---- All my drum tips -----

[loopdon]

From the grid....

" All the drum tips I have enjoy

Mainly stolen from computer music see issue numbers after titles in block capitals



TOTAL DRUMS 110

Build good collection of sounds
Tune up drums
Pitch up for dance
Pit5ch down for urban
For electronic styles make sure sample stops when key released
For real drums play whole sample
Play drums on pads don’t program them (take best bars)
Lay down basic beat and then play other patterns over the top
Use quantisation to add little skip use 3/16 and set it to 35%
Can quantise bass to fit or just quantise some drum sounds
Move drum hits slightly before or after their original position
Use humanise function
Check out beats you like by slowing them down and analysing them
Save good drum parts you program as a midi file
Panning is good way to get exciting stereo drums
EQ off parts of sounds you don’t need
In hip hop make patterns simple don’t clutter loop
Layer real kicks with synthetic kick on separate channels for processing
Some tracks don’t have kicks just toms
Experiment with different drum sample lengths
Dance drums tend to be tight
Use reversed sounds
Use amplitude envelopes to make a tack pump
In real bands everyone plays slightly behind the drummer, so put drums slightly forward and other sounds slightly back
Real drums use lots of grace notes and fills
Use reverb on some parts, use it sparingly
Layer, layer, layer good drums are often layered
Compress kicks and snares set attack to 3-6 ms then raising the ratio and lower the threshold will accentuate the kick
EQ drums, but cut first before you boost
Boosting at high frEQuency or use exciter can help sounds cut through

MAKE DRUMS SOUND REAL 108

Crash usually accompanied by kick
Only play 4 sounds at once
Kits usually 4-5 drums, 3 cymbals and one hi hat
Drums should not detract from song
Fills are usually before chorus kicks in
Start with simple beat with crash at start of every 4 bars
Put in rolls, use flams and shuffle
Try not to put to many fx on drums keep it simple
Use groove quantise
Use relevant kits for the genre you are in

MAKING BREAKS 89

Use original breaks as a template for placing new drum samples to make new breaks
Use EQ to match frEQuency spectrum of old breaks to make them sound similar through EQing (Voxengo Curve EQ can do this)

LATIN PERCUSSION 83&84

Uses metal bells, wooden blocks, shakers and gourds as underlying rhythm and then you have solo drum played by master drummer.
Congas are used mainly with there being open tones and slap notes and subtle hits in between notes.
Congas consist of tumba (low), Conga (mid) and quinto (high) with quinto being the lead drum.
Rhythmic pulse is usually the clave playing 2 beats in first bar and then three in second or vice versa. The clave sets the rhythmic pattern everyone follows.
Beyond these two parts you could have a cowbell pattern, a straight bongo pattern and a timbale part.
The timbales mostly play a cascara pattern which is played by hitting the sides of the metal shells with sticks and sometimes moving to cowbell in the centre and a few hits on the drumheads and the odd cymbal crash.
The bongos, timbales and congas then solo on turn over the top.
Basic concept behind Latin percussion:
Drummers playing together and wanting some freedom to improvise without it turning into a mess.
In practice this can mean that in the first bar the first 3 beats are straight and beat 4 is where improvisation happens. Beats 1-3 are muted tones and beat 4is open tones. In a phrase of say 4 bars beat 4 will always be the improvised bit albeit slightly changed. Sometimes the variation section can be at a different section of the bar i.e. beat 2.
When layering drum patterns ensure that each pattern has a different point where it has prominent notes. So although mainly in 16th note patterns regularly have differing prominent notes i.e. high congas on beat 3 of the bar, bongos on beat 4 etc.
Clave patterns are usually on 3:2 or 2:3 pattern.
3:2 pattern is on 1st beat 2.5 and 4 and then 2 and 3 in second bar.
Cowbell patterns are relatively simple.
Maracas patterns are also quite simple.
Bongos also use finger strokes and touches as well as accents to make parts sound effective.
Congas use heel tip, and slap and open tones on patterns to make them sound real.
Timbales are hard to program better to use sampled phrases.

