Programmed Drums Feel, well... Programmed

[rockwithrespect]

I just got done programming my first song in DFHS, and although the samples sound great, the tracks still sound "programmed". The tune is a straight forward screamo/punk song at 185 bpm. I tried groove quantizing the midi, but none of templates were fast enough for my song. Can anyone give me some tips on "humanizing" my programmed tracks? I guess I sort of want to turn the "suck" knob up a bit to make the tracks feel real.

Thanks!

[Eric Klinger]

I'm sure that someone can give better info on this than I, but I have (and do) go through great lengths to make my programmed drums sound as real as I can with what I have. Usually I have, of course, multisamples.... but probably even more important - I go through alot of the tracks and bump snares and kicks and just about every sound or sample slightly out of time with each other a few milliseconds here and there... it really does make a difference to my ear. I usually record through a drum machine via midi and bump midi notes ever so slightly out of time... it usually takes a minumum of a few hours per song, but for me it is worth it.

[John J.]

Best results for the "real drum feel" would be:

1) record a real drummer on a real drumkit
2) have a real drummer do your programming for you

After 20 years of drumming I could break it down alot more for you, but it all comes down to choosing 1 or 2. Good luck.

[LeGato]

Here's one for ya. This should go under that massive tips and tricks thread that Produceher started.

Find a drum track that has the groove you like i.e. preferably an audio track with only drums. Time compress or expand it to fit your session tempo. Put the track directly above the midi drum track or audio track you are working on. Start aligning the kicks, hats and snares (tracks) to the groove (template) track. When you zoom into the track in grid mode you'll notice where the kicks, snares, and hats are falling in respect to the beat.


Have Fun and Good Luck,

RS
(Supreme Beings of Leisure)

[bassbuddy]

Don't quantize, and if your keyboard ability is decent, you should re-track the midi after all the other musicians are finished. Use midi merge for fills, and as another poster suggested, move some midi notes if you have to. Use dynamics,(velocity), and if this doen't work bring in a real drummer to track as another poster commented.

Best,

kenny

[Shelob9]

The groove quantize function is worth trying. Take some time to learn what each preset does and how tweaking them effects how they work then find a few good options to use. For best effect apply it phrase by phrase. If you have acess to a TDM system you can make your own tmeplates for groove quantize. You probably don't, it would be worth searching the internet for said files.

Also consider this, there are plug ins (for instance: Apulsoft Artrigga 2) that allow an audio file to trigger a MIDI note when it goes over a certain level. Consider playing the drum part you want with a pair of drum sticks but striking two cheap mics with them. Record two tracks (or more) of that then use those trakcs with a plug in like the one I mentioned before (which I have never used but for 39 bucks its worth a shot) to trigger the samples you used.

[davetron5000]

There's two elements to it, that I've found:

1. Making sure your patterns are what a "real drummer" would/could play

2. Sequencing those patterns like a real drummer would play them

I've found that really concentrating on #1 helps a great deal. Details count. For example, during the last bar of a verse before a chorus, to build energy, gradually open the hi-hat. Also, make sure your patterns for verse/chorus/bridge are distinct wrt kick pattern or usage of HH vs. ride.

Once I've got realistic patterns programmed, it's usually about 80% of the way there.

Then, for #2, you have to have a good sounding kit (which you have with DFHS). From there, tweak the velocity. Before randomizing or "humanizing" the velocity, you need to set it such that the dynamics are established. This means that for fills, transitions, etc. you want to ramp up/down the velocity so it sounds realistic. Like for a snare roll into a chorus, you'll want the hits to get louder, and then come back down during the chorus (but be louder than the verse, say), and you can also consider that the drummers "lead" hand will be stronger, so those will hit a bit harder. Drummers also might hit the HH harder on the downbeat. There's a ton of this sort of thing you can do.

I've also found it helps to establish the overall drum patterns, track everything else, and then do all the drum tweaks with the music in place (even if it's just scratch). Programmed drums can sound very awkward out of context, but once the guitars and bass are in, it blends in well.

[Chris Coleman]

I just got done programming my first song in DFHS, and although the samples sound great, the tracks still sound "programmed".

I don't have Superior, just the regular ol' DFH, but one thing that helped me right off the bat was loading the MIDI examples that came with DFH and taking a close look.

It was readily apparent that the programmers had gone to great lengths especially in the velocity department...different feels for each hit - in addition to using different samples for some hits (not just multisamples of the same drum). Hi hat's a biggie, too - you can't just use the same sample at the same velocity, you've really got to build in a feel that there's a real person hitting a real hi hat, with a little finesse and accenting (yes, even in punk).