Programming drums like Chimp Spanner-style.

[oldhairyone]

Hey there.

I've been in a guitar slump for the past few months and it's annoying me. I've also been listening to a lot of Chimp Spanner and Periphery and Animals As Leaders. I've decided that if I was able to learn how to play and record like that I'd once again be enthused. The guitar bits I know how to learn - I'll just listen and play, listen and play - but I want to be able to program the drums so that I have something to show and gauge my progress as I learn. I have Cubase 5 and Superior Drummer 2.

So my question is: do you guys know of any tutorials out there for drum programming? Or have any tips? I've worked out - hopefully correctly - that the style of drums I am looking to create (Chimp Spanner, Periphery etc.) are straight 4/4 with the arms and 7/8 etc. with the legs. Is that right?

Anyway, thanks in advance!

 

[Winspear]

With regards to the time signature, that's purely subjective to the riff.
Plenty of the riffs those bands use are just 4/4 with less obvious accented rhythms.
Do you use guitar pro tabs at all? It's easier to understand when you can see what's going on.

But the basic structure for drums in this style is 4/4 cymbals at whatever speed you desire, 4/4 snare at whatever speed you desire, and kick drum following the chugs of the riff in whatever rhythm it may be. Sometimes a polyrhythm. Basically what you already said. Add some more for interest though!

With regards to tutorials, there's plenty of threads around here covering the basics and more advanced elements of drum programming.
I'm guessing you know how to use Superior Drummer already and just need help writing the MIDI.
Take a look at some guitar pro tabs and see how the drums go, then try writing your own. Once you get a basic beat down, give the thread in my signature a read. It is a guide for 'realising' the beat once you have the basics down. Good luck

 

[Daggorath]

Well, Paul plays his drums in real-time on a keyboard, so good luck. The best thing you can do is to listen to a beat on a song and try and recreate it on a midi score. This way you'll learn about the composition of their poly-rhythms, stylistic features and whatnot.

 

[oldhairyone]

Well, Paul plays his drums in real-time on a keyboard, so good luck. The best thing you can do is to listen to a beat on a song and try and recreate it on a midi score. This way you'll learn about the composition of their poly-rhythms, stylistic features and whatnot.

:O

Did not know that.

And thanks EtherealEntity. I do use Guitar Pro. I shall have a better search of the forums for guides and such.

 

[Prydogga]

Yeah what EtherealEntity said, and it's mostly coincidence if the guitars end up being a clear time signature difference, they're just heavily syncopated at times, but mostly will follow the 4/4 cymbals.

Try and mix it up, I find having the kick follow the guitars for too long without at least a fill or variation gets very boring.

 

[DaveCarter]

As above, Paul inputs his drum parts with a MIDI keyboard controllers, there's videos of him doing this on youtube if you search. I have tabs and click track files of his tracks and there's not actually much in the way of polymetric stuff i.e. 4/4 over 7/4. Most of his material is regular sections of one signature e.g. 8 bars of 7/4 or 8 bars of 4/4, with the odd occasional bars of 9/8, 5/4 etc.

Periphery/Meshuggah do use a few more polymetric sections, the outros to Letter Experiment and New Millenium Cyanide Christ spring to mind. That sort of writing is indeed a riff in something like 7/4 on the feet, with a straight 4-count on the hands; the usual 'formula' you'll find is that the kick drums follow the rhythm of the guitar riff, whilst the ride plays on every beat ('1', '2', '3', '4') and the snare on every '3'. Different bands will vary this in different ways though, so you can experiment with different snare placements, extra cymbal work, and varying the kick pattern around the riff. There's no set way to do it, but hopefully that gives you some tips

 

[nojyeloot]

 

[DLG]

^ cot damn

 

[oldhairyone]

As above, Paul inputs his drum parts with a MIDI keyboard controllers, there's videos of him doing this on youtube if you search. I have tabs and click track files of his tracks and there's not actually much in the way of polymetric stuff i.e. 4/4 over 7/4. Most of his material is regular sections of one signature e.g. 8 bars of 7/4 or 8 bars of 4/4, with the odd occasional bars of 9/8, 5/4 etc.

