Reason Drum Programming

[earle]

I've had Reason for a year or so and done just about any tutorial I find, but I struggle with programming good techno drums. Does anyone else find this or am I on my own here? Obviously I can program basic drum patterns (I have no problem with house or break beat patterns) but by its nature there is a lot of persussion in techno and my efforts end up sounding weak or like fast house.
I've looked into shuffle, moving hits slightly, and obviously trying various levels of effects on all hits. I just cant get good tight sounding percussion especially the high hats (processing and arrangement). surely this can be done in Reason.
The kind of stuff I like is http://es-helix.com/ramgen/covertus/audio/TR012.21.rm
can any one please shed any light? Any song files or Combinator patches would be much appreciated

[tekara]

shuffle plays a huge role in some of the drums i hear in recent techno records.....i can understand your problem, as i find redrum to be an awesome drum module, but for some reason (no pun intended), i still cannot get the same kind of shuffle swing feel in reason as i do on my 909 (even with the exact same settings)....

Its quite possible to do anything you can think of in redrum. Its an awesome program, but when it comes to using real drums, i prefer the 909's shuffle/flam over reasons. You can clearly hear the difference......

not trying to ignite a hardware/software debate, but its just my honest opinion.

Ohh btw, is reason the only program you are using for drums? If not, try using Kontakt in cubase or something, and draw in the notes, and quantitize to different scales......ive created some interesting patterns like that.....usually by accident :)

[earle]

Thanks for this. I'll have a look at Kontakt. Still keen on getting to grips with Reason as well. what plugins do you use for prosessing your drums in cubase?

[tekara]

basically through the sampler (Kontakt). All instruments are stacked and drawn in with notes....

its not quite as convenient as Reason with the step-sequencing , and most likely you will have to put in more time to get a better drum pattern, but its well worth it. You can make an entire song out of Kontakt alone, provided you have nice samples. The only downside of this program is that it that its not as user friendly as reason. If you stack too many instruments it can get quite overwhelming and not sure which box is triggering which sample......but then again, i get that sometimes with loading too many reason instruments as well

[FIK]

You can also bounce the pattern you created to your sequencer view and edit your notes there.

[DotMatrix]

I have had a similar problem which I have only recently overcome. so here's my suggestions I know they are pretty standard but they made the difference for me.

1. find a good reference track. find something similar to what your going for and mix it into what your making. then start swappoing bass, mid range etc.. Drop the fader so it's just your track playing and then drop that fader and just play your reference track. this will show you much easier what is missing in your track.

for me it was frequency. I noticed that my track had just as good low and frequency as my refernce. But there was a whole in the middle which made it sound weak.

The other thing I found was that this whole refernece thing taught me about panning. I saw where Tobias Von Hofsten - the legend I chose to use as reference - panned his drums and when I did the same i noticedthat it opened up alot more room in my track. I even panned some of my layers to oposite sides which I noticed gave the track a lot more groove without using the swing function.

That's what helped for me. don't blame your redrum techno drums can be quite difficult, especially if your going for a drum based track as I am. hope that helps.

[RDR]

Wow panning drums... now there's an idea...

(not trolling here... promise.)

[loopdon]

I have had a similar problem which I have only recently overcome. so here's my suggestions I know they are pretty standard but they made the difference for me.

1. find a good reference track. find something similar to what your going for and mix it into what your making. then start swappoing bass, mid range etc.. Drop the fader so it's just your track playing and then drop that fader and just play your reference track. this will show you much easier what is missing in your track.

for me it was frequency. I noticed that my track had just as good low and frequency as my refernce. But there was a whole in the middle which made it sound weak.

The other thing I found was that this whole refernece thing taught me about panning. I saw where Tobias Von Hofsten - the legend I chose to use as reference - panned his drums and when I did the same i noticedthat it opened up alot more room in my track. I even panned some of my layers to oposite sides which I noticed gave the track a lot more groove without using the swing function.

That's what helped for me. don't blame your redrum techno drums can be quite difficult, especially if your going for a drum based track as I am. hope that helps.


That post really gave me some ideas. i.e. the swapping thang etc.
tell me more about the panning please, surely not on low sounds eh?? Good post!! :terminator:

[DotMatrix]

wow Loopdon what an honour I have learnt so much from you quietly browsing these forums, to think I have something to pass on to you :lol:


the most noticable thing I did with the panning was I had two sounds layered together on the 3 7 11 15. I'm sure you know the deal. one was a very slappy, sticky sound, the other was a more open highhat sound. all i did was shift one to the left just slightly about -18 on my reason mixer and one the opposite side. I would neve3r have purposly done such a thing but the effect was quite surprising. It really gave my track that shuffly kind of groove guy's like Samuel l and deetron seem to have in their tracks.


then I experimented a little and applied the call and answer technique to panning. eg. I had this shuffly pattern which was pushed back behind the main drums a bit and I panned it left for the 1, 2 and right for the 3 4. Again the main drums were still front and centre - I know enough about panning not to touch the snare and kick etc - but the other sounds started to play off againts each other and next thing I knew I had movement to my track. quite a liberating experience for me.


the other thing I noticed was that my track - which was pretty much at that point where I didn't know what more I could do to it. And was about to start just layer random drums over the top until it sounded muddey and ****ed. - opened up and I suddenly had all this extra room for things. I started trying to fill the whole range of pan with sound so I had a whole heap of sound in the centre, then some panned only slighty, then some a bit more and some fully panned.

