How To Do a Drum Roll in MIDI?

[MissHiss]

I'm not a MIDI whiz but I find myself doing more and more with it, especially with drums. The one thing I'm having a hard time doing is figuring out how to do a roll, especially on snare. Do you just have to pencil in a buch of really short hits or what? Is there an easier way to do it?

[pmklein]

I would search online and just find a midi file to download. There are some great sites that you can buy midi loops and fills already assembled.

[drenkrom]

Just do a rough pass while recording the input of your MIDI controller, rolling between two adjacent keys. Then go back a tighten it up if necessary in edit mode.

Alternatively, import some audio with a drumroll you like, place markers on the hits and pencil in your note to the markers.

[PTUser NYC]

Triggering a series of snare hits is never going to sound like a drum roll, or a drag either.

You need to find some drum roll audio files, and use those. That's the only way to do it convincingly.

[MissHiss]

Thanks for the responses. PTUser NYC, what you're saying is logical, but my concern is making the roll match the snare samples I'm using. Is there a trick to this? Or have you found that a generic drum roll audio file will work with a wide variety of snare sounds?

[PTUser NYC]

It seems that psychologically, a listener just puts the two of them together unless they are really different. Use EQ, and similar ambience treatment to match them, and its OK to change the pitch of the roll to match your snare too. That'll probably get you where yo need to be.

[Vaporhead]

EZ Drummer has tons of drum roll midi files that are pretty damn real sounding. The key is that no two snare sample hits ever repeat in a row and that the dynamics vary enough. With the right drum program, like EZ for example, creating a realistic sounding fill shouldn't be a problem.