Often percussion grooves have a distinct feel to them which can be hard to master.
Overcome this by taking groove templates from original loop and applying them to your programmed parts.

PROCESSING LOOPS 76

Reverse reverb a part add 100% wet signal and export reverb calling it forward reverb.
Reverse the sample and record reverb from that then calling it backward reverb.
Then import the loops and arrange them so that backward reverb moves into original sample and forward reverb moves out of sample.

Use squareomatic to add distortion to loops or scream 4.

Make own phasing affects by displacing a sample in the sample editor and adding its copy to the sample.

Encode loops to mp3 low bit rate 16kbps and then convert back to normal sample rate you use.

Snaking breakbeats: add flanger not synced to tempo export as a wav and then cut up and rearrange into new loops. Reversed sections sound good to.

Rhythmic pads: stick them through a vocoder and make sure that none of the original beat comes through, set bandwidth settings as high as possible to let beat cut the sound as much as possible. Stick a delay on at the end to get sound world effects.

Add sensual vibe: route through low pass filter, low resonance level, cutoff should cut through loop but not to much. Route sound through reasonably quick delay i.e.3/16 and add bit of reverb. Then automate the filters lfo speed sticking between 0 and 4 hz. Add to guitar and electric pianos.

100% wetness: set reverb up on percussion part and set to 100% wet and then adjust so not to muddy then export add distortion and compression and then play along with original loop but only using parts of it slightly.

Percussion torture: Send loop through gate turn gates attack,hol and release settings right downsop beat starts to creak and strain. Put through compressor with attack and release right down then experiment with threshold setting to hear range of sounds available. Now slap on reverb with nice big sound.

Dub fx: Need feedback delay plug in such as echomania, stick loop through it then reverb and automate between dry and wet.

Ping Pong beats: Send through reverb small room, run through delay synced to tempo 1/32,then route through compressor attack and release as low as possible and then adjust threshold to level when beats cuts through again. Alternate between this and original beat and fiddle with delay times to get different fills.

PROGRAMMING BASS AND DRUMS:

Drums:
Sometimes you can leave them out or have very simple phrases happening in different parts of the song.
A percussion arrangement that slowly builds in intensity and instrumentation can add drama to a song.
Bass:
Less is often more, needs to fit the song sometimes just one note is all that is needed.
Where a bass note is placed is as important as what note it is.
Bass players play slightly into the beat and slightly behind it depending on style, but not to far as can make to slow or fast. You need to get the feel right.
Basic roles for bass is to identify the chord being played, play something which grooves with the drummer and doesn’t get in the way of the vocal.

HOUSE

Drums are built on 4/4 structure.
Drums bought in every 4 bar in 4 bar sections.

Bass decided by chord sEQuence but rhythm must fit in with the drum parts.
Popular approach to bassline writing is the off beat bassline where bass and drum alternate. This works well musically and when mixing as bass drum and bass occupy same frEQuency. Can be boring if used throughout track need to vary a bit at points in track

House drums in reason:

Set shuffle to 26 this delays every other 16th step in pattern.
Kick on every beat.
Layered snare and clap on beats 2 and 4 at medium velocity
Tom on 1 and 7 medium 4 and 15 soft
Shaker soft hits on1,5,9,13
Hi hat medium hits on 2,8,16
Open hi hat medium hits on 3,7,11,15 and soft on 16
Run through scream compression P1 = 104 P2 = 76 damage 26
Run toms and bass through separate channels.

Bass:
Add subtractor and select lately bass, route through matrix and draw in pattern on 2 – 3 – 5 – 8 – 11 – 15
Put through delay and set feedback to 0 and dry/wet balance to 12
Then copy to tracks for 32 bars.

POP & RNB

POP:

Pop drums are usually non assuming drums set to basic patterns.
Kicks vary in positions.
Snares stay on 2 and 4
Simple eight note hi hat patterns.
Use simple kick and snare fills.