Periphery/Meshuggah do use a few more polymetric sections, the outros to Letter Experiment and New Millenium Cyanide Christ spring to mind. That sort of writing is indeed a riff in something like 7/4 on the feet, with a straight 4-count on the hands; the usual 'formula' you'll find is that the kick drums follow the rhythm of the guitar riff, whilst the ride plays on every beat ('1', '2', '3', '4') and the snare on every '3'. Different bands will vary this in different ways though, so you can experiment with different snare placements, extra cymbal work, and varying the kick pattern around the riff. There's no set way to do it, but hopefully that gives you some tips

Thanks a lot man.

And that video is insane.

 

[meisterjager]

I love people being experts on the chimp! Good for him! Paul does real time drums on our Blessed Inertia stuff too - link in my sig.

 

[kmanick]

that is freaking cool.
I need to learn how to program drums

 

[Winspear]

I need to learn how to program drums

What do you need to know?

 

[kmanick]

ah...................how to do it?
I don't know what interface to get (keyboard like the vid ,what are my other options?)
how to go about the whole thing?
I've been writing tons fo stuff lately and haven't recorded shit because
the only recording I've ever done that wan't over a backing track was in a real studio with a real drummer and bass player.

I have no idea how to approach recording a song from scratch when I have to do all the parts myself.
I'ts really quite a sad thing

 

[Winspear]

I don't know what interface to get (keyboard like the vid ,what are my other options?)

You will need some kind of drum synth, like Superior Drummer. This receives MIDI information to play the drum sounds.
Do you write music in Guitar Pro at all? Have you used the drums? If so, you will know there are seperate MIDI notes for each drum (36, aka C2, being kick, for example).
When you use a drum sampler like Superior Drummer as an instrument inside your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, Cubase, Protools, Logic - I presume you know about this as you have been in studio), it responds to MIDI input. The kick drum will play upon receiving note 36 from ANYWHERE.

This means that there are many ways to program your drums;
-Play the notes on a MIDI keyboard. The cheapest (£50) kind will do - you just need some keys and a MIDI to USB cable.
-Write in Guitar Pro, export the MIDI, import into your DAW.
-Write in your DAW with the mouse in the MIDI editor, effectively making the Guitar Pro drum track inside your DAW.

I have no idea how to approach recording a song from scratch when I have to do all the parts myself.

That will depend highly on the music you are making. With metal, you can tab it all out if you like, make a MIDI drum track set to the grid with a metronome and record guitars etc - a very 'solid' and set way of working.
With something like ambient music you would probably not want to use a grid or metronome and would want to play in free time on a keyboard with lots of expression.
Just some examples.

 

[K-Roll]

the main problem with us guitarists is, that usually when we sit down to write some of our drum patterns to our riffs, we end up creating something that sounds quite OK but its not playable or does not make sense to a drummer heh.. so, first of all, I'd study a hell lot of drum patterns to make sure the tpiece I am working on really makes sense not just by ear but from a drummer's perspective, too. (come combinations of hits are not rational)
other than that- I have no idea how to make the drum samples sound good but I suppose it's all about sitting down, studying on your own on what works which way and what does not and to create your own footprint, so that each time you work on your drums in your songs, they sound soundwise familiar and not as if it were made by 4 different people (which is the hardest nut to crack in order to be recognized..
to me, the whole recording aspect is just like a next instrument to learn, so you have to cover all the basics in order to create masterpieces..

 

[XxXPete]

Well this might be an option..I dunno how good the software is? Maybe somebody on the forum has it or tried it? Rayzoon - Virtual Drum Software

 

[Samarus]

I think Superior sounds great when you put the right plugins on it-that's what I used!

 

[diatron5]

Guitar pro
+
Superior drummer
+
fl studio

download guitar pro files of songs with drum parts you like and study what they are doing. pay extra attention to the songs you are listening to. Input in guitar pro. when midi sounds good worry about exporting to superior.

 

[manana]

I use the piano roll to program drums but its hard to visualize what it will sound like. I just bought a korg padkontroler so this will be interesting to program drums and bass with.

 

[mre5150]

I use the piano roll to program drums but its hard to visualize what it will sound like. I just bought a korg padkontroler so this will be interesting to program drums and bass with.

I was thinking about doing this too... how is it so far??