.

Hmmm I hope that makes some sense. In Short Ghost don't all have to be the same volume, and in fact shouldn't be the same volume and if in doubt make them quiet.

-----
I have drummed for about 15 years. A ghost is NOT a flam ( a flam is played with both hands, typically on the snare or the toms and the hits are usually around 1/32nd apart or less...sometimes barely discernable).

A ghost note is usually played with (in a typical setup), the left-hand (snare hand) and is basically played at any increment that does not fall on the main division (be it a 1/2 note for D&B...two hits per bar) or the main, more powerful hit (for want of a better description). They are typically much lower in volume and have a vastly different timbre from the more powerful hits. Try grabbing a sample of a live drummer and listen for the "background" hits on the snare as the main beat rolls along. Sample the hit and normalise the main hit and the ghost and you will notice the vast tonal/timbral differences that can be created from a full velocity hit with a variety of techniques (EQing, shorting of sample start, length, a subtle lowering of pitch etc).

I have produced D&B (off and on ... mostly off) for around 6 years and have noticed that very often producers will use a ghost sound vastly different from what you'd hear in a a natural drumkit and sometimes (courtesy of the loop they may have used) the ghost is there, ripe for the picking. Check the ghosts on various recordings for the amount of different sounds producers have used. BC are a classic for the type of sounds that can be used to add colour to a beat.

But yeah...lower the volume. Route velocity to volume/filter cutoff/sample start/sample length/fine pitch or other effects in your sampler's mod matrix and it should sound OK.

-----

hope that helps...

if not, register on dogs on acid forums.

[nova]

wow, thanks loopdon. spot on fella. yeah thats help me understand what the ghost is. gonna study that for a wile. yeah might even pop up the music shop and get drummer dvd. i didnt quite under stand why there whould be the 2 ghost's after the normal hit du s du qs du qs. and not just 1?

[nova]

on some techno it sounds like on the fills. a ghost will come before the normal snare hit?.