Programming questions..

[Deathbykidd]

So I just recently got myself a midi keyboard due to being tired of trying to write drums in guitar pro and finding out that i really suck at tabbing it to sound how i want.

So my question is, whats the best and simplest way to go about programming off my midi controller? Its both a drum machine with the pads and a keyboard that are velocity sensative. Would it be best to just play all the cymbals in one track, then move to snare and toms, then kick? All having spereate tracks to mix in? But build it by layers rather than trying to drum it out on the pads? Would it still be reconmended to adjust the velocity of each hit to humanize it more? Or would that step become completely irrelevant in my case?

How do you guys personally go about actually programming and punching the notes into your DAW?

Any other tips would be greatly helpful!

 

[The Reverend]

I think the method you are proposing would be incredibly time consuming. Is there a way to route the MIDI signal from each kit piece? Maybe you should look into that, because you're right, modern mixing practices really necessitate having different tracks for different elements of the kit.

I personally just do drums in GP5. I find it easier and quicker than piano rolls or that godawful shit on GP6. What exactly is throwing you off with your programming? Is it rolls, or working with the rhythm?

 

[tedtan]

This is one of those things where everyone who responds will probably have their own unique way of doing things that works for them, so expect to experiment with different approaches to see what works best for you.

Most people who play in the drums on a keyboard or other controller (short of e-drums) will probably start with the snare and kick in the first pass. After that, I will do the hat, ride and cymbal crashes in the second pass, and then go back for tom fills and miscellaneous percussion. Good keyboard players (not me) can do more in one pass.

Should you play the part in on the keys or the pads? Whichever works for you. Experiment, Grasshopper. Experiment.

Do you need to adjust the velocity afterwards? That depends on your keyboard, as some track velocity better than others (more sensitivity). You'll have to experiment to find what works best for you.

As for other tips, I will just reinforce that velocity variation in a natural pattern is key. Real drummers play with more dynamics than most people program into their programmed drum tracks, and there is a method to their madness - its not just random velocity variations. Certain beats are intentionally accented; which ones depends on the time signature, groove, etc. When you learn these types of things, your programmed tracks will sound more natural. And there are plenty of vids on YouTube to start learning from, so there are no excuses these days.

 

[Deathbykidd]

I think the method you are proposing would be incredibly time consuming. Is there a way to route the MIDI signal from each kit piece? Maybe you should look into that, because you're right, modern mixing practices really necessitate having different tracks for different elements of the kit.

I personally just do drums in GP5. I find it easier and quicker than piano rolls or that godawful shit on GP6. What exactly is throwing you off with your programming? Is it rolls, or working with the rhythm?

What I feel throws me is I think of things in my head, but for the life of me, can't seem to get it to sound how it was in my head when I tab it. And I really struggle figuring out what note duration my notes should have to make it work.
As far as routing the midi signal, the only thing I could think of is just making a new track and making sure that only the part of the drums that I want in that track is there.

This is one of those things where everyone who responds will probably have their own unique way of doing things that works for them, so expect to experiment with different approaches to see what works best for you.

Most people who play in the drums on a keyboard or other controller (short of e-drums) will probably start with the snare and kick in the first pass. After that, I will do the hat, ride and cymbal crashes in the second pass, and then go back for tom fills and miscellaneous percussion. Good keyboard players (not me) can do more in one pass.

Should you play the part in on the keys or the pads? Whichever works for you. Experiment, Grasshopper. Experiment.

Do you need to adjust the velocity afterwards? That depends on your keyboard, as some track velocity better than others (more sensitivity). You'll have to experiment to find what works best for you.

As for other tips, I will just reinforce that velocity variation in a natural pattern is key. Real drummers play with more dynamics than most people program into their programmed drum tracks, and there is a method to their madness - its not just random velocity variations. Certain beats are intentionally accented; which ones depends on the time signature, groove, etc. When you learn these types of things, your programmed tracks will sound more natural. And there are plenty of vids on YouTube to start learning from, so there are no excuses these days.

As far as velocity, I may just go back through it and double check them all after I track it then. the pads seem to catch it a little better to me, I guess it all comes down to practice as far as the velocities go. I'll look up more about accenting and what it does to the feel of the music and when to use them.

 

[DavePiatek]

Are you a drummer? If not, getting even a tiny bit of real drumming experience can vastly improve your programming. Whenever I program drums, I always have to air drum it first to figure out how to program what I want to hear.

 

[xCaptainx]

I purchased the toontrack midi groove packs, I often go to them for inspiration and tweak them based on what I want e.g if I find a drum fill I like, but it's too long.

I find them really handy for 'standard' beats that I often fall back on, like specific skank beats or blastbeats. Most of the time I'll use the same pattern, and then select 3 or 4 end bar fills, depending on the length.

Using them is as simple as dragging and dropping out of SP window into your DAW midi track. I'm horrible at tweaking velocities myself so this has been a godsend.

 

[Mikeyprs]

I'm a Guitar pro guy when it comes to songwriting as a whole, once the idea is completed I'll make a "band demo" with that as a guide for the rest of the band to hear.

I do also have some knowledge of how the instrument works (drums of course) from my own attempts at holding down a beat as well as watching countless drummers at every show (local & international) and watch what they do. It's also kinda handy that the drummer of the band i play for also uses guitar pro too so sometimes he'll edit to his style using my inital idea as a guideline for the track.

