[Production Bible 2] Drums

[bandshell]

This really needs to be made a sticky

[rhynofive]

Awesome post!

[will schiller]

This really needs to be made a sticky

Defo! Some really helpful stuff. Cheers

[wuwenling]

spam

[mstone564]

I tried searching for this, but couldn't really find the answer I'm looking for.

Basically what I'm wanting to do is just place my audio samples in my DAW (I'm using Reaper) for whatever drum beat I'm working with. Now, let's say I have a build up in a song where the kick starts to do eighth notes in one bar, sixteenth in the next, and 32nds in the next. If I start putting these kicks that close to each other for all these different rhythms they start to overlap each other and auto fade the one after it out. I'm assuming there's some tool option that has to do with fades but I have no idea what it is.

How could I achieve getting these kick rhythms in one audio track without them overlapping each other? I also don't want to just cut them so they'll fit because then I'll be losing transients.

[Mushroom Buttons]

use two separate tracks instead? or instead of just cutting off the kicks, automate the volume so u get short fade out?

[grooki]

well done disco!

Anyone have anything on compression to add?

[mstone564]

use two separate tracks instead? or instead of just cutting off the kicks, automate the volume so u get short fade out?

I've seen people that use one track per kick just fine and I'm sure they don't just automate the volume... That seems a little much.

Anyone else have any input?

[Erebus-7]

use two separate tracks instead? or instead of just cutting off the kicks, automate the volume so u get short fade out?

I've seen people that use one track per kick just fine and I'm sure they don't just automate the volume... That seems a little much.

Anyone else have any input?

why do they overlap ? surely you can just increase the quantize or grid separation or w/e it's called and just zoom in and put them perfectly on the grid just closer together ? sounds pretty simple to me

[rubiconguava]

I tried searching for this, but couldn't really find the answer I'm looking for.

Basically what I'm wanting to do is just place my audio samples in my DAW (I'm using Reaper) for whatever drum beat I'm working with. Now, let's say I have a build up in a song where the kick starts to do eighth notes in one bar, sixteenth in the next, and 32nds in the next. If I start putting these kicks that close to each other for all these different rhythms they start to overlap each other and auto fade the one after it out. I'm assuming there's some tool option that has to do with fades but I have no idea what it is.

How could I achieve getting these kick rhythms in one audio track without them overlapping each other? I also don't want to just cut them so they'll fit because then I'll be losing transients.

I do my drums all in audio in reaper, and to get around this problem i will simply shorten the sample and then use the built in envolopes you have in reaper whenver you have audio on a track to make it sound like a normal fade at the end. Simple and effective... and super quick. Or you could just do it on two tracks dont see the problem with that unless the kicks are quite subby in which case you dont really want the tail overlappng at all.

[mstone564]

I do my drums all in audio in reaper, and to get around this problem i will simply shorten the sample and then use the built in envolopes you have in reaper whenver you have audio on a track to make it sound like a normal fade at the end. Simple and effective... and super quick. Or you could just do it on two tracks dont see the problem with that unless the kicks are quite subby in which case you dont really want the tail overlappng at all.

I disabled auto-crossfade in Reaper's toolbar which stopped the kicks from overlapping.
Only problem now is that the really fast 16th and 32nd parts (mostly 32nds) are clipping when I manually place them.
I compared the rhythm I placed on the grid myself with the rhythm I sampled with ApTrigga2 and midi (which I'd rather not do). Here's a clip of it and a picture if you can't tell a difference(The audio I placed is the first section, then the midi I sampled with ApTrigga2 is repeated after):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3689406/Kick%20Test.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3689406/ClippingKick.PNG

I'm assuming ApTrigga just automatically plays back the sample at one volume, but since the sample I placed is an audio track will it clip from fast kicks regardless?

[Mushroom Buttons]

I'm not familiar with Reaper, but if you said that you want them to not overlap but still have their full transient (having the full tail?), isnt it overlapping anyway?

Normally if there's two kicks really close to each other I'll just choke em. Makes sense isnt it? On a real drum kit you only have one bass drum unless you're playing some technical double pedal stuff.

Maybe a subtle reverb will help if the kicks sound choppy or anything. Just an opinion.

[rubiconguava]

if youve disabled auto crossfade and youve dragged the length of the sample in so you can fit 32th instances of it in a row, then all you have to do is on each one put your mouse over the top right corner of the audio clip in the reaper sequencer. it will come up with an envolope symbol, just click and drag this in to create a fade out so the kick still sounds ntural. hope that makes sense!

[Areks801]

yo can anyone go in depth on how to make phat dubstep kicks?

[hudson]

I just made this post on futuregarageforum about humanizing drums, figured I'd throw it up here too. Nothing mind-blowing, but it'll probably help someone somewhere.

Here are a few things I've been doing to humanize my drums a little:

Variation! You'll never hear a real drummer play the same beat for the whole song, most won't even play the same fill twice, so don't just make a four bar loop and copy/past it over the rest of your track. Little switch ups every few bars can add more energy, keep the beat interesting and make it sound like there's someone behind the drums playing by feeling.

Don't quantize anything! If you've got the time and patience, make an 8 or 16 bar loop by just placing the samples by hand. No quantize, copying, or zooming super far into the grid, just throw everything down as best as you can. You can copy that loop after, make some changes, etc. That'll loosen things up a whole bunch. I like this on 4x4 kick patterns especially.

One little trick I use a lot in Reaper to add additional timing variations/humanization on my hi-hats without doing too much work is to throw the au sample delay plug-in on my hi-hat track, go into the automation options and select "in/out delay" in the sample delay plug-in, then select the modulate option in the automation lane and check "lfo". Once you're in the lfo section, choose the random waveform, set the base value to the very bottom, the speed to taste (I usually sync it to 64ths) and the strength fairly low (unless you want the effect to be extremely noticeable). This delays the sample by random amounts (milliseconds... subtle but still very effective) and loosens up your drums even more.

One last thing, do all the swinging/shuffling yourself. It's much more fun than just clicking a preset, and you can get some really neat sounding patterns if you experiment.

If you want to hear some examples, just let me know and I'll send you some newer stuff I'm working on in which these techniques are used more extensively than on the tracks I've released already.