how can i create good rock drums on my 001?

[frankiejaxx]

so i'm a guitar player with the digi 001 and i mostly write rock instrumental music. my biggest frustration is drums. i normally write to drum loop cd's but it's getting harder and harder to write good stuff when limited to a certain drum beat. what is out there for me to create my own rock drum loops, fills, breaks, variations, etc. that sound like real rock drums. basically i'd like to be able to write a riff with a click track, and then put in the drums later. or just be able to build grooves from scratch with a certain drum beat in mind. what are my options? i do not have a sampler but i do have a midi keyboard. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. also, could someone tell me of any killer drum loop cd's that have a lot of cool rock stuff on them? [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[GORILLA]

Here ya go, Boy are you gonna like this! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[jdavis74]

I do the same thing, and I use the NI Studio Collections RTAS Battery sampler. You can load the Drums from Hell samples into it (by setting battery as an insert on an aux track, and then using a midi track to trigger the samples), or any other sample for that matter.

Its a pretty easy process, and you'll see that you can get some impressively realistic drum sounds this way.

Hope this helps, it does for me.

[supro]

Originally posted by frankiejaxx:
what is out there for me to create my own rock drum loops, fills, breaks, variations, etc. that sound like real rock drums?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">A drummer?
[img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[pk_hat]

Originally posted by jdavis74:
I do the same thing, and I use the NI Studio Collections RTAS Battery sampler. You can load the Drums from Hell samples into it (by setting battery as an insert on an aux track, and then using a midi track to trigger the samples), or any other sample for that matter.

Its a pretty easy process, and you'll see that you can get some impressively realistic drum sounds this way.

Hope this helps, it does for me.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes, but do realise that you are one of the very few who has the $800 NI Studio Collection with an RTAS version of Battery. A great method none the less, I would kill to have Battery as an RTAS, but sadly, it's still a foggy option for many.

Alternately, there's Reason. Use your SoundManager or Core Audio outputs and route those to a pair of analog inputs on the 001. You can load any sample you want in the Redrum, NN-19 or NN-XT sampler.

Furthermore, Rewire 2 for ProTools should be included in the next PT update, enabling you to run both apps simultaneously. Looking forward to that.

Lastly, you can use the grid mode in PT as a giant drum machine, which is what I often do, depending on the drum style I need. Get your self the DKFH cd, or any decent samples, and load the hits on their own tracks (ie: kicks on one mono, hats, etc., couple of snares, etc.). Loop one or two measures, set your grid to 1/4 or 1/8th notes, and start placing your hits around until you get a groove going, going to 16ths if you have to for hi-hats and whatever else. Then, duplicate that measure (consisting of many tracks) a few times. When you want to add a change, a drop, a flam, fill or roll, isolate the region that needs it and move your slices around.

Pitch shift a few snares differently (a few cents often works wonders) for variation, etc. When it seems like all is in place, eq, pan and compress when and where needed, then create a stereo submix of all the drums, hence freeing up all these individual mono tracks for other stuff.

[rjhubb]

pk_hat

I am a relativly new user of PT, with some experience and on a tight budget. I was considering buying Battery untill i read the last method on your post. If you could post a more detailed method of this (i.e. how to and such, maybe a step by step) I would be much grateful. i have an Oxygen 8 as my midi conttroller. Also, what synth would you reccomend for PT?

[GORILLA]

Good one Supro!!! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] So true for live situations, but in a studio enviorment with Battery and DFH we aint gotta put up with....I'm tired or I can't play that to a click it's too fast or what do ya mean I'm playing it wrong, I'm the drumma. No arguments, no... I can't make it tonight, and Battery doesn't drink all da BEER!!
Hey I almost got that Oxygen, but I seen that DFH maps out to a 49-key midi controller perfect. So I went for that. Pitch shifting sounds interesting, DFH has so many samples I never really tried pitch shifting (8-12 right hand and 8-12 left hand snare samples...I think).
Good luck to anyone getting DFH without Battery or any of the samplers it works with....over 1100 samples to deal with.
Look what cha started Frankie!!! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[dBHEAD]

Have you considered going the MIDI route? I do something quite similar to what you describe and I ultimately found that writing MIDI for a drum machine or sampler was the best way to go.

It's very easy to write a loop, use the grid to isolate it, then type in 50 or 100 or however many repeats you want of that loop. Then you can go through and delete notes and do custom fills at certain points, etc. You can get everything EXACTLY the way you hear it in your head.

The beauty is that you can change the kit by simply loading another sample bank. I have tons of drum kits for my e-Mu sampler and I can hear the same drum track played by numerous different kits. This allows me to change the kit even after I've recorded the other audio tracks. That way, if I don't like how a certain kit is sitting in the mix, I can simply call up another kit.

[pk_hat]

Originally posted by rjhubb:
pk_hat

I am a relativly new user of PT, with some experience and on a tight budget. I was considering buying Battery untill i read the last method on your post. If you could post a more detailed method of this (i.e. how to and such, maybe a step by step) I would be much grateful. i have an Oxygen 8 as my midi conttroller. Also, what synth would you reccomend for PT?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Above suggestions are great but again, they apply in a sampler or soft-sampler situation, Battery RTAS is lovely but out of reach for many. However, do know that all of the Native Instruments stuff will RTAS compatible within a few months, including Kontakt, Battery, Reaktor, Absynth, etc., which is great news. Check out www.motu.com and look at the Mach 5, sort of a Kontakt equivalent, seemingly more powerful. That should be available any day now.

As for that method, it's quite simple. Use the 'import audio' menu form the regions list and browse through your samples from there (needless to say, the better organized they are on your hd, the easier this process becomes), select all you need by clicking 'add' and placing them in the bin (2 kicks, 3 snares, 2 hats, 1 ride, whatever), then click 'done'.
The samples will then be placed in your regions list (and the corresponding audio folder for that session), highlighted in bold. Create a few mono drum tracks and simply drag the slices from the regions list directly onto the track. They will be small, being drum hits, but zoom in and check to make sure the tail of a kick or hat doesn't overlap onto the next slice once you set your grid.

The cool thing about working with samplers for this is that you can create nuances in your pattern, like velocity, pitch, etc, which can also be done with this audio samples method, but it's just more work (ie: finding 3 similar snares that have different velcocity), although highly recommended if you don't want your drum track to sound too mechanical and static.

Oxy8 is fine and will come in handy when that RTAS sampler eventually does show up. If you're nedding advice for a synth, then I'd say keep the O8 and buy a Roland XV-5050 module fitted with the DRUMS SRX expansion card. For rock and jazz drums, I have yet to hear anything better coming from a ROM machine, although personally, I prefer just using a sampler now, you never outgrow that.

Good luck.

Hope that helps, until a soft-sampler reaches the masses for PT LE.

[frankiejaxx]

you guys are awesome!! thanks gor all the great advice! i've been thinking about getting NI Battery, maybe i'll finally suck it up. Rock-on!!!