Back to the op's initial question(s) I don't see how building it up in layer's would be an issue because then you can of course concentrate on that area of the kit per take or even song section. and then once you've done all your editing etc I'm almost sure there would be some way you could 'Merge' all the midi tracks into one single file as you've programmed it and then too your drum plug-in of choice to read from that track in your daw perhaps?

I mean, to the vast extent if you're planning to manually enter in the midi notes via keyboard then there's no need to further ensure it's humanised because you've already done just that, let's not forget that working to a click helps too!

HTH dude =)

 

[Deathbykidd]

Are you a drummer? If not, getting even a tiny bit of real drumming experience can vastly improve your programming. Whenever I program drums, I always have to air drum it first to figure out how to program what I want to hear.

I am in no way a drummer, my dad is and we have an electronic kit, but i can't hold anything more than a very simple beat. So if I do get an idea, I at least see what it would look like on that, granted, it wouldn't sound close, but to see if it makes sense and is what the gist of it would sound like.

I purchased the toontrack midi groove packs, I often go to them for inspiration and tweak them based on what I want e.g if I find a drum fill I like, but it's too long.

I find them really handy for 'standard' beats that I often fall back on, like specific skank beats or blastbeats. Most of the time I'll use the same pattern, and then select 3 or 4 end bar fills, depending on the length.

Using them is as simple as dragging and dropping out of SP window into your DAW midi track. I'm horrible at tweaking velocities myself so this has been a godsend.

Once I get a hold of the Metal Machine pack, I will more than likely do this with the blasts like you said, I could imagine those being a pain to program single piece at a time. But I will probably use a healthy mix of pre programed and my own stuff. Or modified variants of the preprogrammed.

I'm a Guitar pro guy when it comes to songwriting as a whole, once the idea is completed I'll make a "band demo" with that as a guide for the rest of the band to hear.

I do also have some knowledge of how the instrument works (drums of course) from my own attempts at holding down a beat as well as watching countless drummers at every show (local & international) and watch what they do. It's also kinda handy that the drummer of the band i play for also uses guitar pro too so sometimes he'll edit to his style using my inital idea as a guideline for the track.

Back to the op's initial question(s) I don't see how building it up in layer's would be an issue because then you can of course concentrate on that area of the kit per take or even song section. and then once you've done all your editing etc I'm almost sure there would be some way you could 'Merge' all the midi tracks into one single file as you've programmed it and then too your drum plug-in of choice to read from that track in your daw perhaps?

I mean, to the vast extent if you're planning to manually enter in the midi notes via keyboard then there's no need to further ensure it's humanised because you've already done just that, let's not forget that working to a click helps too!

HTH dude =)

I don't know about merging it after, due to wanting to eq and compress each part of the kit properly. As I stated earlier, I can't hold anything other than a basic beat down, but I do watch lots of drum covers and play throughs and agree that it helps you understand and give a feel for how it works.

Humanizing it,however, the only thing that I noticed would maybe touching the velocities up after? Like for ghost notes and the such.

So I guess then it seems that mixing my idea, using some preprogrammed/modified preprogrammed, and just watching lots of drum covers would be a solid base to work my drum tracks out.

Any other general tips that will help me out in making my drum tracks better?

 

[The Reverend]

Humanizing it,however, the only thing that I noticed would maybe touching the velocities up after? Like for ghost notes and the such.

So I guess then it seems that mixing my idea, using some preprogrammed/modified preprogrammed, and just watching lots of drum covers would be a solid base to work my drum tracks out.

Any other general tips that will help me out in making my drum tracks better?

Humanizing and quantizing are in my opinion as much of an art as mixing and mastering. You have to put yourself deeper inside a drummer's head than they do! You'll want the rolls to start off with a higher velocity than the rest of the hits. Perhaps a teensy tiny delay between switching cymbals while there's a blast going on. You really need to think about all the nuances of playing, such as triplets on a double kick. I would manually adjust the velocity to make the first hit the hardest, simulating the drummer's right foot hitting the pedal with some oomph, the second hit with the left foot a bit lower, and the third hit with the right foot in the middle of the first and second in terms of velocity.

If you don't want your drums to sound programmed, you have to be a drummer in spirit. Even doing them yourself will sound fake, as fingers on a keyboard don't have the same changes in velocity and time as drumming a full part would.

 

[Winspear]

Humanizing and quantizing are in my opinion as much of an art as mixing and mastering. You have to put yourself deeper inside a drummer's head than they do! You'll want the rolls to start off with a higher velocity than the rest of the hits. Perhaps a teensy tiny delay between switching cymbals while there's a blast going on. You really need to think about all the nuances of playing, such as triplets on a double kick. I would manually adjust the velocity to make the first hit the hardest, simulating the drummer's right foot hitting the pedal with some oomph, the second hit with the left foot a bit lower, and the third hit with the right foot in the middle of the first and second in terms of velocity.

If you don't want your drums to sound programmed, you have to be a drummer in spirit. Even doing them yourself will sound fake, as fingers on a keyboard don't have the same changes in velocity and time as drumming a full part would.

Check out my thread
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/drums-percussion/104336-bring-your-programmed-drums-life.html
I probably spend a good hour of humanizing per 30-60 seconds of 'completed' drums that I import to my DAW from Guitar Pro.

 

[The Reverend]

Check out my thread
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/drums-percussion/104336-bring-your-programmed-drums-life.html
I probably spend a good hour of humanizing per 30-60 seconds of 'completed' drums that I import to my DAW from Guitar Pro.

Or you could ignore my advice and read EE's excellent thread.