My midi drum secrets revealed!

[jstunner]

Jstunner...

I have to say I am surprised you could do that with a pencil as those are pretty complicated parts. Sounds really good. I like your guitar sound a lot, too.

I have never worked with BFD, can you tell me how you have it set up on your computer? How much RAM do you have, and is it set up on a streaming hard drive or anything like that?

I have to say PTLE is pretty amazing. I don't understand why people dog it from a midi perspective. It has some great features. You can program anything with that pencil! You can really have it play anything you want and as complex as you want. All you need is a little bit of knowledge about music, keep it in the bar beat grid mode and just pencil in 1/4 notes 1/8 notes or what ever you need. You can change tempos easily, change time signatures easily. The only limits are not knowing how to notate something. If I don't know how to do something, I'll play and recorded it as a palm mute just to get some hard audio peaks, then I'll just go through the notes on the grid mode and find the ones that line up, and pencil in the notes there. It really boils down to creativity and the amount of time you want to spend on the fine details.

BFD is an amazing drum synth! I've been really happy with it. I have 1 gig of memory and I just loaded all the samples on my system drive. It has 2 bit modes 16 and 24, I've found it runs a lot smoother in 16 bit, and I don't notice any audio loss either BFD has some really cool features that give it a bit more flexibility, such as "antimachine gun mode" and the ability to adjust the velocity for you. Antimachine gun mode basicialy prevents BFD from playing the same sample twice in a row. Very helpful in fast succesive hits!

And thanks for the compliment on my guitar tone! Metaltronix M-1000 and an EMG equiped Les Paul!

[soundsurfr]

Great thread. Here are a few more little tips:

1. A real drummer will nearly always hit the kick when he/she crashes on a cymbal.

2. On simpler midi setups, be careful not to cut off the cymbal ring with a new cymbal hit right after it. Use two different cymbals on two different midi notes or channels if possible.

3. The human ear can detect the sound of the drum room even when there are no drums playing. Using a sampled drum hit or cymbal hit that rings out and then stops can sound unnatural in a quiet song or passage, because the absence of sound is not the same as the actual "sound" of a room with no drum playing. You know the deal - it sounds as if the recorder has shut off and turned back on again two beats later when the band comes back in again. Some producers will actually record "drum room air" and insert it into the quiet passage, and some good drum libraries will include it. If yours doesn't, you can sometimes grab some room air off the trail end of a long cymbal decay and cross-fade it in. Anyway, use it if you have it.

4. Loops are great. My most realistic sounding drum tracks have always been a combination of loops and midi drum programming. If you want, you can chop up some of the drum rythmn loops you use into individual drum hits and use those in your drum sequencer to program fills, creating a more seamless production.


Hope this helps.

[cruisemates]

Interesting, running the samples off the system drive. I would not have thought of that.

Yes, a drummer will almost always hit the kick with a cymbal. I often just copy the cymbal parts to the kick the make sure they are all covered.

I noticed that on my speaker system on the first song the BFD drums sounded like they were in a space of their own, like in a different room from the rest of the band. I don't know if that is inherent in their sound or not, but it would help to somehow get some reverb from protools onto the snare or OHs, or else try to do some reverb matching on the BFD so it sounds like the PT reverb.

[HotRats]

what aboutcompression and reverb?

I always add some rev and comp on my drum traks, if you don't...well do it!

I always create an aux track for reverb of the whole drum set
and and another aux track for submixing my drums (or drums and base)
each drum track sends (say, via send A) his amout of signal to the aux (reverb) track,
each drum track out and the axu rev track are bussed to the aux submix track.

[asiabackpacker]

This is a great thread!

This is helpful to anyone trying to delve into programming MIDI drums. I know it's helped get me on the right track.

Thanks Jstunner!

[jstunner]

Wow I'm glad this is still helping people out.

Here's an original song of mine that has some "big" drums in it. Line of Eternity

I've uploaded the midi file for the drums here. Line of Eternity Drum midi

And here's the PTLE session file Line of Eternity PTLE session

Here's the "answer key" for the BFD hits I use. You might have to move the notes around to trigger other mods, but these are pretty standard "global" midi notes.
C1= Kick
D1=Standard Snare hit
D#1=Snare Drag
F1= Snare Flam
E1=Snare Rim

F#1= High Hat Closed Tip
C2= Closed Hat Shank
D2= Half Tip hat
E2= Half Shank hat
A#1= Open Tip hap
G#1= Pedal hat

G1= Floor Tom
A1= Mid Tom
B1= High Tom

C#2= Cymbal 1
F#2 = Cymbal 1 choke
G2 = Cymbal 2
G#2 = Cymbal 2 Choke
D#2 = Ride (Cymbal 3)
A#2=Ride choke (cymbal 3 choke)

Let me know if this is helpful to any of you!

[Jules]

There is a Rap & Hip Hop one month special forum here

http://gearslutz.com/board/forumdisplay.php3?f=54

Peace!

[jstunner]

There is a Rap & Hip Hop one month special forum here

http://gearslutz.com/board/forumdisplay.php3?f=54

Peace!

Not sure where I see midi drum tips , but thanks for the bump.

[garret]

Hey,
Two cents. Haven't seen this mentioned. Ye were talking about avoiding the machine gun effect by adjusting the velocity of the hits. Another great way is to pitch down (to taste) every second hit on say a snare roll. ie 1st-unpitched, 2nd-pitched, 3rd-unpitched, 4-pitched etc. This works really well and makes a very realistic roll and you don't have to adjust the velocity too much either. Cheers

[asiabackpacker]

I have had great luck using this technique to create beats, however fills are a little different. I find it really difficult to create realistic fills by drawing and dragging MIDI notes around. Does anyone have any suggestions here?

I was thinking about buying a cheap drum machine with MIDI outs to use for triggers, so I can actually play the fills. Is there a specific machine anyone can recommend?...without spending much?

Thanks!