Bass uses ascending and descending notes within an octave.
Then uses sections where plays the same pattern on one note and then is transposed up on each bar.
Heavily compress the bass and drums.

RNB:

RnB drums are usually huge booming kick, tight snare, and a bass which sits well low in the mix. In RnB it’s the kick which gets busy, leaving the snare to do regular stuff. This leaves the kick and bass to do some funky syncopated patterns.

Start with tight groove.
Let second half of each bar lag so kick lands on off beats.
Kick on 1 – 3 – 11 – 13 – 12 Snare on 5 – 13
Kick on 1- 3 – 11- 14 Snare on just 5
Add simple eighth note pattern with emphasis on all four beats.

Bassline mirrors snare and kick pattern with different pitches for snare position.
Leave every other bar clear makes room for vocals and other instruments to come in intro.
When bassline fully comes in fill empty bars with more sustained notes to give overall rhythm a sense of space.
At end of sections have a combined fill whereby bass follows drums.

ROCK:

Usually around 96 bpm.
Need real drum samples.
Kicks have long deep tail and clicky front to them, but finding one that hits hard at the chest works better.
Snares are high pitched, often a piccolo snare.
Hats are varied and stop abruptly when played together.
Ride cymbals are used to carry chorus.
Crash cymbals to signify changes.

Classic one kick snare two kick snare pattern with some extra snares and some off beat kicks.
Hats are monophonic, would not hear a open hat over a closed hat.
Usually eighth notes used with slashy sounding closed hats that open more and more as you get to the chorus.
Open hats are often placed every ¼ notes.
Ride cymbals (usually used for choruses) eighth note placed with first one of bar loud and next a lot lower to emphasise start.
Crash usually introduces chorus.
Crashes can get more frEQuent in later choruses.
Fills are used to lead into sections, usually this involves snares and tom and a few extra kicks.

Bass is usually pumping 8th notes playing as much of the same note as possible, interspersed with the odd fill.
Good real bass sound is needed and then put through amp distortion plug in.
Use velocity layering to get mute sounds full sounds, this gives accents and dynamics.
Program basses by playing live usually just playing 8th notes and use fills .
Chorus needs to up the ante so have some 16th fills at the start leading in and ending with some off beat eighths and some pitch bend.

HIP HOP

The main thing to remember about programming hip hop is to no quantise everything and keep to a minimal bassline. If it feels good then leave it.

Drums:

Rock sold fairly minimal groove often with big fat hi hat on the eights.
Kick and open hat on every beat and clap on beats 2 and 4, hats made a little late to give a slack feel.
Effect sounds with distorton, EQ and compression.
Place tambourine on beat 4 of every bar and crash placed at start of every 5th bar.

Use a loop and layer drum sound over the top. Keep hits dead on beat and let loop give the groove.

Bass:

Play simple basslines and record them in by hand, do not quantise.
Put limiters on it to get loudest possible sound and layer up sounds.

MAKING BREAKS PART 1: 72

When taking hits from breaks try to avoid kick drums with hats and rides over the top, try to get all parts clean.

Need to use compression and distortion on breaks to make them sound beefy.
Subtlety plays an important part with Ghost notes being the key to adding complexity.
If track is good and bass heavy then may not need ghost notes. Ghost snares nearly always needed for realistic rhythms.
The interplay between ghost snares and hi hats gives you that chicka chicka shuffle.
Try this technique of over sounds and grooves and in different places.


To keep parts from going stale make small change like delaying certain hits by a beat and bringing in and chopping out extra hi hat and ride parts can work a treat.

Turn off quantisation and move hits backwards or forwards a bit.
Extract grooves from breaks and use them on your own loops, don't make it too sloppy as it won't be able to be mixed.