I'm still experiementing but it's been a great breakthrough for me.

[danielmarshall]

Drum programming is something that only really comes with practice. One thing that is encouraging though is that it's something that seems to become comparitively easier as you go allong, because you instinctively know where you need to insert samples. As mentioned before, panning drums will certainly add allot more interest to your sound, and I'd reccomend adding a stereo enhancer to your highhats, snares and rides, or apply it accross the entire drum kit, but only on the high end. You can accouplish this with iZotope Ozone (my favorite mastering product)

Something else that you need to take into consideration is the use of so-called "ghost" hits. This is for example achieved using the occational soft off-beat snare or highat that just breaks up and funkifies the groove a little.

Be careful with adding too much shuffle. It can just sound clumsy otherwise, especially at high BPMs.

Something I do is to cut up jazz drum loops into rather fine pieces in SoundForge (saving them as the origional .WAV, but exporting with regions) and then import into FL Studio. I then randomize an instance of FL Slicer and see what comes out. Usually it's utter rubbish, but after about 5 minutes of hitting randomize button you can get some really cool grooves.

[RDR]

its all about the SWING baby!

[danielmarshall]

:lol:

[DotMatrix]

Drum programming is something that only really comes with practice. One thing that is encouraging though is that it's something that seems to become comparitively easier as you go allong, because you instinctively know where you need to insert samples. As mentioned before, panning drums will certainly add allot more interest to your sound, and I'd reccomend adding a stereo enhancer to your highhats, snares and rides, or apply it accross the entire drum kit, but only on the high end. You can accouplish this with iZotope Ozone (my favorite mastering product)

Something else that you need to take into consideration is the use of so-called "ghost" hits. This is for example achieved using the occational soft off-beat snare or highat that just breaks up and funkifies the groove a little.

Be careful with adding too much shuffle. It can just sound clumsy otherwise, especially at high BPMs.

Something I do is to cut up jazz drum loops into rather fine pieces in SoundForge (saving them as the origional .WAV, but exporting with regions) and then import into FL Studio. I then randomize an instance of FL Slicer and see what comes out. Usually it's utter rubbish, but after about 5 minutes of hitting randomize button you can get some really cool grooves.


I'm intrigued by this Ozone plugin. can you tell me a nit more about how you use it?

[danielmarshall]

Ozone does multiband compression, excitation, panning/ stereo separation (Spectron is REALLY good at this, which is another great iZotope product), as well as your standard reverb and limiting features which opperate over the entire fequency domain. What the term "multiband" means is that it acts on specific frequency bands, as oppossed to the entire sound. So for example you could apply compression on the bass and some of the midrange whilst leaving your highs relatively unmodified to reduce the pumping effect on the high end whilst still keeping your bass (where the magority of the energy in your track sits) in check. Very powerful, but a little tough to get used to compared to your stock standard mastering techniques.

In this case what I'm saying could work well is to use Ozone's multiband stereo separtion feature to widen the stereo on only the high end of the sound, whilst reducing the bass and mid so that it stays nice and centered (to prevent needles skipping and off center kick drums). Another thing you can do is to add a small delay (no more than 4ms) to the high end, which makes the hats really sparkle.

The exciter is another feature which I LOVE about this plugin.

[DotMatrix]

wow sounds great will have to check it out! I'm going to try your delay tip when I get home as well. thanks for the tips ;)

[danielmarshall]

No problem. A word of advice though: keep at it. multiband techniques are not for the faint hearted and you will initially be quite frustrated with a lack of results, but the eventual outcome is worth it.

[Jay Pace]

I love the redrum. Its where I start most of my tunes, if looking for inspiration. You can make patterns so quickly and easily once you know how...

Make sure you have it loaded up with good samples first and foremost.
I posted up complete roland, yamaha & boss kits not so long back - have a dig about on this forum and download them if you haven't already.

Try hooking up a matric pattern sequencer to the panner. Program in a panning pattern and hook it up to a click or a slap sound, or maybe to some high hats. Now maybe route the newly panned sound out into a delay or a reverb unit.
Route your high hats, rides and cymbals into a reverb unit then onto a new channel. Try routing all your hihats and cymbals into a submixer and then applying compression to all of them as a group.

Basically use the redrum to keep your patterns and trigger your samples, but route everything out of it into some effects. That is truly the beauty of reason - you can just keep adding and linking effects.

Keep playing! Redrum is a powerful tool capable of proucing cracking results.

[earle]

been trying out these tips, my drums are already sounding alot better. thanks. still not fully there yet though. has anyone got any reason song files they could post?

[Jay Pace]

www.logarhythms.co.uk/whellan.mp3

Made in reason, mastered in cubase.

[Jay Pace]

Wll dig out some song files when I get home

[earle]

any chance of those files? Would be great.

[Jay Pace]

sorry dude, been away all weekend. Will get on it when home. Promise!

[danielmarshall]

Tip for using Redrum. Get some groove going - doesn't have to be brilliant, then start scrolling through kits. It's amazing what you'll come up with by accident this way. I don't use Reason frequently, but I've made some pretty funky percussion loops this way.

[Jay Pace]

Yee haaa.... I used to have loads of fun doing the scrolly thing with my 309. Especially with cymbals.