Convincing Drum Roll

[rchambrz]

I'm creating a piece of music. All orchestra VIs. Does anyone know how to make a convincing drum roll on a snare and tympani drum? i need it to last for one or two measures I only have have Xpand2 and steven slate drums.

[Kris75]

Making a convincing drum roll using VI's can be done, but it takes knowledge of how to play a roll, and then the inner workings of the VI you are using. If you have a drum pad it can be done quite quickly if you play. If not, programming one is quite hard.

This midi library is quite good for rolls

Military Cadence Midi Library

It also has a bunch of other cool stuff in it as well.

[albee1952]

If you have a trigger pad unit with 4-8 pads for tapping out drums, the trick to rolls/fills is to set the pads up in pairs for each drum sound. Tapping a single pad for a fill will never sound (good or real). With 2 pads for each sound, your fingers can tap out fills that sound really good with a bit of practice(most trigger controllers can be mapped this way)

[YYR123]

BFD has convincing rolls, so I'm sure Steven Slate has them.....

You might just have to dig into the manual.....or get some more Pads....as the guys suggested

[DonaldM]

No one way, or easy way. One possibility is to assign the drum (Tympani, say) to two keys on your key board, then you can trigger playing the two keys. East-West uses a mapping technique like this for many of their orchestral drum samples. It takes a bit of practice to get it to sound good, but it can be done. Also, you'll probably need to go in and do some editing...especially with velocity. That can make a huge difference.

The main thing is: just practice until it sounds right!

[AlexLakis]

I use the X-Y pad on my padKontrol for dynamic rolls...Just hold down the drum trigger and move your finger around to adjust tempo and dynamics. I use Steven Slate Drums as well...Sounds good enough for rock n' roll at least!

Aside from using a controller, you can try a few MIDI editing techniques. Like selecting every other hit in the roll and making it slightly stronger/louder (I've found this makes rolls sound more realistic as most drummers will play one stick with a bit more force than the other naturally.) You can also try working with the "humanize" function during quantization, especially if you're not playing the roll manually with pads...

[sw rec]

I have a few samples I'd be happy to send you. PM me.

[YYR123]

7 minutes and 4 seconds



super cool.