To make breaks fat:
Compress breaks using fast compression i.e. short attack and release times.
Adjust threshold to -21db and whack up gain to 9db.
Add overdrive plug in before dynamics (scream 4) and increase bass, mid and high by 0db, 2.5db and 1 db respectively.
Place reverb as a send effect and effect separate drums accordingly.
Can add a limiter to make it more gritty.
EQ each drum channel separately to get sound you want

Tricks:
For tough drum fills map a snare sound across a few semitones and use it like you would a regular pitched instrument.
Play break an octave down for huge slow motion fill this will invigorate your break when it returns with extra energy.
Render your break then pitch shift it an octave while retaining its tempo then pitch shift to different keys to use as percussion fills and cal and response sections.
Use velocity to get delay style effects on repeated notes.
Reverse beats take break add reverse reverb/echo and then render it and reverse it. This will give you sucking effects when played back and can be added to the original break to create variations on the beat.
Use a big reverb and turn it on when you a particularly devastating fill that disorientate the listener. Same can be done with feedback delay in a dub style, make sure its tempo synced though.

5 top breaks Bob James – Take me to the Mardi Gras, Commodores – Assembly Line, Led Zeppelin – When the Levee Breaks, Kool and the Gang – NT, Bobby Byrd – Hot Pants.

Website www.the-breaks.com

AND THE BEAT GOES ON 35

Need good drum track programmed initially.
Important to add plenty of changes so as not to bore listener.
Easiest is to remove fist kick drum, so loop starts on different sound, when done between two loops this can give a new edge to loop giving it a more subtle feel.
Reverse a hit in loop, though not to often.
Add a reverse reverb to one hit of the break, usually the snare (try 6ms pre delay)
Apply extreme amounts of compression around 10:1 this will make loop sound more powerful than it is.
Use an EQ and record yourself fiddling with it live.
Gentle EQ movements can produce interesting variations on a rhythm.
Take into account the frEQuencies that need to be left for rest of the instruments.
Try applying changes to 100Hz, 250Hz, 800Hz and 12KHz areas.
Steinberg magneto is great for adding warmth to a loop.
Delays and noise gates can add more movement.
Try delay of 3ms with a gate to cut delay tails to thicken up loop.
Reverse loop add delay and then play the right away around and gate it again, can make loops sound more complex.
Use Northpole free from Prosoniq.com close filter to 50% and push up resonance and delay controls.
Using a chorus sparingly with a noise gate can help widen drum tracks image and give it more life. Any chorus applied should be subtle try a low frEQuency around 200hz with a 4ms delay as a starting point.
Use reverb on sounds, try large amount of reverb with a very short pre delay.
This adds the impression of a loud and powerful drum loop with a surreal sense of space.
Vocoders can be good, but bit clichéd now, try settings of 50/50 mix but go higher if you want, be careful not to lose dynamic edge of loop though.
Distortion and overdrive can add interest if added just to kick, snare or hi hats. Try to avoid whole loops as they can add extra harmonics to the sound which occupy the 300hz to 800hz region which are known as irrational frEQuencies, try cutting these areas with EQ if it’s a problem.
Use automation to open filters, resonance etc over the loop or to affect single hits like having a filter go on and off on the kick or snare, be careful to only have slight movement on filter as you don’t want to cut sound out completely.
Modulate the pitch of a snare throughout a track to create complex sounding rhythms, pitch only needs slight modulation and should be used infrEQuently throughout the loop, sounds like you are using lots of different snares.
On single hits try using filters to boost resonance on hihats to make them brighter and use cutoff to reduce harmonics in the kick drum.
Try changing the amp envelope of every drum particularly the attack and release settings. Using a long attack on snare sounds can give rise to a strange sweeping effect which if used sparingly can be very effective.
Adjusting release settings can create strange loops, don’t do it on the kick as it will ruin its impact. Aim to adjust release of snares, hihats and percussion.
Automate filter to sweep the entire drum track so that it slowly sweeps in the drums.

