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I assume it's velocity that gives it the shuffle, but I can't seem to get that nice garage flow. Any advice?

Velocity + GROOVE TEMPLATES. Look 'em up, sure there must be some of your DAW. Or edit the groove of it yourself. If you're using Renoise, turn off the groove settings and put each on 66% for a nice garage groove.

open hats usually stay on your 8ths straight (on grid), scatter your other closed hats/ percussion around them whereever sounds good. Alot of garage's 'jittery' feel comes from these hats starting off ahead of the beat at the beginning of the bar and gradually dragging later towards the end of the bar, until they are quite lagged behind the beat. This gives the push and pull.
Also it's sample selection and eq that is just as important for the flow.

And yeah velocity is necessary, taking groove templates from favourite garage tunes (if ur in ableton) can help and will adjust these for you. As a general guide though think of the velocity curve of your swung percussion/hats as an elastic thread stretched between your accented/ on-grid beats. If that makes any sense.

and sample length.

I think it might be detuned saws.

Hat shuffles are hard to get down right..
I don't have much I could tell you besides studying one of your favorite garagey type patterns and trying to emulate them..
After so much practice you'll notice you can make your own without even thinking! Good luck

groove templates is cheating

move the samples your self by "hand"

turn off the fucking grid

rayman612 wrote:groove templates is cheating

move the samples your self by "hand"

turn off the fucking grid

dont listen to this.... garagy drums are very sync'd

rayman612 wrote:groove templates is cheating

move the samples your self by "hand"

turn off the fucking grid

Groove templates are just another creative tool, putting them on different patterns can produce totally different feels, which are nothing like the track you took them from, its no more cheating than using a soul sample in your track to give some groove and character.

You don't just have to take em from garage tracks, you can take them from anywhere. e.g take a groove from an old cuban son record and apply it to the percs, ghost notes and bass line in the first half of a bar, then do the same with a funk track to the second half. This with trial and error can produce some really nice push and pull on a loop.

ALso i dont think anyone's mentioned compression, smashing the fuck out of your hi hat lines can sometimes produce interesting smudges of sound.

Don't use a piano roll, pick a drum machine with a step sequencer. Get your main kick and snare pattern down, then add some of the off beat kicks, turn on the shuffle function and use like, 3 diff hi hat sounds, make sure you put down the off hat first, so the hat that occurs between the kick on beat 1 and the snare on beat 2, coz that's always dead on the grid. Then u can use the other two plus percussion samples to get the swing right. Also look at percussion, shorten the samples so they're barely more than an attack transient and use a few of them. Once you got the pattern in ur sequencer look at quantising everything other than the kick and snare with the slightly stronger swing setting if it's still not enough.

Some nice tuts here
http://futuregarageforum.com/viewtopic. ... 431ffea6da

Why is everyone here so mad about turning the grid off? You can get real grooves from a step sequencer with two hat samples, it's just about the contrast. If anything, it's easier to focus on placing them correctly before worrying about velocity/shuffle.

therapist wrote:Why is everyone here so mad about turning the grid off? You can get real grooves from a step sequencer with two hat samples, it's just about the contrast. If anything, it's easier to focus on placing them correctly before worrying about velocity/shuffle.

This is absolutely true.
However, by turning the grid off you can learn to place the notes yourself without the need for groove templates or step sequencing.
It all depends on how YOU want to do things.
Everybody's workflow is their own business, but its good to remind people that grid doesn't always have to be turned on... Remember that it essentially limits where you can put things, which is not always a good thing.

You can make garage beats from groove templates. Personally though, if i'm learning a new style that relies heavily on groove, i would turn grid off so i can learn what works and what doesn't.

therapist wrote:Why is everyone here so mad about turning the grid off? You can get real grooves from a step sequencer with two hat samples, it's just about the contrast. If anything, it's easier to focus on placing them correctly before worrying about velocity/shuffle.

It'll still sound stiff compared a turn off grid or groove templates. You can get a nice groove going, but it'll still be too robotic.

Genevieve wrote:

therapist wrote:Why is everyone here so mad about turning the grid off? You can get real grooves from a step sequencer with two hat samples, it's just about the contrast. If anything, it's easier to focus on placing them correctly before worrying about velocity/shuffle.

It'll still sound stiff compared a turn off grid or groove templates. You can get a nice groove going, but it'll still be too robotic.

How can you say it will sound robotic? These things aren't set in stone. You don't think people have made decent garage beats on simple step sequencers?

I wasn't saying always quantize, just that losing the grid means nothing if your pattern isn't good in the first place.

therapist wrote:

Genevieve wrote:

therapist wrote:Why is everyone here so mad about turning the grid off? You can get real grooves from a step sequencer with two hat samples, it's just about the contrast. If anything, it's easier to focus on placing them correctly before worrying about velocity/shuffle.

It'll still sound stiff compared a turn off grid or groove templates. You can get a nice groove going, but it'll still be too robotic.

How can you say it will sound robotic? These things aren't set in stone. You don't think people have made decent garage beats on simple step sequencers?.

Most old garage beats were on the grid and they sound kinda lifeless compared more modern beats (like.. compare most beats written in 97 to those in 99). 'Robotic' in the grand scheme of things? Not really, but to a music fan who really loves garage beats, it WILL lack a certain something when all beats are nicely quantized. Even if you've got the rest down.

The other point I agree with though. To me the most important aspect of garage beats, more so than doing things off the grid, is having the beat 'travel' or 'gallop' from one percussive sound to another without effort and sort of 'fall in place'. You don't really 'write' garage drums as much as 'build' them. At least in my experience.

i find adjusting the velocity on 1/8notes like this. 50% 80% 50% 80%. so the off beat is the accent gives it a nice flick

rayman612 wrote:groove templates is cheating

I don't care if zed bias cheats if the track is banging. Means to an end innit

lol

Yeah i just tend to turn off the grid and place hits by hand.