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How can I make sampled snares sound like real snare rolls? I've tried different velocities, delayed hits, Renoise's "humanization" (randomized velocities, timing, and panning(not sure how the panning would help ), making 4 variations of the same sample with some different eq curves.....and it all sounds unconvincing to me. What's the secret??

Pitching works,

Some with more decay than others too.

sampling would be the easiest way. louie armstrong greatest hits has some dannkk drums on it. at least the vinyl copy i got...

Yeah just sample some decent real drumming. There are few things in music as shit as the Roland snare rolls that seem to appear in every song right now.

kontakt orchestral library... Reason's Orkester sound bank.
No way you are gonna line up one-shots and get them sounding anything like an actual drumroll. Might make a great sounding punchy, fast drum fill, or typical EDM build-up roll, but not a drumroll. no way...

Using different snares from the same clean break can make for realistic drum rolls.

Seeing as you're using Renoise here's a good way to do it:

Cut out a couple of ghost snares and regular snares snares. Starting with the regular snare, alternate between the snare and ghost, using different hits for each. Humanize that. Should sound good.

This kinda sloppy wip of mine shows it. I think the compression is making it sound more awkward than it is in my daw. These drums were all made using one shots cut out of a break.

Kontakt has velocity sensitive snare samples, to which you automate the velocity over the life of the roll.

Have any of you used ezdrummer? I saw a video of someone using it today and I thought it sounded convincing enough. How does it get good sounding rolls? Multisamples?
And thanks for the tips guys!

Artie Fufkin wrote:How can I make sampled snares sound like real snare rolls? I've tried different velocities, delayed hits, Renoise's "humanization" (randomized velocities, timing, and panning(not sure how the panning would help ), making 4 variations of the same sample with some different eq curves.....and it all sounds unconvincing to me. What's the secret??

Play it on a keyboard/pads. You'll get far more humanistic feel to it than programming it in, no matter how good you are at programming

let this song be an inspiration. does it sound real? no. does it sound funkier than most real drummers? yes.

also, a "real" snare roll is almost never consisting of only the snare, theres probably still cymbals fading out n shit.
another part of why snare rolls work the way they do is their relation to the stuff played before them so keep that in mind too.
also your drumkit only has one snare so make sure you never have the tail of one snare hit still fading out when the next one has started.

highlight every other midi note, make sure quantize is off and move them bery slightly right or left, now select random midi notes slife them left or right, now select some new random notes etc etc.... just throw them off the grid very slightly , thats the way i do it

with real snares everytime you hit it, its not going to sound the same. so changing velocity, timing etc will only do so much. it might work better if you want to use the samples you have to maybe take that, and process a few different ones, and then use them with velocity changes, and then maybe add like a slight phaser of flanger so it changes the sound throughout the roll too. but yeah cutting out hits from real rolls would be better. i quite like sequenced sounding rolls though.

for this you're either gonna need a mic and to bounce drumsticks on a snaredrum, or just use the orchestral percussion patches for kontakt or Reason. The drumrolls in those are pretty much perfect

@RandoRando: I remember listening to that "heavystep"/metalcore electronic tune of yours and I thought it was a neat take on an idea I had been considering as well. I thought the drums fit pretty well and reminded me of an As Blood Runs Black song. That's kinda what I hope to achieve with my drums: something human sounding, but also powerful and consistent.
I also need to spend more time just getting the dnb/breakcore/current value-esque grooves from in my head into Renoise.
@Genevieve: Nice! I really like the drums. Very fresh to my ears.

Thanks for the all input, guys!

Artie Fufkin wrote:@RandoRando: I remember listening to that "heavystep"/metalcore electronic tune of yours and I thought it was a neat take on an idea I had been considering as well. I thought the drums fit pretty well and reminded me of an As Blood Runs Black song. That's kinda what I hope to achieve with my drums: something human sounding, but also powerful and consistent.
I also need to spend more time just getting the dnb/breakcore/current value-esque grooves from in my head into Renoise.
@Genevieve: Nice! I really like the drums. Very fresh to my ears.

Thanks for the all input, guys!

funny you say that cause i had abrb in my mind whilst making that clip lol. are you referring to my track called forenziks, or orbital space.

Orbital Space. Now im listening to forenziks. I'm diggin it

Your best bet is analysing breaks (real rolls) and recreating the rolls, or even recreating + layering for maximum pleasure. In an ideal situation you'll be working with multisampled material too, for maximum realism, if that's what you're going for.

Artie Fufkin wrote:Orbital Space. Now im listening to forenziks. I'm diggin it