Reason:

Connect matrix sEQuencer note to the drum channel with the snare on then you can draw in snares of different pitch, this gives a different pitch for each snare hit and can be useful for doing drum rolls. By slightly pitching each snare up the roll become more complex and results in a more exciting build up to next part of track.
For hi hats connect the matrix curve to the a hi hat pattern and draw in a curve to give sweeping pitch movement throughout hi hat part.
Reasons effects can be used to excite beats. Reverb can be added to create space in the rhythm. Use the cv out from the matrix to automate the frEQuency of a phaser by inserting it into the frEQuency input. If you then send the hi hats to the phaser via the mixing desk you can create sub rhythms that phase in and out of the main rhythm.
Try having a number of drum machines going each holding different pitched sounds, you can then create complex rhythms which can be EQ’d live to produce interesting combinations or be controlled with matrix sEQuencers.
A cool trick is to open two instances of redrum and load same samples into both then change the level, pan and velocity of the hi hat section and alternate between the two while feeding into a matrix controlled phaser. This spreads the hi hats across a stereo field in a strange and absorbing way.

Sample distortion: Try resampling at a lower resolution such as 8bit. Or feed the loop out of the computer into an old tape player and record it again and then send it out again, keep doing this until its degraded to the level you want. Do the same but record the loop directly from the speakers using a cheap mic.

Mixing effected sounds:
Best to mangle loops while they are playing along with the rest of the track so you can make it fit. Ears can grow used to an effect quickly, meaning you can go overboard quickly and apply to much. If you find an effect you like save it immediately and move one and try a different one. Keep muting the effect to see what it is doing to the loop. If applying heavy or experimental effects better to cut up loops into hits, so you can effect each sound separately. Often its kicks that set the rhythm so sometimes best to effect the other parts. The most immediate part of the rhythm is the snare and effecting just this can produce exciting variations on a theme, especially when using a variety of effects and reversing. Don’t whack 100% effect on to all sounds experiment with different settings. When applying an effect to a loop if it is taken away its immediately noticeable but when its there its difficult to tell the effect is there.

Mixing down effected loops:
Need to compress and EQ loops. Start by setting up the compressor threshold on the effected sound, by turning it up or down until the signal begins to register, then compress the sound as you see fit. No fixed settings. For the kick can try a ratio of 6-7.1 with zero attack and release. For snare around 4.1 with zero attack and release. For percussion should not need heavy compression just enough to limit signal and prevent it going into the red, unless you want it distorted try starting at 3.1.

To EQ, apply cuts to low, mid and high to it fits. EQ settings will depend on the effect you have applied. You should work to remove most of the frequencies around 300-800hz area. Too much level here will distort the signal and result in a muddy mix. Distortion will need a more severe cut as it adds a high number of harmonics, especially around the 2Khz, 6Khz and 8Khz ranges and even 12Khz range if applied to hi hats. When using effects with a tail it is essential that you use a gate to shorten them as they will muddy the mix.

BEAT THIS 11:

Drum programming basics:

Listen to loops you like and notice where the kicks and snare are.
Kick should be following bassline to a degree.
Hi hats can be accented on the beat or off it or at irregular intervals. Try breaking up the pattern into something more syncopated or skipping the beat using quantise.
Hi hats are often replaced by rides for the chorus or anywhere where the part needs shifting without altering the pattern of the track.
Crash cymbals are for accenting, usually on a downbeat or a fill, although interesting patterns can be had by reversing crash cymbals or sequencing fast 16th note patterns.
Toms are most applicable to fills and be used as an offbeat accompaniment to the snare.
Get drum tracks simple unless you want them complicated.
Play same patterns using different kits to get variation.

Tips:

Decide whether to produce realistic patterns or synthetic.
To get snares and toms to sound natural vary dynamics of beat, particularly the opening beats.
Often certain patterns are instrument specific, but can be good to vary.
Break up patterns with fills, classically they contain toms and link verses and choruses.
Create different endings of drum sequences by letting loop play first beat of bar then stopping.
Accent hi hat patterns.
Use different samples for hi hat patterns such as sticks, shakers etc.
Some accented beats have greater impact if programmed as flams, particularly the snare.
If programming accented beats on the cymbals use the bell sample as it cuts through.
Move bass and snare slightly ahead or behind the beat to get more urgent/relaxed feel, don’t overdo it though.
Use different kits for different parts of the song.
Add delays to drums using tempo sync, best tempos are triplet delays, using instruments such as marimbas and other dry percussion sounds can build up complex multi layered patterns.
Use distortion to dirty up individual sound or loops.
Sample drum sounds at lower resolution to get grainy sound.
If you like reverb on the kit but it is swamping the sound use a gated reverb programme.
Use different reverbs for different drum sounds.
Use different snares in pattern, ones with long and short (for fills) decay.
Go easy on crash cymbals and toms, try using china or splash cymbal instead of crash.
If you want patterns to sound like everyone else use 808 and 909 kits if not then don’t.
Don’t over quantise, only quantise enough to get rid of glaring mistakes.
Try extracting grooves from different parts to quantise drum loops.
Use recycle to cut up breaks.
If writing jazz parts use jazz drums such as ride cymbals instead of hi hats, brush snares etc.
Transpose midi notes to get patterns playing different sounds.
Drums and bass lock in together in most tracks, use loose bass over tight drums or vice versa.
Learn importance of tempo many patterns are the same just played at different tempos.
Take into account drum lengths and tempo as long drum sounds will clutter high tempo music.
Change the levels of the drum sounds throughout track to get different feels.
Play drum sounds backwards.
To make a roll program 16th or 32nd notes in and draw a velocity slope upwards, since this sounds synthetic use a synthetic snare sound.
To make a pattern more interesting take occasional snare and change to a different sound, like rim shot or side stick, anything really.
Try layering drumtracks.
Successful rhythm programming is as much about what you leave out as a busy drum track leaves little space for other sounds.
Use non percussive sounds in your drum tracks such as vocal hits, found sound,
anything.
Try adding extra deep sub bass booms to your patterns especially for drum n bass and trip hop. Generally the purer the waveforms the better, sine waves are usually best.
Compress drum loops.
If writing drum n bass out go the toms, all the percussion instruments, claps, cowbells and the like and in comes the short duration kicks and snares, hi hats, side sticks and cymbals. Get the tightest sounds you can.
Don’t neglect panning your kit should be evenly spread from left to right with kick in the middle.
Also see midi patterns in this section there are latin, jazz, ambient, dramtic effects and ethnic.

PROGRAMMING OLD SKOOL DRUM N BASS GROOVES 79

Set tempo to 174bpm.
Snare needs to tight and snappy.
Pitch up sounds 3 semitones as this simulates unavoidable pitch speeding up of old samplers.

Basic pattern 1:
Kick 1 – 3 – 11 – 12
Snare 5 – 7 – 8 – 10 – 13
Ride every 8th

Basic pattern 2:
Kick 1 – 3 – 11
Snare 5 – 7 – 8 – 14
Ride every 8th

Basic pattern 3:
Kick 10
Snare 1 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 9 – 13
Ride every 8th

To make this into a 4 bar loop copy pattern 1twice then add pattern 2 & 3.
Set tempo to 140 and this is a basic amen pattern with none of the feel.

In bar 1 lower the velocity of the second snare and play about with other snare velocities to get some feel. Lower the pitch of the second snare hit to mimic a drum being hit less hard. Repeat in bar 2 and lower the velocity of the third kick drum hit and play around with the other kicks velocities. Apply groove quantise or move hits around slightly to add feel. Increase tempo to 174bpm.

Draw in snare fills which raises in pitch at 13 – 14 – 15 – 16 of bar 1 do same in bar 2 but go down in pitch.

Add some grunge using cubase grungliser or distortion unit.





USE GOOD SAMPLES"

[Grenoybel]

Thanks a billion :)

[RDR]

Nice tips and things to think about there!

Well done!

[BloodStar]

good read.

[loopdon]

just posted from dogs-on-acid, not taking credit :)

[fatcollective]

i enjoyed reading all that, i love percussion and took loads of useful tips from this, thanks man!!

[FILTERZ]

sweet

[Samac]

excuse me for bringing this post back from the dead, but this was a fantastic post. Thankyou!

[DannyBlack]

Wowzer! nice one!!!!